Radeon RX 480 "Polaris" Launched at $199

Greebo · 20 Jun 2016 at 19:25

Gibbo said:
Nope but I think anyone expecting it to rival 1070 / 980Ti / Titan X is smoking the crack pipe as we put it, of course a pair of them then its a different story.

My ancient 290x already match a 980ti now. And they only cost £220 each.

Why the hell would I want two 480s for the same performance?

If the 480 doesnt overclock well and massivelky beat a 290x I am giving up on AMD.

h4rm0ny · 20 Jun 2016 at 19:26

melmac said:
Were people genuinely expecting the 480 to match 980ti?? I thought it was just a bit of forum banter, I didn't think anyone really believed this would happen. Apparently I was wrong! Some people were expecting it to have that level of performance.

Many of us kept saying "no, that's not going to happen" but some people didn't listen. And now they're really disappointed. But it was said again and again and a little logic would have told them it was the case.

Sacrifice · 20 Jun 2016 at 19:27

humbug said:
If AMD launch these cards, at these prices I can see whatever respect and hope AMD have left in the world vanish over night, and for good.

It would be the straw that broke the camels back, frankly.

No.

Sorry... what? There's no way you didn't think it was going to be around 390x and were saying that was good for the reference price at the time of the reveal and were this negative. The appeal in this card was always going to be the low price and power, nothing more, nothing less. Unfortunately any sort of low price in US always gets skewed for the UK.

The problem is, relatively speaking there isn't much between 290/x/970/80 at all, or even going to the 980ti/titan x from those cards.

EDIT: When a 'mid range' card is released (i.e 380x equivalent for a generation), who with the top end from the last generation expects it to be way ahead to be a worthy upgrade? Why is this standard being applied here?

Ian Evey · 20 Jun 2016 at 19:29

h4rm0ny said:
People who don't want to spend over £700 to play with VR?

Yep, but thats a mighty small market.

RavenXXX2 · 20 Jun 2016 at 19:29

melmac said:
Were people genuinely expecting the 480 to match 980ti?? I thought it was just a bit of forum banter, I didn't think anyone really believed this would happen. Apparently I was wrong! Some people were expecting it to have that level of performance.

The best info we have is from the AMD demo against the 1080. That places the performance somewhere around 980 levels. It would take a massive overclock to reach 980ti/1070 levels of performance.

If the 480 cards do offer 980 performance levels and are decent overclockers at a sub £250 price, then, they will be very good cards. Certainly they will be tempting to people on older cards like the R9 290's. Well, I will definitely be considering the switch.

On the other hand if they only come in at 970 performance levels, that will be a little disappointing.

Well Nvidia done it with the mid range 1070, I guess expecting AMD to bring something good for once was wishful thinking. Nvidia are at another level.

Gregster · 20 Jun 2016 at 19:30

Sacrifice said:
Sorry... what? There's no way you didn't think it was going to be around 390x and were saying that was good for the reference price at the time of the reveal and were this negative. The appeal in this card was always going to be the low price, nothing more, nothing less. Unfortunately any sort of low price in US always gets skewed for the UK.

The problem is, relatively speaking there isn't much between 290/x/970/80 at all, or even going to the 980ti/titan x from those cards.

Spot on except the last bit. Going from a 290X etc to a 980Ti and Titan X is a huge jump in performance. Lots more settings can be used over the other cards for playable frames.

TheRealDeal · 20 Jun 2016 at 19:30

RavenXXX2 said:
Well Nvidia done it with the mid range 1070, I guess expecting AMD to bring something good for once was wishful thinking. Nvidia are at another level of pricing.

Fixed

SiDeards73 · 20 Jun 2016 at 19:31

And in one fell swoop the Grim Gibbo Reaper killed the AMD Hype Train.. and on that day many RX480 potential sales were laid waste....

Lol Gibbo just probably lost a few decent sales with that revelation

Silent_Scone · 20 Jun 2016 at 19:31

Greebo said:
My ancient 290x already match a 980ti now. And they only cost £220 each.

Why the hell would I want two 480s for the same performance?

If the 480 doesnt overclock well and massivelky beat a 290x I am giving up on AMD.

LOL, how did you come to that conclusion? I would love to see some data behind that claim. Spectacular!

Kaapstad · 20 Jun 2016 at 19:31

Greebo said:
My ancient 290x already match a 980ti now. And they only cost £220 each.

Why the hell would I want two 480s for the same performance?

If the 480 doesnt overclock well and massivelky beat a 290x I am giving up on AMD.

The same performance as a 290X is very respectable.

This is a mid range card and as such ticks all the right boxes.

You can buy a single GTX 1080 FE or 3 RX 480s and still have some change, I think that is a non contest.

spikerules · 20 Jun 2016 at 19:31

Greebo said:
My ancient 290x already match a 980ti now. And they only cost £220 each.

Why the hell would I want two 480s for the same performance?

If the 480 doesnt overclock well and massivelky beat a 290x I am giving up on AMD.

And whose asking you to? These aren't cards in your end of the market...

.Trooper. · 20 Jun 2016 at 19:32

Lol gibbo look what you've done

gerardfraser · 20 Jun 2016 at 19:32

LOL I am still buying RX480 card and where I live they still will be 200 Canadian dollars less than a R9 390x.No complaints here.Bring on the cards already.

SouthEastBlue · 20 Jun 2016 at 19:33

I feel a bit like the rugs been pulled from under me now, was expecting 980/390x performance from stock speeds, and pushing up to 980Ti speeds when overclocked.

Now I may have to hope the bonus I get at the end of the week allows me to go a step further and get a 1070 if needs be... When I didn't really want to.

Doh!

Greebo · 20 Jun 2016 at 19:33

melmac said:
Were people genuinely expecting the 480 to match 980ti?? I thought it was just a bit of forum banter, I didn't think anyone really believed this would happen. Apparently I was wrong! Some people were expecting it to have that level of performance.

The best info we have is from the AMD demo against the 1080. That places the performance somewhere around 980 levels. It would take a massive overclock to reach 980ti/1070 levels of performance.

If the 480 cards do offer 980 performance levels and are decent overclockers at a sub £250 price, then, they will be very good cards. Certainly they will be tempting to people on older cards like the R9 290's. Well, I will definitely be considering the switch.

On the other hand if they only come in at 970 performance levels, that will be a little disappointing.

Yeah except with 20% to 40% overlcoks if it matches a 980 at stock, then it will be matching a 1070/980ti when overclocked.

Gibbo has just burst that balloon.

Either they dont overclock very well at all or they are only 970 performance at standard in the first places.

Either way they are just a door stop as you may as well buy a 980 which does overclock very well.

RavenXXX2 · 20 Jun 2016 at 19:35

TheRealDeal said:
Fixed

Was is to much to expect AMD to being 1070 or close performance on 16nm, they are just regurgitating last gens performance slightly cheaper, they are going nowhere fast.

Please don't anyone think of hyping Vega, I can tell you now prepare to be disappointed and buy an Nvidia GPU instead.

Greebo · 20 Jun 2016 at 19:35

Silent_Scone said:
LOL, how did you come to that conclusion? I would love to see some data behind that claim. Spectacular!

What that two 290x in xfire dont match a 980ti at stock? Just how slow do you think a 290x is??????

Lets assume an average xfire scaling of 70% (its up to 100% in some games)

You honestly saying a stock 980ti is 70% faster than a 290x? A 290x is almost a 390x and trade blows with a 980. SO are you really saying two 980s in sli dont beat a 980ti? DO I really need to google search the answer??

Kaapstad · 20 Jun 2016 at 19:36

Greebo said:
Yeah except with 20% to 40% overlcoks if it matches a 980 at stock, then it will be matching a 1070/980ti when overclocked.

Gibbo has just burst that balloon.

Either they dont overclock very well at all or they are only 970 performance at standard in the first places.

Either way they are just a door stop as you may as well buy a 980 which does overclock very well.

For DX12 I would have a good look at the RX 480 first.

Gregster · 20 Jun 2016 at 19:36

Greebo said:
My ancient 290x already match a 980ti now. And they only cost £220 each.

Really? I had a 290X and the 980Ti was much faster. Got any proof of this?

h4rm0ny · 20 Jun 2016 at 19:36

Ian Evey said:
Yep, but thats a mighty small market.

I'd wager the number of people who want to spend less than £700 on a VR system is a lot larger than the number of people who want to spend more than £700 on VR.

VR has high minimum frame rates necessary for a good experience. Once you've reached those, you're in a good place. It's not like some people will be buying the 4K Rift and others the 1440p or 1080 Rift. VR is a very different market to people who play on monitors. If you can make the requirements for it with a 480, then you're not going to gain much of anything from a few hundred more.

Enough with the anguished tearing of clothes and wailing! The card is what everybody with any sense said it would be - an excellent mid-range card. This is getting to the point of absurdity by some posters.