Radeon RX 480 "Polaris" Launched at $199

[Gregster]

No thats exactly where we thought the 480 would be. The hype comes from leaks showing the 480 AIB cards overclock to 1.5Ghz (20%) and "might" even overclock to 1.8Ghz (40%) just like the 980ti does.

The 390x overclocks mildly - 10% from memory.

So if the 480 matches or slightly beats a 390x at stock, overclocked it could be up to 30% faster. Now that would be an amazing card for the money.

Come on Greebo, you have been around these forums long enough to know that you don't take any leaks as fact and always use a bit of salt when you see them. There has been several leaks that put it where I said it was and then some silly ones but I still use the salt for all of them. Only when reviewers get the cards do I start paying attention and taking them as facts. I did the same with the 1080 and I will do the same for every new card. I love all the speculation and possibles but always remain level headed.

 

[Gregster]

^^^ THIS.

It actually looks like 390X performance is the most likely scenario for the 480. Going by the 1266MHz clock speed, the 480 comes in at 5.8TFLOPs of raw processing power, which is a negligible difference to the 390X. The only thing the 390X has over the 480 is raw memory bandwidth, but even there it is likely we'll see the 480 match (pull ahead?) of the 390X in overall memory subsystem efficiency. This will be mainly thanks to memory compression (which the 390X does not have). Other factors like a bigger cache, or the primitive discard accelerator (which seems to stop the card from rendering invisible stuff, indirectly causing a decrease in memory I/O) will help the 480 there as well.

So I wouldn't be at all surprised if the stock 480 will basically match and/or beat the 390X in actual games, in fact I expect it to. How much it pulls ahead will come down to how much of an improvement GCN 4 is.

In any case, at this price/performance the stock 480 is a very good card. 390X users won't have much reason to upgrade, but everyone below that point will get a sweet deal. Even 970 users worried about future-proofing (RAM, DX12)...

That's the reference 480 in a nutshell.

The overclocking is the unknown and don't forget that the 390/X use a 512 bit bus and does use memory compression whilst the 480 uses 256bit and I will put my head on the chopping block and say if it was a big overclocker, AMD would have pushed the base clocks much higher and charged more for it.

 

[kalniel]

Genuine question here, what did you guys realistically expect from a $199.99 graphics card?

Performance between a 970 and 980.

 

[Tute]

I've read that some cards come with a BIOS switch to put the 480 automatically at 1500MHz. Be interesting to see where that performs if so.

I don't really want to get a 1070 as i'm starting to look at monitor upgrades and I don't want to pay £200 extra for the same screen with GSync.

 

[Jono8]

holy **** the last 4 sites of this thread were so aids it gave me cancer the nvidia hate gays arrived and bashed everything again

it was so nice to read before but thats just too much ********...

also very nice how it was like 1 year ago when the 970 came out wow soooo power efficient i like that hype hype but if amd does it

no one cares and its **** x)

double standards i guess

The 970 came out ~21 months ago. At least get your facts straight.

 

[humbug]

I will buy a steam game code for the first person with a RX 480 that can beat my 980 Ti in Firestrike Ultra using the rules in that bench thread.

I will be posting a single 980 Ti score in that thread in the next few days.

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18629665

You don't seriously believe the 480 has a chance against a maximum overclocked 980TI do you?

Don't be stupid, even the 1070 can't match that.

 

[HRL]

Are we there yet?

Been holding on for 2 months for the NV/AMD releases before picking a GPU. Still haven't decided but seeing as mine won't be an upgrade I guess the decision will be easier for me than it is for some of you guys.

Either the RX480, or a 490 if there is going to be one, will be good enough for my needs or I'll pick up a 1070 or 980Ti once the prices settle.

I swear some people on here must spend more time on arguing and/or one-upmanship than they do playing games with their GPU's!

 

[fs123]

More rumors:Seems like the same stuff repeated.My mistake

AMD RX 480 Overclocked To 1.6Ghz+, Cooler Tear Down & Production Line Photos Leaked

Read more: http://wccftech.com/amd-rx-480-overclocked-1600mhz-cooler-detailed/#ixzz4CAoN4q7o

What I don't understand with these leaks is why just show one pic here and there which could easily be photoshopped when you could make a video showing some actual game running. Almost all the info we have so far is 3dmark benchmarks. Do people in Asia have no other stuff they can run?

I suspect 1600MHz will be achievable on the new process with the correct overclocking bios/software.
With that kind of overclock it may match a Fury Pro since it's theoretical performance will be 7.3 teraflops which is a bit higher than the Fury pro's 7.1 tflops.

AMD could have clocked it higher as standard but I think they want to keep tdp low on the reference and also reserve some headroom for AIB cooler versions with enhanced power designs.

 

[XeNoNF50]

I've read that some cards come with a BIOS switch to put the 480 automatically at 1500MHz. Be interesting to see where that performs if so.

I don't really want to get a 1070 as i'm starting to look at monitor upgrades and I don't want to pay £200 extra for the same screen with GSync.

This is kind of the reason why I'm probably going to go AMD. Get the freesync equivalent for 200 less and put that money towards your GPU (so upgrade from RX 480 to a Vega card when they release). Same price, better setup arguably.

 

[Mauller]

Let's use some common sense for a minute, as it looks like some have lost it.

Here is a recently released Duo from AMD

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/sapp...ess-graphics-card-21253-00-40g-gx-378-sp.html

Price is £1.199.99

No Fury X's for sale but there is a Fury and it is £349.99

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/xfx-...ess-graphics-card-r9-fury-4tf9-gx-234-xf.html

Here is a 390X and it is £259.99

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/xfx-...ess-graphics-card-r9-390x-8df6-gx-226-xf.html

And finally, here is a 390 and it is £209.99

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/xfx-...ess-graphics-card-r9-390p-8dj6-gx-235-xf.html

So AMD claim the 480 has in excess of 5 TFLOPs of raw computation (5.5 TFLOPs)

And when we look at the 390/X, we see 5.1TFLOPs and 5.9TFLOPs respectively of computational power.

So genuinely anyone with some knowledge of GPUs would have worked out from the price and the performance quoted officially from AMD that this was going to sit between a 390 and a 390X performance wise.

I am genuinely surprised that people let themselves get carried away with the hype, when all the facts they needed were there right in front of them.

Would AMD charge $200 for a card that touches on 980Ti performance or would they charge more? They are not a charity and it really does make my head drop when people claim "AMD are for the gamers" etc and they are a business who needs to make money like any other business. I still see people clinging onto this and that with the RX 480 but be realistic guys, this will be a sweet card and VR capable but it isn't and never will be a 1070/80 contender.

Except the RX480 has 5.8Tflops of theoretical performance if it boosts and then runs at 1266mhz. Cores*2*clock = Flops. And from information about the temperature it runs at it more than likely is stable at those clocks.

On top of that you then have the architectural improvements that help boost performance and make it run far closer to its theoretical performance, so in reality it should be faster than a 390x and heading towards fury nano which has been seen in various leaks, even some from a month ago.

 

[SimBy]

Err a 1070/80 is Nvidaia midrange part too..................................

It's Nvidias performance range. GP106 is mainstream GP107 is entry.

 

[humbug]

It is the biggest load of BS I have read in a long time. 390X is a true 980 competitor, but overclock a 980 and it marginally pulls ahead because 390X overclocks well but that is it, whereas 980 is a great clocker.

But this is 980, an overclocked 980Ti is in a different league completely and the absolute minimum performance increase over a 390X for a 980Ti is 20%, MINIMUM, MINIMUM!!! In some games its as much as 60% faster, the 980Ti is vastly ahead.

Seriously stop under-estimating the 980Ti or creating false rumours. We sell 390X, its a good card and now its around £270 not bad value and cheaper than a 980 which it rivals.

The only person who is comparing the 480 to an overclocked 980TI is you, just you, your having a go at people for doing something only you are doing.

You completely misread my post back there Gibbo or you being really quite dishonest now by carrying on as if I said the 480 will match the overclocked 980TI knowing full well I said no such thing.

I still don't see how anyone can sit there and say another 390X to replace the 390X is a great thing, unless its £150 for the 8GB one, this is AMD's third card of the the same in the same price bracket.
I expected it to be at least a bit faster to give existing 970/80 390/X some more performance to entice them to it, but I guess not.

 

[~>Dg<~]

980 ti oc heavily can match a 1080 gtc.
2 x 970gtx = 1080 gtx performance

so obviously you aint overclocking a 970 gtx by that much at best it matches a 980 gtx.

its pretty obvious where the card will sit. 390/390x ish 970/980 gtx peformance so £200-£220 for 4gb -£250 ish for 8gb.

if you want to know where it will sit without breaking the NDA watch the 970 gtx pricing . £215 at the moment. kinda says it all.

 

[RavenXXX2]

£200 for the 4gb, you aving a laugh.....

 

[AlamoX]

The overclocking is the unknown and don't forget that the 390/X use a 512 bit bus and does use memory compression whilst the 480 uses 256bit and I will put my head on the chopping block and say if it was a big overclocker, AMD would have pushed the base clocks much higher and charged more for it.

hawaii doesnt have compression, polaris does.
sapphire twitted about 1500mhz+, it's practically offcial, besides why would they trade effciency for performance ?
isn't it enough ppl blaming them for efficiency for 3 years ? and for what ? even if they push the clock it still wouldn't beat 1070.
but if they release the most cost effective GPU, efficient power, and plenty of OC headroom, that might just be the kind of GPU they need to grab some market share.
i think AMD did great this time around, everything points to that.

 

[humbug]

980 ti oc heavily can match a 1080 gtc.
2 x 970gtx = 1080 gtx performance

so obviously you aint overclocking a 970 gtx by that much at best it matches a 980 gtx.

its pretty obvious where the card will sit. 390/390x ish 970/980 gtx peformance so £200-£220 for 4gb -£250 ish for 8gb.

Right, exactly, so do you think £250 for this low power 390X is a great thing?

That's what I struggle to understand, I think that's absolutely abysmal.

 

[AllBodies]

I mean, if we just go back to what AMD themselves have said about the 'on-paper' comparison:

They said the 480 is 2.8x perf/w when specifically compared to an R9 270X. Now since they quote 'board power' that is presumably what they're using for the 2.8x figure.

The 480 is 150W, and the 270X is 180W (both 'board power'). So that means AMD is claiming the 480 is 2.333'x the performance of the 270X.

And what is roughly 2.33x the performance of a 270X? A Fury pro.

Then if that figure is too hypothetical 'best case', a 390X and 980 are only ~2x the performance of a 270X. Rather than 2.33x.

I still expect the general expectation will be what we get. A stock RX 480 will be inbetween 390X and Nano performance, and overclock to near FuryX and 980 Ti performance (STOCK, as in whatever Techpowerup class as stock 980 Ti).

 

[Supernova]

I hope this thing runs cooler and quieter than my R9 290. Even if the in game FPS is just 20% higher, if it can do that without hitting 90 degrees and quietly, I'll be in for one.

Humbug, what you don't seem to grasp is there are plenty of people out there who play 1080p and have no interest in going higher. My 290 is rock solid 60fps in fallout 4 and dirt rally both on ultra preset, so the 480 need not be an absolute power house. This card looks like it will smash any game at 1080p60 at ultra settings. That's probably why Gibbo is saying it will be a hit. It's going to be cheaper than the 390X. You're clearly looking for something more powerful, so why is your post count in this thread so high? It's not for you.

 

[Sargatanas2511]

The only person who is comparing the 480 to an overclocked 980TI is you, just you, your having a go at people for doing something only you are doing.

You completely misread my post back there Gibbo or you being really quite dishonest now by carrying on as if I said the 480 will match the overclocked 980TI knowing full well I said no such thing.

I still don't see how anyone can sit there and say another 390X to replace the 390X is a great thing, unless its £150 for the 8GB one, this is AMD's third card of the the same in the same price bracket.
I expected it to be at least a bit faster to give existing 970/80 390/X some more performance to entice them to it, but I guess not.

You're talking about this like cold hard fact already. I accept that it may perform around where you are saying but I am not accepting one way or the other as fact until after the NDA lifts.

Just wait 8 days and we will know, jumping to conclusions one way or the other is pointless.

 

[Noctifer]

I expected it to be at least a bit faster to give existing 970/80 390/X some more performance to entice them to it, but I guess not.

Based on what? AMD has been saying that the card is there for the VR entry market, aka 390 performance was expected.

The card is not meant for people that have a 390X or better, but for people that bought a 200-350$ card years ago and are now looking for an upgrade.

This is an enthusiast forum so you think that people upgrade once every 1-2 years, but in reality they don't. I got a friend looking to get the 480, and he has a 5850 right now.

It's your own fault for hyping yourself up even though AMD was managing expectations by claiming from the begging what performance level they are targeting.