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Radeon RX 480 "Polaris" Launched at $199

Caporegime
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Some things to point out, the guy who is somewhat insisting it's a 90ish W gpu has decided that from the last event the performance + efficiency listed on the bar graph meant 2x 480 had more performance and better POWER efficiency than the 1080. Power wasn't mentioned anywhere on that graph but the 98/51% efficiency (for whatever reason) was.

It's possible a single RX 480 uses 90W, or 120W or 150W, but I wouldn't use a graph that doesn't mention power at all to be referring to power efficiency. That youtube guy who came up with it decides efficiency means power and thus the 2x 480s must use less power than the 1080 while accounting for the increased performance.

He also decided that largely because this was only 90W, there must be a bigger faster core that is faster. Again there could be, there might not be, it doesn't make that presumption that efficiency meant AMD were saying it used less power/fps than the 1080 is most likely wrong.

A lot of people are also assuming their is a bigger gpu because of comparing shaders and assuming they can fit more into that die size, if AMD have changed the shader cores or the size of front end vs back end, I wouldn't bank on there being a bigger core either. There could well be a bigger core with more shaders that still uses less than 150W, but I think people are setting themselves up for a disappointment presuming the RX 480 is 90W and there is a 20-30% faster bigger version coming this month.

On a more positive note, I'll again say, if that leak is accurate in terms of performance and temps, it's perfectly possible that performance was thermally limited. A 20C delta from idle to load that it potentially shows is actually a very low delta, an indication that fan noise wouldn't likely be very high to maintain 90C and that significantly better cooling is more than possible. If it's cooler and quite, then it's quite possible that with lower temps it could perform much higher, ie at 90C and that performance level it's throttled throughout.
 
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Caporegime
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A lot of people are also assuming their is a bigger gpu because of comparing shaders and assuming they can fit more into that die size, if AMD have changed the shader cores or the size of front end vs back end, I wouldn't bank on there being a bigger core either. There could well be a bigger core with more shaders that still uses less than 150W, but I think people are setting themselves up for a disappointment presuming the RX 480 is 90W and there is a 20-30% faster bigger version coming this month.
.

I am also sceptical of there being a gpu in the Polaris line up faster than the RX480 but then AMD themselves said the range would be up to $300 so I guess everyone is speculating what that $300 card will be (assuming they didn't mean AIB custom prices, but then AMD are unlikely to announce a top price for the custom cards as the AIB's themselves would decide that, so that is unlikely what they are talking about).

I hope there is though, and that it gives near 1070 performance.
 
Caporegime
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33,188
They could well have said to their partners, this is a lower midrange part, be sensible, don't price above $300. Or it could be more of a industry thing at an industry trade show. If the industry, ie OEMs, considering midrange to be $150-300 price range, they may have said Polaris 10/11 will cover that range, effectively saying Vega when that comes is above $300.

I mean there nearly has to be a salvaged core, usually you talk about the main core first and the salvaged core either same time or later. Maybe this time around they are doing a 4850/4870. Maybe RX 480 is coming now and in a month or two they'll throw out a 480x with gddr5x along with higher shader count, maybe not massively but a fair amount.
 
Man of Honour
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Some things to point out, the guy who is somewhat insisting it's a 90ish W gpu has decided that from the last event the performance + efficiency listed on the bar graph meant 2x 480 had more performance and better POWER efficiency than the 1080. Power wasn't mentioned anywhere on that graph but the 98/51% efficiency (for whatever reason) was.

It's possible a single RX 480 uses 90W, or 120W or 150W, but I wouldn't use a graph that doesn't mention power at all to be referring to power efficiency. That youtube guy who came up with it decides efficiency means power and thus the 2x 480s must use less power than the 1080 while accounting for the increased performance.

He also decided that largely because this was only 90W, there must be a bigger faster core that is faster. Again there could be, there might not be, it doesn't make that presumption that efficiency meant AMD were saying it used less power/fps than the 1080 is most likely wrong.

A lot of people are also assuming their is a bigger gpu because of comparing shaders and assuming they can fit more into that die size, if AMD have changed the shader cores or the size of front end vs back end, I wouldn't bank on there being a bigger core either. There could well be a bigger core with more shaders that still uses less than 150W, but I think people are setting themselves up for a disappointment presuming the RX 480 is 90W and there is a 20-30% faster bigger version coming this month.

On a more positive note, I'll again say, if that leak is accurate in terms of performance and temps, it's perfectly possible that performance was thermally limited. A 20C delta from idle to load that it potentially shows is actually a very low delta, an indication that fan noise wouldn't likely be very high to maintain 90C and that significantly better cooling is more than possible. If it's cooler and quite, then it's quite possible that with lower temps it could perform much higher, ie at 90C and that performance level it's throttled throughout.

My guess is there is not a bigger GPU than the RX480 waiting to launch.

Normally if there are more than one GPU from the same chip they tend to get announced at the same time - 1070/80, 290X/P, 970/80, 7970/50 etc.

Even @70C I suspect that temps were effecting performance as the card is probably only designed to run at around 65C flat out.
 
Soldato
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My guess is there is not a bigger GPU than the RX480 waiting to launch.

Normally if there are more than one GPU from the same chip they tend to get announced at the same time - 1070/80, 290X/P, 970/80, 7970/50 etc.

TI's don't tho. And we are missing the X's from both the 470 and 480 lines that are traditional with AMD.

The gaps there, it's just when they will fill it.
 

bru

bru

Soldato
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With a reference cooler it will be designed to run at 80^c+ just the same as every other reference design for all the different cards. The 90^c+ in that video could be for any number of reasons, especially if he fitted another cooler, the performance does look good though, assuming it is what he says it is.
 

bru

bru

Soldato
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TI's don't tho. And we are missing the X's from both the 470 and 480 lines that are traditional with AMD.

The gaps there, it's just when they will fill it.


Well ti's generally get launched after the titan's though.

We are not missing the X it is after the R and before the 480. ;)
 
Caporegime
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My guess is there is not a bigger GPU than the RX480 waiting to launch.

Normally if there are more than one GPU from the same chip they tend to get announced at the same time - 1070/80, 290X/P, 970/80, 7970/50 etc.

Even @70C I suspect that temps were effecting performance as the card is probably only designed to run at around 65C flat out.

How many SKU's do you know of that only have one chip made out of them?

i suppose your of the mind that the 8Gb version will cost £90 more than the 4GB, to explain the RX 480 @ $200 and the missing $300 GPU.
 
Man of Honour
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How many SKU's do you know of that only have one chip made out of them?

i suppose your of the mind that the 8Gb version will cost £90 more than the 4GB, to explain the RX 480 @ $200 and the missing $300 GPU.

Agreed there is nothing to stop AMD launching a cut down version of the RX 480 but I think it is wishful thinking by some people to think there is a bigger version out there.

The RX 480 is going to be a fantastic card for it's target market and AMD are going to sell shedloads. Having said that people have got to get away from the AMD vs NVidia thing and accept sometimes there is no direct competitor to a rival card.

If people want the RX 480 to compete with the 1070 the answer is simple, go CF RX 480 for the same money and a lot more performance. Plus you don't have to buy a special (rip off) SLI bridge to get them to run in CF.
 
Caporegime
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Agreed there is nothing to stop AMD launching a cut down version of the RX 480 but I think it is wishful thinking by some people to think there is a bigger version out there.

The RX 480 is going to be a fantastic card for it's target market and AMD are going to sell shedloads. Having said that people have got to get away from the AMD vs NVidia thing and accept sometimes there is no direct competitor to a rival card.

If people want the RX 480 to compete with the 1070 the answer is simple, go CF RX 480 for the same money and a lot more performance. Plus you don't have to buy a special (rip off) SLI bridge to get them to run in CF.

CrossFire doesn't work. and its more expensive than a 1070.

How do you explain the $300 price bracket?
 
Soldato
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Agreed there is nothing to stop AMD launching a cut down version of the RX 480 but I think it is wishful thinking by some people to think there is a bigger version out there.

The RX 480 is going to be a fantastic card for it's target market and AMD are going to sell shedloads. Having said that people have got to get away from the AMD vs NVidia thing and accept sometimes there is no direct competitor to a rival card.

If people want the RX 480 to compete with the 1070 the answer is simple, go CF RX 480 for the same money and a lot more performance. Plus you don't have to buy a special (rip off) SLI bridge to get them to run in CF.

Isn't there a bridge in the box??
 
Man of Honour
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CrossFire doesn't work. and its more expensive than a 1070.

How do you explain the $300 price bracket?

You have already explained the $300 price bracket - 8gb RX480

I think CF will get a lot more attention from AMD with the Polaris cards as people are more likely to buy more than one 480 compared to NVidia users who will use just a single 10XX card.
 
Caporegime
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18 Oct 2002
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AMD already said to reporters after the previous event that the 8GB version fo the RX480 was only well, I forget exactly which $229 or 239, which absolutely does leave room for a different card at $300 but it may mean recommended max AIB price though again adding 30% or so to the cost for a custom cooling solution is.... excessive.

I'd also be a bit more surprised to see a bigger card based off the same core called a 490x. AMD can obviously change naming scheme, but if they did what fits would be RX480 and RX490, if there is no X on the end of the 480 I wouldn't expect to see it on the 490. What would fit in AMD's general naming scheme for the past decade + would be a RX 480 and a RX 480 X or XT, XTX or something along those lines.
 
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