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RX480 vs 970 vs 980

Minibiker

Minibiker

Minibiker

Soldato
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27 Mar 2016
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Bristolian living in Swindon
Hi all

Looking to get a new GPU for the new build, Not sure on which would suit it best....

Mostly play Fifa, Euro Truck Sim, Battlefield and Project Cars

What would you lot suggest?

Thank you
 
Custom cooled RX480, although they aren't out yet. Assuming some time near the end of this month? Has the potential to be quicker than the Nvidia cards with driver optimizations.

Otherwise currently GTX980 is better in all DX11 games, just not in DX12.
 
If you're prepared to pay the money for a GTX 980, wait for the 1060 which will be released imminently. It will beat the 480 comfortably in every way.
 
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For those games, which are dx11, then if you can afford a 980 now, get it. 1060 might give slightly better performance if you can wait, but if you're looking now the 980 would suit you best.
 
None really at the minute, Ashes of the Singularity is pretty much it. And the 1060 *might* be slightly quicker, but you'll no doubt be paying an extra $100 for the difference. I'd say RX480, the 980 isn't quick enough to justify the cost and the 970 is slower and more expensive.
 
How anyone can recommend a 970 or 980 is beyond me.

The RX 480 gets more than double the frame rate at 1920x1080 in a bunch of DX12 games.

Unless you can get a really good deal on a 970 or 980, and don't plan to play any games released in future (so no DX12 or Vulkan) or now with DX12 / Vulkan, they're an appalling buy.

... and a theoretical 1060 won't change that. Pascal, like Maxwell, supports neither of the headline features of DX12 / Vulkan (a-synchronous compute / shaders and resource heap) and doesn't seem to benefit much or at all from reduced CPU overhead.
 
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If your planning on keeping the card for a year or more i think the 480 is the way to go.

The architecture is much better than Nvidia's latest for the new API's coming on stream, like DX12, its far better future proofing than the 970/80 and 1060.
 
Minibiker said:
Are they really that bad :eek: So would i be best to buy the £229 RX480 for my build and future proof it
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Yes. NVIDIA have tried to emulate both a-synch and resource heap in software. The former results in either small or very large reductions in performance (so a lot of games just turn it off for NVIDIA), the latter results in completely crippled performance (though NVIDIA are still trying to claim it works and they offer full compatibility) ... hence why an RX480 gets about 2.5x the FPS of a 970 in Quantum Break. Also, the combination of resource heap, a-synch and cpu overhead reduction in some games (even where a-synch / resource heap are switched off for NVIDIA) results in such a vast increase in performance for AMD, that NVIDIA cards £200+ more expensive (980Ti) only offer similar performance - see Hitman DX12 & DOTA2 Vulkan.

The Total War: Warhammer DX12 patch that dropped this week results in ~25% FPS *reduction* on Pascal (10xx) & Maxwell (9xx) NVIDIA cards. AMD cards saw major gains, and as the engine (and others) get further tuned to DX12 (or Vulkan), the gains will get bigger.

Maxwell and Pascal will NEVER see major gains from DX12 or Vulkan, indeed practically every game so far sees a drop, because they don't support the features at a hardware level and NVIDIA's DX11 driver was already really good at working with the CPU overhead.

Then of course you have to remember that all the PS4 (& Neo) and XB1 (and Scorpio) AAA title console ports are being optimised for AMD's GCN architecture, with increasingly heavy use of a-synch compute, resource heap et al.
 
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Oh, and finally, bear in mind that it's going to become increasingly difficult to just shut off a-synch / resource heap for NVIDIA in DX12 / Vulkan engines, as they rely heavily on them to improve performance. This means that NVIDIA users either have to run DX11 / OpenGL (they won't exist in a while), or put up with constantly crashing drivers / games in DX12 / Vulkan, because they can't support what they claim to.
 
pmc25 said:
Yes. NVIDIA have tried to emulate both a-synch and resource heap in software. The former results in either small or very large reductions in performance (so a lot of games just turn it off for NVIDIA), the latter results in completely crippled performance (though NVIDIA are still trying to claim it works and they offer full compatibility) ... hence why an RX480 gets about 2.5x the FPS of a 970 in Quantum Break. Also, the combination of resource heap, a-synch and cpu overhead reduction in some games (even where a-synch / resource heap are switched off for NVIDIA) results in such a vast increase in performance for AMD, that NVIDIA cards £200+ more expensive (980Ti) only offer similar performance - see Hitman DX12 & DOTA2 Vulkan.

The Total War: Warhammer DX12 patch that dropped this week results in ~25% FPS *reduction* on Pascal (10xx) & Maxwell (9xx) NVIDIA cards. AMD cards saw major gains, and as the engine (and others) get further tuned to DX12 (or Vulkan), the gains will get bigger.

Maxwell and Pascal will NEVER see major gains from DX12 or Vulkan, indeed practically every game so far sees a drop, because they don't support the features at a hardware level and NVIDIA's DX11 driver was already really good at working with the CPU overhead.

Then of course you have to remember that all the PS4 (& Neo) and XB1 (and Scorpio) AAA title console ports are being optimised for AMD's GCN architecture, with increasingly heavy use of a-synch compute, resource heap et al.
Click to expand...
Tons of misinformation in here. Would not trust anything pmc25 says anyways.
 
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