RX480 review thread

8GB reviews

http://techreport.com/review/30328/a...-card-reviewed
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/di...-rx-480-review
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/RX_480/1.html
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2016/..._card_review/1
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/RX_480/1.html
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphic...olaris-Promise
http://www.kitguru.net/components/gr...80-8gb-review/
http://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/201...olaris-review/
https://www.computerbase.de/2016-06/radeon-rx-480-test/
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/951-...aris-test.html
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/gra...0-8gb-review/1
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...ce-review.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/1198-amd-radeon-rx-480/
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/AMD-Ra...-Test-1199839/
http://hothardware.com/reviews/amd-r...the-sweet-spot
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/amd-ra...iew-33587.html
http://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews...070#!/ccomment
http://www.legitreviews.com/amd-rade...arrives_183428
http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/g...s_8gb_review/1
http://www.sweclockers.com/test/2231...-gb/18#content
http://www.hardwareunboxed.com/amd-r...e-resolutions/

4GB reviews

Both 8GB and 4GB reviews

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphi...-14nm-polaris/
http://www.anandtech.com/show/10446/...rx-480-preview

XFire

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...480_CrossFire/

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C24vLB6oYyU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRDgiWBfs5I

Linux

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...80-linux&num=1

Scan have pricing up, starting at £219
https://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer...n-rx-480-pci-e

Same sort of pricing at ebuyer, only 2 cards so far but it says 4 cards are about to be bought already :D
http://www.ebuyer.com/store/Componen...-RX-480-Series

Whats interesting on Ebuyer is they've just dropped the GTX970 to £199.98 http://www.ebuyer.com/663452-zotac-g...s-zt-90101-10p

Isn't competition great? :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Firejack

Whats interesting on Ebuyer is they've just dropped the GTX970 to £199.98 http://www.ebuyer.com/663452-zotac-g...s-zt-90101-10p

Isn't competition great? :)

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OcUK have the RX480 4GB for £175ish. T

LTT seem quite keen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GdfDCq86Gk

J2C

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRDgiWBfs5I

His results are close to a EVGA 970 SSC!

TekSyndicate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgbpXh0CifE

HardwareCanucks review:
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...ce-review.html

The results in the DirectX 12 section are interesting, it'll be worth keeping an eye on whether the performance ends up at that level long term.

Looks like Phoronix have seen some decent improvements under Linux.

As someone who is completely out of the loop, would someone like to enlighten me?

AFAICT, AMD have released a card for c. £200 that's providing the same performance level as a GTX 970 - a card which was available on Black Friday for c. £220 and is now also available for £200, and a R9 390 - a card which is available for c. £200.

I know it wasn't supposed to be a powerful card, but at first glance it's same performance, same price as what already exists - admittedly at a lower temperature and power usage.

The hype was suggesting it was going to make a huge difference, smash a hole in NVIDIA's pricing and create a strong budget option, but that's not what I'm seeing.

Am I missing something?

To be fair the older cards have 4Gb of memory. If you look at the 4Gb RX 480 it can be had for as little as £173 on pre-order:

http://www.ebuyer.com/751840-xfx-amd...d77078efbe244b

It typically equals the 970 on average and in some titles matches the 980 (hitman for example)

I think a 4Gb card with custom cooler that overclocks to 1500Mhz (stock is 1266Mhz) would be the sweet spot, if they could produce such a card for £200....but we'll have to wait and see. I'm yet to be convinced of the benefit of 8Gb for a card that shouldn't be used for anything more than 1440p.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jim

Am I missing something?

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Seems to me you've got the gist of it. Maybe the card makes a little more sense in the US, where customers aren't subject to the inflated prices we see in other markets (here in Norway the situation is exactly as you describe; same price as the 970 and 390). However, given that the card is neither the expected "980 killer", nor performs in line with the 1070, which many clearly expected, it's hard to see how the RX 480 can materially change AMD's circumstances in the market. And once the 1060 has launched it may become even harder to see.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Agrippa

Seems to me you've got the gist of it. Maybe the card makes a little more sense in the US, where customers aren't subject to the inflated prices we see in other markets (here in Norway the situation is exactly as you describe; same price as the 970 and 390). However, given that the card is neither the expected "980 killer", nor performs in line with the 1070, which many clearly expected, it's hard to see how the RX 480 can materially change AMD's circumstances in the market. And once the 1060 has launched it may become even harder to see.

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I dont think many expected it to be in line with the 1070. I think this was always expected to be a 1060 competitor.

Looking forward, I would expect something like a 480x or more likely the 490 to be the card to directly go up against an 1070. Even further forward, I would expect 490x or Fury II to go up against 1080 and then FuryX II to go up against a 1090/1090ti... but this is obviously conjecture at this point.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jim

As someone who is completely out of the loop, would someone like to enlighten me?

AFAICT, AMD have released a card for c. £200 that's providing the same performance level as a GTX 970 - a card which was available on Black Friday for c. £220 and is now also available for £200, and a R9 390 - a card which is available for c. £200.

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You're got a very skewed view of GTX 970 prices there. A very few may have been sold at £220 for a short time and they may have reduced the prices in the last month or so but through it's lifetime the GTX 970s have started at £250-260.

At £175 for the same amount of memory this provides 390/970 performance at 380/960 prices.

Possibly even GTX 980 performance if the initial directX 12 results prove representative.

Sure, after the recent discounts it's the same price as the GTX 970, but that happens to every non-high end card.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jim

... Am I missing something?

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Performance parity with the 980 in some titles; averaged across a range of titles it *does* beat the 970. Current performance is with Launch-day drivers; it's almost certain to improve with driver optimisations - can't say that for the 970 or 390.

Refined architecture, improved digital outputs. As you've mentioned, lower power draw than the 970/390 (although it remains to be seen how partner overclocked models look).

Current pricing is launch day pricing. 4GB card pricing - a better comparator to the 970 - is nearer £180. The 970 is heavily price cut, not designed for the segment. And I can't find a 390 as low as £200. Also it's not clear what the impact of exchange rates since Thursday has been on the launch price. Price hacking previous gen higher segment cards to match a new lower segment card pricing is pretty much standard practice.

I think there's an inherent problem - in the mid range, at least - with comparing new cards against older price equivalent cards, because those cards are NOT addressing the same sector. The GTX 970 and R9 390 launched with prices well over $300. The fact that those old cards have become less popular in the market and have had their prices cut accordingly skews the value proposition somewhat. In fact, in this market segment I'd guess it's fairly common for new launches to look a little underwhelming from a price/performance point of view. The GTX 960 suffered from a similar issue (and here's the kicker - that was a $199 card too, but landed at retail at £160) - nothing wrong with it, but it couldn't outpace older, higher segment cards that had been price reduced (it fell short of the performance of the R9 280X/285). High end launches don't have anything to compare to the performance of, so there's an element of "if you want this much performance that's the price you pay". That means launch prices can keep creeping up and - except for a few vocal enthusiasts (CAT ;) ) - people just shrug and say "that's life". For a new mid-range launch, you're competing against the last generation's high end cards, that have all been price-slashed in a race to the bottom.

Let's put it like this: for $199 at launch, the last three generations of AMD cards have gone R9 270X, R9 380, RX 480. That's close to an entire segment of performance increase each release. Saying "it's basically a GTX 970 in both performance and price terms" misses the point that a GTX 970 is a $329 card with a huge price reduction.

Maybe that's why nvidia wait ages before releasing mid-range cards nowaday...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jim

As someone who is completely out of the loop, would someone like to enlighten me?

AFAICT, AMD have released a card for c. £200 that's providing the same performance level as a GTX 970 - a card which was available on Black Friday for c. £220 and is now also available for £200, and a R9 390 - a card which is available for c. £200.

I know it wasn't supposed to be a powerful card, but at first glance it's same performance, same price as what already exists - admittedly at a lower temperature and power usage.

The hype was suggesting it was going to make a huge difference, smash a hole in NVIDIA's pricing and create a strong budget option, but that's not what I'm seeing.

Am I missing something?

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What was the launch price of the 970? Yes, it's now EOL and available in limited stock at a great discount, but that's of no use to system builders who might need to make thousands of identical/similar spec machines. But the launch price is what system builders are interested in. The 480 is a great mid-range card, available in bulk, and it seems to have several features that'll help reduce return rates as well, such as the adaptive ageing voltage etc.

Added Sweclockers and Hardware Unboxed reviews.

Well this whole conversation is now moot seeing as the prices (apart from ebuyer weirdly) have all shot up and now start at £233 (scan) for the 8GB model. Hardly a saving on the boards it's performs similarly too.

Jay2C

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVVJPbFRDEc

OC3DTV

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzfW2f_Y8pw

TechSource

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAKyWJ3BHEw

PaulsHardware

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y6Ky_pCawQ

Awesomesauce Network

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBwvFAlEKEY

Hi Guys

Just seen this pop up on another website LINK HERE seems like the RX480 has power draw issues

Regards

Hopefully this will be sorted out tomorrow and all will be at peace in the world again. :P

Quote:

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Originally Posted by s_ATI_sfied

Hopefully this will be sorted out tomorrow and all will be at peace in the world again. :P

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Yeah software level but I suspect the issue is alot more than AMD is letting on, Methinks its a hardware related issue that is directed to the power phase distribution on the board lets see if it manifests itself on custom design boards.......

Is it just me or have AMD not really captilised on this RX 480 as much as they should have? ie - given it a lower price point if the card performed under or around GTX 970 levels or kept the price at the same as it is now (£200 for arguments sake) if it was GTX 980 performance? I feel if they had made it nearer to GTX 980 performance, it would have been a big hit..

All this power problem thing going on, from what I read most cards do it, so I'm not so sure of the problem there but at least AMD have had the guts to own up and say, our bad, we will fix but sadly they seemed to get moaned at for that..

I'm all for AMD to release a decent card, I need a new GPU my current single or twin 7970 MSI Lightening cards I would like to replace but sadly for me at the moment the only real options will be GTX 1070's which seem over priced to me and the even more expensive GTX 1080's..
I'm holding on even longer now to find out what the Ti and Titans bring to the table as well as AMD's bigger cards.. Now really isn't a good time to buy a GPU!! :(

Quote:

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Originally Posted by c12038

Yeah software level but I suspect the issue is alot more than AMD is letting on, Methinks its a hardware related issue that is directed to the power phase distribution on the board lets see if it manifests itself on custom design boards.......

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*shrug* I wouldn't be surprised if they can do something to control the balance of power between the phases in software - they clearly have some fairly fine-grained control over power delivery anyway given all the tweaking options that are available in the new software suite, and I'm wondering if the issue is more to do with the power target control than the power delivery circuits. Of course, if the card pulls more than 150W anyway then it's going to go over the PCIe limits on one of its inputs, but reading around that's not such an uncommon problem anyway...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by phill8800GT

Is it just me or have AMD not really captilised on this RX 480 as much as they should have? ie - given it a lower price point if the card performed under or around GTX 970 levels ...

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It's already more than $100 cheaper at launch than the GTX 970 was. The fact that old stock of old cards are being sold off cheap shouldn't impact the launch price of a new card at all. AMD set the launch price early knowing the prices of other cards around it - the big question is what happens when nvidia release their competing card. The RX 480 is faster than a GTX 970 overall, and on some games it's faster than a GTX 980, so the pricing is pretty much bang in line with where it should be for a launch card - don't forget the RX 480 will get both faster (due to game & driver optimisation) and cheaper from here. Also we've not seen how partner cards perform yet. There's still a lot of unknowns to unpick for the current generation, and things won't settle down for a few months yet...

I'm holding on for a number of reasons, but still waiting for the Titan P and 1080 Ti mostly.. The 480 was for possible mining but for the extra cost to buy and the little bit of extra power it will run at and at the slightly lower power usage, it's really not as good a buy as first thought, which is a massive shame :(

I\'m waiting to see what the partner cards are like before jumping in with the RX 480, but also now there\'s the GTX1060 due a week next Monday for around the same price point.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Boon72

... now there's the GTX1060 due a week next Monday for around the same price point.

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It's only the same price point if any partners bring out a card at $249. Neither the 1070 nor 1080 had release day cards that were cheaper than the Founder's Edition.

It looks like you still can't get a partner GTX 1070 cheaper than a FE, but I notice that ebuyer actually have quite a few partner 1080s now that are cheaper than the FE (although not significantly cheaper). If the GTX 1060 launches at $299 for both FE and partner cards, it'll overshoot all but the most expensive partner RX 480s. If they get partner cards out at $249, they'll compete with the higher-end 8GB RX 480s, which will use better coolers and more robust power delivery than the reference design.

We already know that you can get an extra up to 4% performance by undervolting a stock RX 480 to remove the power and thermal barriers. Today's driver update brought an extra couple of percent across a range of games. So even at stock clocks, a well-cooled partner card will potentially perform 6% faster than on launch reviews. Hexus managed to get a ~10% performance increase out of their reference card - largely by overclocking the memory (they only managed a 5% boost on the core but got 10% on the memory - a good indication that the RX 480 is bandwidth limited).

So it looks extremely likely that we'll see partner RX 480s that are > 15% faster than the launch RX 480 performance - putting them in the exact performance space that the GTX 1060 claims. Partner overclocked GTX 1060s at $249 would crash AMD's party a bit, but they'd be the *cheapest* GTX 1060s, competing with the *most expensive* RX 480s. Overclocked 4GB RX 480s could easily be the killer option in this market - perfect 1080p cards and competitively priced. Plus we still need to see what the RX 470 brings - at $50 cheaper than the 4GB RX 480 for only a small snip in architecture, they could shake things up even more.

So whiulst it will be interesting to see what nvidia manage to do with the GTX 1060, I can't help thinking that it's not actually trying to compete with the RX 480 directly, but rather trying to persuade the people looking at the premium partner 8GB RX 480s to spend just a little more on a slightly faster card...

Well Sapphire just indicated a Nitro RX480 4GB too. It seems both the Sapphire Nitro RX480 8GB and Powercolor Devil 13 RX480 8GB are around the £250 price on pre-order.

Fottemberg on SA forums hinted we might be seeing a Nano type RX480 card too.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by scaryjim

It's only the same price point if any partners bring out a card at $249. Neither the 1070 nor 1080 had release day cards that were cheaper than the Founder's Edition.

It looks like you still can't get a partner GTX 1070 cheaper than a FE, but I notice that ebuyer actually have quite a few partner 1080s now that are cheaper than the FE (although not significantly cheaper). If the GTX 1060 launches at $299 for both FE and partner cards, it'll overshoot all but the most expensive partner RX 480s. If they get partner cards out at $249, they'll compete with the higher-end 8GB RX 480s, which will use better coolers and more robust power delivery than the reference design.

We already know that you can get an extra up to 4% performance by undervolting a stock RX 480 to remove the power and thermal barriers. Today's driver update brought an extra couple of percent across a range of games. So even at stock clocks, a well-cooled partner card will potentially perform 6% faster than on launch reviews. Hexus managed to get a ~10% performance increase out of their reference card - largely by overclocking the memory (they only managed a 5% boost on the core but got 10% on the memory - a good indication that the RX 480 is bandwidth limited).

So it looks extremely likely that we'll see partner RX 480s that are > 15% faster than the launch RX 480 performance - putting them in the exact performance space that the GTX 1060 claims. Partner overclocked GTX 1060s at $249 would crash AMD's party a bit, but they'd be the *cheapest* GTX 1060s, competing with the *most expensive* RX 480s. Overclocked 4GB RX 480s could easily be the killer option in this market - perfect 1080p cards and competitively priced. Plus we still need to see what the RX 470 brings - at $50 cheaper than the 4GB RX 480 for only a small snip in architecture, they could shake things up even more.

So whiulst it will be interesting to see what nvidia manage to do with the GTX 1060, I can't help thinking that it's not actually trying to compete with the RX 480 directly, but rather trying to persuade the people looking at the premium partner 8GB RX 480s to spend just a little more on a slightly faster card...

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just read this from Eurogamer - Nvidia has just got in contact to reveal European and UK prices for the GTX 1060. We're looking at a base price of £239 for the card, translating into a 280 Euro price tag for those in France and Germany. Meanwhile, the Founders Edition card sees prices rise to £275/319 Euros. All prices include VAT.

Which drops it in at the RX480 8GB current pricing :eek:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Boon72

just read this from Eurogamer - Nvidia has just got in contact to reveal European and UK prices for the GTX 1060. We're looking at a base price of £239 for the card, translating into a 280 Euro price tag for those in France and Germany. Meanwhile, the Founders Edition card sees prices rise to £275/319 Euros. All prices include VAT.

Which drops it in at the RX480 8GB current pricing :eek:

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The problem is the GTX1070 and GTX1080 never really hit UK RRP pricing anyway!! :(

Even then,with Gibbo saying AIB RX480 4GB cards being under £200,and the AIB RX480 8GB cards being around £250ish on pre-order at OcUK,AMD does not need to do much with pricing I suspect.

Edit!!

Unless OFC the GTX1060 is superfast.

I was expecting a little better performance from it, still not a bad card for the RRP (current pricing is a bit too much, might be better to go with an older gen card).

DX12 performance is pretty good. Better than a 980. In fact all the high end AMD cards are good in dx12 (and Vulkan). You can tell where nvidia have been cutting corners :)

When you look at the price/performance the 480 is pretty good. It's in the perfect spot for 1080 or 1440 gaming and being sensibly priced. You can buy 2 of them for the price of one 1070.

The 1060 will be slower, otherwise it won't fit in to nvidia's pricing scheme and will be to close to the 1070. It also won't support SLI because they don't want 2 of them beating a 1080 while costing far less.