RX480 review thread

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

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

[DanceswithUnix]

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
http://www.ebuyer.com/store/Componen...-RX-480-Series

[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?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

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?

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

[Biscuit]

LTT seem quite keen

[Biscuit]

J2C



His results are close to a EVGA 970 SSC!

[Biscuit]

TekSyndicate

[EndlessWaves]

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.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Looks like Phoronix have seen some decent improvements under Linux.

[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?

[cptwhite_uk]

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.

[Agrippa]

Am I missing something?

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.

[Biscuit]

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.

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.

[EndlessWaves]

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.

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.

[scaryjim]

... Am I missing something?

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...

[kalniel]

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?

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.