QOTW: AMD Radeon RX 480 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060?

[cheesemp]

As I have a 480 8gb Sapphire Nitro on preorder I might be a bit biased but with freesync and similar performance (of the Nitro vs 1060 anyway in the latest hexus review) and better potential future performance (biased on how well the 7970 has aged and the fact the PS4 Neo and XBox one 4K are likely using the same chip slight down clocked) the 480 nitro wins it for me. I can see why someone might want to save £50 and get the 4gb model or even ~£80 going for a 470...

I also feel its important to support the underdog as Nvidia are being cheaky with the high end pricing at the moment while AMD can't compete. If Nvidia get a stangle hold on the market it would be very bad for gaming on PC.

[Primey0]

Seems more like £40-60 and thats a lot for a card barley and faster in DX11 and decent amount slower in the new API's. I'm pretty sure once AMD have had a few drivers out the RX 480 will beat the GTX 1060 hands down for less money.

You can get a 1060 for £230. If we're comparing it to the 4GB 480 then it's £30 more (with 2gb more vram) or the same price as the 8GB.

[Corky34]

What one I'd chose would depend on my requirements, if i intended to buy another card in a year or so it would be the 1060, if it was longer it would be the 480.

Yes the 480 is better in DX12 but there's still way more DX11 games than DX12, yes the 480 is better as resolutions increase but (personally) both cards don't fair well above 1080p, and yes the 480 supports Freesync but there's very few monitor with acceptable (for me) operating ranges, most only go down to 40Hz/fps.

I'm a bit disappointed with the showings from both sides if I'm honest, Nvidia are over priced for what seem like a stopgap measure and AMD just didn't deliver the performance i was hoping for.

[kalniel]

Freesync but there's very few monitor with acceptable (for me) operating ranges, most only go down to 40Hz/fps.

Which would mean 20fps in real terms - AMD drivers now include a frame doubling feature. Refreshing below 20hz is a struggle for any monitor.

[Corky34]

Frame doubling is what G-Sync does, FreeSync uses Low Frame Rate Compensation, they're effectively the same thing however LFC is limited to monitors with a 2.5x (or higher) spread between higher and lower refresh rates.

It's not monitors low refresh rates that bother me it's what happens in those edge cases where a game may drop bellow 30fps for a second or two, it's just the buyer needs to be very aware of the monitor specs with Freesync versus G-Sync, in fact i don't think there's a single 4k monitor that supports LFC.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

If I had a choice,it would be the RX480 - owned both the GTX660 and GTX960. They are both perfectly decent cards,but the AMD equivalents in the HD7870/R9 270/R9 270X and R9 285/R9 380 have lasted longer.

Also,sadly for G-Sync the equivalent models to their Freesync versions cost much more,meaning you might as well use the difference to buy a faster AMD card anyway.

[sweatyBallacks]

I am in the market for a new card and I have a £300 budget. If I had a bit more I would buy a 1070 for up to £350 but they are not priced that low. So the choice is between a 1060 and 480. Between these two I am buying a custom 8GB 480. The big factor here is the 480's superior performance in DX12/Vulkan and a trend for better more optimized performance in newer games (this year onwards). This means the 480 will last you longer than the 1060. I am also concerned by the small memory bandwidth on the 1060 (192GB/S compared to 250GB/S on the 480 and how this will effect performance in games of next year).

Also, not having the option to SLI the 1060 is poor from Nvidia. I like the option of being able to double-up the 480 to make it last me longer. The 8GB memory makes this quite viable.

[ultrasbm]

If you are in the Vega market, you probably already own a 390 or 980 or similar so neither of these will be of interest.

For people on a ~£200 budget, other than waiting for stock levels and prices to stabilize, I think the info is already here.

Personally I think the 4GB 480 is the star of the show, but not enough of an upgrade from my 4GB 380 to make me part with cash.

My predicament also...GTX970...waiting for Vega now.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Wow! Gibbo from OcUK mentioned in the GTX1060 launch week they sold 600 GTX1060 cards,but sold 700 RX480 at the same time!! However,OcUK sold 2000+ RX480 cards in 24 hours when they first launched.

Interestingly,they also sold 600 GTX1070 cards in the last week,but had the lowest price in the UK at £360 IIRC.

[pastymuncher]

They sold 90 cards at £359.99 from what Gibbo was saying. It's hardly surprising that they sold so many 1070's because for people in a similar position to me the 1070 and 1080 are the only worthwhile upgrades unless you can pick up a cheap second hand 980ti.

[chj]

If you are in the Vega market, you probably already own a 390 or 980 or similar so neither of these will be of interest.

For people on a ~£200 budget, other than waiting for stock levels and prices to stabilize, I think the info is already here.

Personally I think the 4GB 480 is the star of the show, but not enough of an upgrade from my 4GB 380 to make me part with cash.

My predicament also...GTX970...waiting for Vega now.

I'm waiting for vega but not because i've got the last generation (i'm still on a 5850) but because the performance jump is greater than in the last few generations (according to https://www.extremetech.com/wp-conte.../03/AMDGPU.jpg ).

It also looks like after vega there won't be a huge jump in performance for a while. This could all just be AMD hype and HBM2 might be a flop but hey.

[chinf]

I waited a while to see how they compared, but given that honestly either would be plenty good enough for my needs for a while I went for the RX 480 8GB. I keep my graphics cards going for ages, so long that the fan bearing has gone bad on every graphics card I've ever had (except the Matrox G400, but then that didn't have a fan).

I am quite prepared to swap the reference cooler for a quiet aftermarket AIO water cooler some way down the line, and then performance limitations from thermal throttling won't be an issue.

[kalniel]

I'm waiting for vega but not because i've got the last generation (i'm still on a 5850) but because the performance jump is greater than in the last few generations (according to https://www.extremetech.com/wp-conte.../03/AMDGPU.jpg ).

That shows more an efficiency jump than a performance jump, though I'm sure there will also be some performance jump!

[chj]

That shows more an efficiency jump than a performance jump, though I'm sure there will also be some performance jump!

Very true my mistake. Though would that mean full-sized gpu's in laptops would be more feasible (if cooling the thing isn't too much of an issue)?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

They sold 90 cards at £359.99 from what Gibbo was saying. It's hardly surprising that they sold so many 1070's because for people in a similar position to me the 1070 and 1080 are the only worthwhile upgrades unless you can pick up a cheap second hand 980ti.

I am more surprised the GTX1060 was outsold by mostly reference and non-reference RX480 cards on pre-order!

[kalniel]

I am more surprised the GTX1060 was outsold by mostly reference and non-reference RX480 cards on pre-order!

Volume. AMD chased it, and got lots of viable cards to distribution channels. nVidia will catch up eventually, but what AMD did was hugely important for system integrators' confidence in them as a supplier.