AMD Radeon RX 480 8 GB

[Assimilator]

In summary, AMD has delivered a "next-generation" card that is worse in acoustics, temperature, power draw, electrical compliance than its competitor's previous-generation cards that were built on a much larger, much hotter, previous-generation process node. RX 480 is a technological failure in everything but performance.

The only thing that this card has going for it is its performance for its price - but if GTX 1060 is real and can hit similar performance targets, I can guarantee you that it will do so more quietly, much cooler, and at much lower power draw than the RX 480.
It will of course be more expensive, but I feel that's warranted given the fact it will be far less likely to set your motherboard on fire.

At this point NVIDIA could restart 28nm production of GM204 - which I'm sure TSMC would be very happy to do for them at a discount - and thus deliver a GTX 980 rebadged as GTX 1060. That would allow AIB partners to reuse all the custom board and cooler designs already proven for GTX 980, which means NVIDIA could probably offer "GTX 1060" at the same price as RX 480 and thus kill Polaris absolutely.

 

[john_]

Does it? Tell me which games (which are not AMD-biased). Nothing in this performance range needs more than 4 GB, probably not even 3 GB.

Is there any game I will show you that you will not call AMD biased?
And can you guarantee that the extra ram will not be useful in the near future? Not all people buy cards for 6 months. Some people buy cards and keep them for years.

 

[Assimilator]

R9 290 wasn't a bad launch, it was a terrific one. When it launched, the $399 R9 290 was faster than the $999 GTX Titan and $650 GTX 780, and R9 290X was fastest until NVIDIA launched GTX 780 Ti. I immediately bought an R9 290 after the review.

Let me rephrase then: this is like the 290 launch, except worse.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/R9_290/31.html

Multi-monitor and Blu-ray power consumption is very bad, though. We respectively see 51 W and 74 W power draw in these states, which is 300% of what comparable NVIDIA cards use.

AMD's reference design cooler gets completely overwhelmed by the card's heat load once you start gaming. With load temperatures of 94°C, the card already runs very hot, but even at those temperatures, the fan needs to run at a deafening 49 dBA to handle the heat. I'm don't really know why AMD increased the fan speed limit at the last minute instead of looking into making the card quieter and doubt many people will care about a few percent in performance, or whether the card beats the GTX 780. But most people will care once the graphics card's cooler takes over acoustically by producing enough noise to negatively affect your gaming experience.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/RX_480/22.html
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/RX_480/29.html

The picture is completely different in non-gaming states, though; here, it looks as though AMD still hasn't learned its lesson. Single-monitor, idle-power draw with 15 W is just ok I guess, but multi-monitor and Blu-ray using more than 5x as much power as NVIDIA's counterparts is simply unacceptable, especially since this has not been addressed for several years.

The weakest point of AMD's reference design is certainly the thermal solution. It doesn't use any heatpipes or other high-tech means to keep the card cool. Rather, there is a big slab of metal with a copper core that has the blower fan sending air across its fins. As a result we are seeing temperatures of up to 84°C, which has the card clock down further to keep cool. On average, our card ran 1239 MHz, which is in the upper range of AMD's rated 1120-1266 MHz clock window. What's even worse than the heat is the terrible fan noise. While idle noise is fine with 29 dBA (an idle-fan-off feature would have still been nice), in gaming, the fan ramps up a lot, emitting 41 dBA during gaming (not Furmark). This makes the RX 480 the loudest card launched in recent history, much noisier than, for example, the GTX 1080 (which is almost twice as fast).

RX 480 has the exact same problems that the 290 had nearly 3 years ago, plus it can't compete on performance. Absolutely pathetic.

 

[john_]

In summary, AMD has delivered a "next-generation" card that is worse in acoustics, temperature, power draw, electrical compliance than its competitor's previous-generation cards that were built on a much larger, much hotter, previous-generation process node. RX 480 is a technological failure in everything but performance.

The only thing that this card has going for it is its performance for its price - but if GTX 1060 is real and can hit similar performance targets, I can guarantee you that it will do so more quietly, much cooler, and at much lower power draw than the RX 480.
It will of course be more expensive, but I feel that's warranted given the fact it will be far less likely to set your motherboard on fire.

At this point NVIDIA could restart 28nm production of GM204 - which I'm sure TSMC would be very happy to do for them at a discount - and thus deliver a GTX 980 rebadged as GTX 1060. That would allow AIB partners to reuse all the custom board and cooler designs already proven for GTX 980, which means NVIDIA could probably offer "GTX 1060" at the same price as RX 480 and thus kill Polaris absolutely.

If people want to buy a graphics card that it is perfect in acoustics, temperature, power draw, electrical compliance, and performance is unimportant or secondary, GT710 will be a nice option.

Well GTX 1060 will be announced probably in a week from now, if we believe the latest rumors about an Nvidia event in 7th July. Now, what you point as problems for the RX480, custom solutions will fix them, all except the power consumption. They will probably cost more, but I doubt they will cost more than a 1060 with 3GB of memory, 6GB at best case scenario(it is rumored a 192bit data bus). If custom RX480 cards offer speeds close to 1400MHz, probably they will be fast enough to beat 1060 in some benchmarks, lose in others. In any case both cards will look equal in performance. What 1060 will not be able to beat is the performance/$ of the 4GB RX480. At least for the period that 4GB will look enough to those who can spent no more than $200. And let's not forget that AMD also have RX470. If RX470 offers 80% of RX480 at $149, many will choose to spend only $149 for their next graphics card. There are many still using old cards that cost them less than $250 a few years back. Someone with a HD 7950 or a GTX 760 can easily upgrade to a RX 470 and keep $100 in the pocket. For people running GTX 750Ti or R9 260, an RX470 at $150 will be a dream come true.

 

[Caring1]

Seeing as the RX 480 just beats the GTX970 (in Fire Strike) i would say this is a win for AMD, especially at the selling price.
Hopefully power consumption is a glitch and real world usage proves it to be more efficient over time.

 

[jigar2speed]

RX 480 - Sold out in USA - https://www.nowinstock.net/computers/videocards/amd/rx480/

RX 480 - Soon to be sold out in UK - https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=29714968&postcount=69

Don't think people agree with all the doom sayers, performance for $200 is just incredible.

 

[chaosmassive]

July 7th annoucement event and July 13th Reference versions in retail. Custom versions in August i would assume...

Wow, what a speed (or haste?)
RX 480 only serve as wake up alarm for Nvidia
I dont know whether should I happy or sad for RX 480

 

[Eroticus]

Let me rephrase then: this is like the 290 launch, except worse.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/R9_290/31.html



https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/RX_480/22.html
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/RX_480/29.html



RX 480 has the exact same problems that the 290 had nearly 3 years ago, plus it can't compete on performance. Absolutely pathetic.

GTX 960 / 760 - didn't even beat re branded series from AMD.

AMD wanted to make best Price&performance card and they did it.

about noise - stock GTX 970 had 40dbA, 980 TI had 42dbA and RX 480 has 41dbA,

Power compulsion
AMD offering performance and good price and nvidia is offering price per watt.

30w > 12hours of gaming each day > 365days > 16$.

80% of People want to buy performance for good price.
15% of People want to buy performance no matter the cost.
4.99% of people doesn't really care, but also they don't really want to save penguins on Antarctica.

 

[bug]

I must have missed something... Other than the Blu-ray and Idle power draw, I don't see what's wrong with this card...It looks like it does what it was made to do for the price it was supposed to do it for. Maybe the people throwing their hands up in this thread are being sarcastic? If I didn't have a Fury already I would snap up a 4GB version.

It's built on 14nm yet it performs like the 970. It also needs as much power as the 970. Meanwhile Nvidia managed to squeeze the 1070 in the same power envelope.
And when AMD's best is only a match for Nvidia's "last year", all consumers suffer.

There's some hope with better performance than the 970 in DX12 and maybe Vulkan, but with so few titles available, it's hard to judge. And then the 1060 can and most likely will outperform this easily. But Nvidia will probably price that in the $275-300 range and everyone will be happy.

 

[Eroticus]

It's built on 14nm yet it performs like the 970. It also needs as much power as the 970. Meanwhile Nvidia managed to squeeze the 1070 in the same power envelope.
And when AMD's best is only a match for Nvidia's "last year", all consumers suffer.

There's some hope with better performance than the 970 in DX12 and maybe Vulkan, but with so few titles available, it's hard to judge. And then the 1060 can and most likely will outperform this easily. But Nvidia will probably price that in the $275-300 range and everyone will be happy.

Did GTX 960 performed better than 290 ? did 660 performed better than re branded from AMD ?
Even GTX 970 didn't beat 290/290x.

So please save ur double standards to ur self.

Vulkan/DX12
Doom
Battlefield 1
Total War: Warhammer
Forza 6
Forza H 2
ReCore
Quantum Break
Gears 4
Gears of War Unlimited Edition
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Scalebound

 

[HumanSmoke]

RX 480 - Sold out in USA - https://www.nowinstock.net/computers/videocards/amd/rx480/

RX 480 - Soon to be sold out in UK - https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=29714968&postcount=69

Don't think people agree with all the doom sayers, performance for $200 is just incredible.

Nice but not earth shattering. OcUK also had 500 GTX 1080 FE's for sale- a card that was supposed to be overlooked in preference to AIB custom cards. The entire inventory was sold out in minutes

 

[Eroticus]

Nice but not earth shattering. OcUK also had 500 GTX 1080 FE's for sale- a card that was supposed to be overlooked in preference to AIB custom cards. The entire inventory was sold out in minutes

What does it has to do in RX 480 review topic ?

aDMsGl_XxTk?t=1m59s

 

[jigar2speed]

What does it has to do in RX 480 review topic ?

aDMsGl_XxTk?t=1m59s

Exactly my thoughts...

BTW Over 1000 cards sold by overclocker UK alone - https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=29717519&postcount=123

 

[bug]

Did GTX 960 performed better than 290 ? did 660 performed better than re branded from AMD ?
Even GTX 970 didn't beat 290/290x.

So please save ur double standards to ur self.

This is not about raw performance, it's about efficiency. AMD boasted all over the place Polaris will be more efficient than their previous architecture (yes, they were careful no to compare it with Nvidia at all) and in the end we have AMD's 14nm being as efficient as Nvidia's 28nm. Then again, this is probably why it doesn't scale to compete at the high end.

Edit: And if it's still not clear enough what my beef is, this draws as much power as the 1070. Thus a scaled down Maxwell can give us the same HP at much lower TDP.

On the other hand, a big positive that has gone unnoticed here so far, is that this is AMD's first video card that comes with same-day Linux support.

 

[Totally]

If people want to buy a graphics card that it is perfect in acoustics, temperature, power draw, electrical compliance, and performance is unimportant or secondary, GT710 will be a nice option.
.

What stupid logic, just because something is secondary doesn't make it not important. For example, in my case, I live in Florida and well you it's hot in Florida. So I care a big deal about power draw not that I care about saving a few cents or dollars on my power bill but since power draw directly translate to heat generation therefore owning a card that doubles as a space heater is pretty high on my list of things I do not want regardless of performance. I'd also like to play games other than minesweeper and titles that are fairly current. So raw performance isn't always the #1 thing on everyone's list nor should be without reason.

 

[john_]

It's built on 14nm yet it performs like the 970. It also needs as much power as the 970. Meanwhile Nvidia managed to squeeze the 1070 in the same power envelope.
And when AMD's best is only a match for Nvidia's "last year", all consumers suffer.

There's some hope with better performance than the 970 in DX12 and maybe Vulkan, but with so few titles available, it's hard to judge. And then the 1060 can and most likely will outperform this easily. But Nvidia will probably price that in the $275-300 range and everyone will be happy.

It performs like a 970 in older DX11 games. It does not perform as a 970 in DX12. It's much better.

Nvidia is better in power consumption, but we don't buy cards based on power consumption. You have to go at 200W or higher to just start having thoughts about how much power your card eats. Anything lower and a good cooling solution will do it's job nicely and quietly.

Consumers suffer because they expect AMD to produce a perfect product, to force Nvidia or Intel to lower prices and then go and buy Nvidia or Intel products. Consumers are paying the price of their obsession to buy the product from the strongest brand. They directly support monopolies and at the same time blame the small companies for those monopolies. It's a win win situation for the big companies.

Lastly, you don't buy a card for 3 months. So if there are not enough DX12 games today is not really that much important. If in two years there are going to be still very few DX12 games, then I will agree with you.


PS> Why is GTX 970 cheaper today than 15 days ago? Maybe because of RX480? The card that didn't impressed you? As I said. AMD will do it's best, people will find an excuse to run to the big brand.

 

[john_]

What stupid logic, just because something is secondary doesn't make it not important. For example, in my case, I live in Florida and well you it's hot in Florida. So I care a big deal about power draw not that I care about saving a few cents or dollars on my power bill but since power draw directly translate to heat generation therefore owning a card that doubles as a space heater is pretty high on my list of things I do not want regardless of performance. I'd also like to play games other than minesweeper and titles that are fairly current. So raw performance isn't always the #1 thing on everyone's list nor should be without reason.

It's hot in Greece too. We have 33 Celsius here now. It's one of the good days. It was 38 a few days ago, it will go back up again in a few days.

As for stupid logic. I just read your post.

 

[Eroticus]

This is not about raw performance, it's about efficiency. AMD boasted all over the place Polaris will be more efficient than their previous architecture (yes, they were careful no to compare it with Nvidia at all) and in the end we have AMD's 14nm being as efficient as Nvidia's 28nm. Then again, this is probably why it doesn't scale to compete at the high end.

Edit: And if it's still not clear enough what my beef is, this draws as much power as the 1070. Thus a scaled down Maxwell can give us the same HP at much lower TDP.

On the other hand, a big positive that has gone unnoticed here so far, is that this is AMD's first video card that comes with same-day Linux support.

"It's not about raw performance, it's about efficiency"

and that why you over paid for Intel i5-6600k and ASRock Z170 Extreme7+ and didn't bought I5 - 6500 with some B170 board ...

 

[sergionography]

In summary, AMD has delivered a "next-generation" card that is worse in acoustics, temperature, power draw, electrical compliance than its competitor's previous-generation cards that were built on a much larger, much hotter, previous-generation process node. RX 480 is a technological failure in everything but performance.

The only thing that this card has going for it is its performance for its price - but if GTX 1060 is real and can hit similar performance targets, I can guarantee you that it will do so more quietly, much cooler, and at much lower power draw than the RX 480.
It will of course be more expensive, but I feel that's warranted given the fact it will be far less likely to set your motherboard on fire.

At this point NVIDIA could restart 28nm production of GM204 - which I'm sure TSMC would be very happy to do for them at a discount - and thus deliver a GTX 980 rebadged as GTX 1060. That would allow AIB partners to reuse all the custom board and cooler designs already proven for GTX 980, which means NVIDIA could probably offer "GTX 1060" at the same price as RX 480 and thus kill Polaris absolutely.

Lol no because tsmc at this point is shifting production towards 16nm ff and the equipment and fabs slowly get updated for the new process. Second problem is that gtx 980 is a 400mm2 die which is more expensive down the road because basically they can build twice as many chips per wafer when building a smaller chip at 200mm2
Point number 3 is that gtx980 peaked in its performance, while rx480 is still at its early stage of drivers and optimization, not only will it perform better down the road due to optimized performance drivers, but newer chips will have better yield and will be better binned, not to mention newer revisions of the chip itself and 14nm process will make it clock even better down the road on later chips. This is especially true on AMDs side usually more so than nvidia, if you want evidence on that then just simply go back and look at day one reviews for the gtx780ti and how it beat amds r9 290x by like 8-15% and then look at this very review and compare those same 2 cards(gtx780ti vs r9 290x) and notice the difference and how amd is now a good 15% ahead(better driver optimization as well as newer games giving amd the edge) heck right now even the r9 290 beats gtx 780ti, so go back now to those who paid 650usd for their 780ti cards back then and try to convince them that their investment was better than an r9 290 for 400usd or an r9 290x for 550usd, because surely the numbers dont show that.

So that being said, GCN is way better than we percieve it to be and definitely has tons of future proofing. its pretty much tweaked now from what it was back in 2012 but its still very much the same foundation. yes it consumes more power than nvidia even back in the kepler days, but thats because it is actually more than what nvidia gives you, amd slaps all these features and capabilities that could come in handy down the road which takes real estate on the chips, while nvidia strips their architecture with a methodology of "we can do without this/that" and end up with one purpose chips only geared for one thing. With that being said, just come back in one year when there are more dx12 games out and read reviews, and just watch how amds whole lineup jumps a good 10% in relative performance including older gcn cards compared to nvidia

 

[Auryx]

Solid card, however I see MSI's edition of 970 going for lower than the RX 480 in my country, and generally these cards can clock so high that they can compete with the 980 while being cool and having great power consumption. Sadly, currently there is no competition, hope that these prices will go down soon and the RX 480 will be able to compete.

 

[Eroticus]

Solid card, however I see MSI's edition of 970 going for lower than the RX 480 in my country, and generally these cards can clock so high that they can compete with the 980 while being cool and having great power consumption. Sadly, currently there is no competition, hope that these prices will go down soon and the RX 480 will be able to compete.

290x has better performance, overclocks better and has more vram and real DX12 support. and should cost you even less.

RX 480 4GB has same price like AIB GTX 960 4GB.

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/8986831/fs/7991692/fs/2786237

 

[Auryx]

290x has better performance, overclocks better and has more vram and real DX12 support. and should cost you even less.

RX 480 4GB should cost you less than AIB GTX 960.

...

I'm going to contradict you here, the 970 and 290X are performing pretty much the same at stock. I have managed to clock my 970 to over 1.5GHz and its still cooler and consumes less power than the 290X. If it performs better in games that I am interested in, I will buy it, I don't really care so much about "real DX12" or synthetic benchmark scores. The 290X was a good card, but not anymore.

I had the ATI 9550, HD4850, HD6950, R9 280X and now I have the 970, my first green card and sincerely don't regret it one bit. I was hoping more from the RX 480, and with no competition from AMD, when I will muster enough money, I will upgrade to the 1070.

 

[bug]

"It's not about raw performance, it's about efficiency"

and that why you over paid for Intel i5-6600k and ASRock Z170 Extreme7+ and didn't bought I5 - 6500 with some B170 board ...

Are completely brain dead? I was just saying the 480 is not more power efficient than the 970 despite being 14nm.
Wth does that have to do with my CPU and motherboard?

 

[Eroticus]

Are completely brain dead? I was just saying the 480 is not more power efficient than the 970 despite being 14nm.
Wth does that have to do with my CPU and motherboard?

That you don't really care about power effective and cost effective.

28nm from AMD (270x) and 14nm is pretty much effective to.

I'm going to contradict you here, the 970 and 290X are performing pretty much the same at stock. I have managed to clock my 970 to over 1.5GHz and its still cooler and consumes less power than the 290X. If it performs better in games that I am interested in, I will buy it, I don't really care so much about "real DX12" or synthetic benchmark scores. The 290X was a good card, but not anymore.

I had the ATI 9550, HD4850, HD6950, R9 280X and now I have the 970, my first green card and sincerely don't regret it one bit. I was hoping more from the RX 480, and with no competition from AMD, when I will muster enough money, I will upgrade to the 1070.

290x was great card, GTX 970 was great card just on the paperer of nvidia CEO.

970 didn't beat 1170 mhz 290x when it was clocked at 1600., you are talking with me about 1500 ? i'm running 1100 with stock fan settings.

I won't call it "pretty way the same"

When 290x performance gap between 980 and 290x is same like between 290x and 970.

and again same story like always .... "MY GPU IS MORE POWER EFFECTIVE"

Overclocks his gpu to 1500mhz, when GTX 970 is using 200~250w+.

"POWER EFFECTIVE"

Why did you bought 4C/8T i7 6700k , when 4C/8T 6700 is available ? and for gaming is even more power effective to take i5 6600. it's same like i7 6700 with Hyper Threading Disabled.

 

[Auryx]

970 didn't beat 1170 mhz 290x when it was clocked at 1600., you are talking with me about 1500 ? i'm running 1100 with stock fan settings.

I would appreciate if you would point out where did you find an review for an 1.6Ghz clocked 970. (Read: REVIEW not some random slide pulled out of my backside with syntethic crap)

Also, I'm a peasant and game at 1440p/1080p where the difference is within margin error @ stock ( Read: 1051 MHz ). And even there, in games that I'M INTERESTED, and the only good ones too if you ask me (Read: The Witcher 3) the 970 is a more logical purchase than the RX 480 or 290X, if you OC it, it absolutely destroys the latter in these games while being more efficient (despite being 28nm) and is cheaper too.

You can't convince me of anything with shoving charts in my face, I've been in the red camp and I've had it, I don't want to hear anything anymore about them. This discussion is about the RX 480. I'm saying the 970 is a better purchase than the RX 480 and you try to convince me that 290X is better than 970. Completely on-topic.