AMD Fires Back - Radeon RX 470 Review

[USER8000]

Do you think that this is a result of NVIDIA intentionally gimping their GPUs? I think NVIDIA's drivers are just more polished out of the gate while AMD's aren't, which means they can gain more performance over time.

Anyway, if NVIDIA is really intentionally crippling older generation cards, then that would be a really poor business move on their part.

So more excuses?? The GTX460 and 8800GT lacked these issues. Now after my experiences with the GTX660TI and GTX960,I honestly am fed- up.

People were saying the same about the HD7950/R9 280 lasting longer than the GTX660TI and forum experts said it was rubbish it happened.

I looked at some benchmarks of the GTX660 - the HD7870/R9 270 series is much better in newer games.

The same was said of the GTX960,now its happened.

So at this point,unless I am buying a new card every 12 months,how can I have any stock a GTX1060 or GTX1050 will not start getting beaten in 12 months times handily?

Noise is Pascal will be out 2H 2017,so how long is Nvidia going to care about those card??

All the modern 60 series Nvidia cards have major longevity issues it appears,and that has happened to the last three of them.

Plus now the GTX1060 and RX480 due to many factors now cost the same as the GTX970 and R9 390 in the UK,so now we have a nice price bump too.

Its going to be around £240 to £250 to get a decent RX480 8GB or GTX1060 6GB.

The RX470 AIB cards are almost the same price as the AIB RX480 4GB cards and no wonder AMD must be feeling lucky since Nvidia is going to use a GTX1050 3GB,yes,3GB to fight it.

Maybe I should wait for the GTX1060TI and RX485 at this rate next year.

Perhaps,I can overclock this GTX960 a bit.

 

[Piroko]

Criticizing flaws is not the same thing as making unproven predictions about future performance.

So am I not allowed to point out that <random Android manufacturer> has neglected updates for three generations of their phones straight and that this may be applicable to their current flagship phone as well? Am I not allowed to predict that AMD will screw up their next launch in at least one metric based on their PR track line?

I know that I'm being a prick about this, but this forum will get boring very fast if we're not allowed to analyze current trends and extrapolate (make predictions) anymore. Also, the counter-argument is just as much of a prediction due to its time aspect.

On a sidenote, I do agree that the "dropping driver support and intentionally gimping" part is literal FUD. But I don't think you have to be an AMD fan to say this, there are plenty people on Reddit/Neogaf that will say the exact same thing and continue to recommend Nvidia due to other product qualities.

 

[dogen1]

I think its more that they are not intentionally gimping their drivers. They are just not optimizing them for newer games when new cards are out. Hence you begin to lose more and more performance as times goes on. Where as with GCN at least AMD's optimizations still work on older cards for longer periods of time.

Most driver optimizations are compiler improvements that benefit all cards.

 

[boozzer]

FYI guys, there is a great deal on msi 470. you can get it for as cheap as 172$ https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcsa...si_radeon_rx_470_17282_255_5238_savings_3000/

 

[TeknoBug]

RX 470 is roughly the same price as the RX 480 here in Canada, there's zero point in buying one over the RX 480.

 

[MangoX]

Would have been decent at even $180. The GTX 1060 is still a better buy than either 470/480.

 

[jpiniero]

Most driver optimizations are compiler improvements that benefit all cards.

It sure looks like optimizing for Maxwell doesn't help Kepler at all. Maybe it will be different with Pascal since it is so similar to Maxwell.

Trust me, it was pretty shocking how badly Kepler fell off the map.

 

[antihelten]

Do you think that this is a result of NVIDIA intentionally gimping their GPUs? I think NVIDIA's drivers are just more polished out of the gate while AMD's aren't, which means they can gain more performance over time.

Anyway, if NVIDIA is really intentionally crippling older generation cards, then that would be a really poor business move on their part.

Saying that Nvidia cards/drivers are more polished out of the gates, is just a more diplomatic way of saying that they launch with less potential for improvement though.

 

[William Gaatjes]

That is strange, that the rx470 seem to be almost as fast as the rx480 in aots. Aots in these tests is not gpu limited it seems.

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/gpu_displays/amd_radeon_rx480_polaris_8gb_review/9

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/gpu_displays/amd_rx470_-_asus_strix_and_sapphire_nitro_review/7

 

[stormkroe]

I was hoping $149, but for $179 it's still a pretty good performer. I think it still makes sense to grab a RX 480 4GB for a little more.

On another note, I have lot's of respect for Chris Angelini, but Tom's is so hard to read with Ads taking up nearly 50% of screen space... I'm gonna have nightmares about Viper Elite memory

Lol reminds me of Wayne's World when Garth had all that Reebok gear on.

 

[Lepton87]

If you think its bad in the US, over here in Australia:

RX 480 8GB: $420 (local, around $320 USD)
RX 470 4GB: Tentative $380 (local, around $295 USD)
GTX 1060: $450 for aftermarket (local, around $340 USD)

I'm not holding my breath. There is an R9 390 for $270 USD equivalent but the hardware decoder is older. Bleh. GPU makers have gotten greedy and those idiot miners are not helping.

WOW, that's even worse then the prices in the EU. 420$ for the RX480? That's absurd! What do you mean by that local price? The local prices you listed seem to be more in-line with how much such cards should cost and correspond almost perfectly to the prices in Poland.

 

[Lepton87]

Joker Productions is definitely pro-AMD. I remember watching a video in which he compares the GTX 1060 and RX 480 and basically began spewing FUD about how NVIDIA will stop driver support for Pascal down the line and/or intentionally gimp performance in future drivers to make the argument that RX 480 is the better long-term buy.

Do you really think that it is not a better card for the future titles? I personally have an NV card but I'm under no delusion that in 3 years my card will NOT under-perform amd's equivalent that is FURY-X possibly notwithstanding that 25%+ overclock.
ps. sorry for the double post, it was unintentional

 

[ecuador]

WOW, that's even worse then the prices in the EU. 420$ for the RX480? That's absurd! What do you mean by that local price? The local prices you listed seem to be more in-line with how much such cards should cost and correspond almost perfectly to the prices in Poland.

Eh, that's a reading comprehension fail. First of all, you do realize there are dollars other than the US one, right? Canadian, Australian, etc. So he is saying e.g. in Australia it is $420 (local price - Australian dollars, equivalent to around $320 in US dollars).

Also I don't get why anyone thinks the $179 target price (which has naturally gone up due to low availability) makes little sense. The RX 470 is a salvaged part. Unless there is a severe problem with the Polaris 10 manufacturing process (we'd have heard about it I assume) there should be a low availability ratio of RX 470 vs RX 480. Which means, the RX 470 cannot launch at a price that is more desirable than the RX 480, otherwise everybody would be aiming for the RX 470 and be disappointed since it would be permanently out of stock. Hence, instead of the usual getting the extra 10-15% performance of the RX 480 by paying something like 20-25% more in price, you will actually be paying (once the things are in stock and prices stabilize) that same 10-15% extra in price. So there will not be a big reason to try to go one way or the other, whatever is in stock will be fine. And depending on the salvage percentage of the Polaris cores, expect the relative price difference to fluctuate in the future.
For me, what is important, as someone who keeps a video card for a few years, is that both the RX 470 and RX 480 seem to be really competitive with DX 12 and Vulkan games, which means in a couple of years the will seem less dated than other current options. Whether it is the 470 or 480 makes little difference.