Now We All See the Genius of AMD Going Lowend First

[tonyfreak215]

I'm aware of this, but I'm looking at the generation after.

Also, it seems that the average lifespan of a console has been minimised, making an early switch to another CPU/GPU vendor more viable.

And lose backwards compatibility? Wouldn't happen.
If anything, it would be backwards. AMD locked themselves in even more.

 

[crisium]

Sufficient to say, AMD has no worry on the console front for such a long time span as to be not worth discussing. Project Scorpio is nearly a year and a half away from launching and will have AMD. Even if the old 7-8 years is now 3-4 with refreshes, that gives at least 2020 for AMD guaranteed. And refreshes only make it more likely to maintain the same arch.

It is a very rare opinion indeed to say AMD is threatened in the console space. Don't get dug in a hole defending one invalid part of your argument. As you said, Nvidia has plenty of other strengths but AMD = consoles for a while.

 

[swilli89]

Yeah AMD going custom after reference was also genius as it gives them a response to the 1060.

Ref 480 goes first- reviews love it because its leap over what we had

AIB/Ref 1060 comes second- reviews like it but admit 480 is competition in Directx 12

Factory OCed AIB 480 comes - beats 1060 in both Directx 11 and Directx 12 (the latter by a lot). Reviews will probably love them too, AMD gets final word till next generation.

Its looking like this is exactly what will happen. 480 is barely 5-6% behind in most benchmark suites in DX11, and we've seen some evidence AIB 480s will be 20% faster so it will be a pretty easy choice for most once that happens and word gets out.

 

[sontin]

RX 480 is 10% slower than the cheapest GTX1060. Custom cards will cost more and perform in best case the same while using nearly 80W more power.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Custom cards will cost more

We don't know that for certain.

 

[R0H1T]

RX 480 is 10% slower than the cheapest GTX1060. Custom cards will cost more and perform in best case the same while using nearly 80W more power.

They always do, unless you pull a fast one & rebadge stuff as FE; as it's the norm here,so you got any proof ?

 

[garagisti]

What you don't mention is the 480's are reference, and no one's going to buy a reference 480 because cooling/power/etc is rubbish, except if it's a 4GB that unlocks to 8GB. Only the 4GB you show is B grade (probably means it doesn't unlock and someone returned it) so I'd stay clear. Hence really there aren't 480's that anyone wants for sale right now.

The 1060's on the other hand have custom coolers and are really about £235 going in and out of stock continuously.

So the reality is you can buy a 1060 but you can't really buy a 480.

Not that I'd buy either - just too expensive when the second hand market for 970's/3xx cards is so good.

Really? Gibbo must be absolutely insane that he had ordered such a huge pile of 480's? Or, it's just that he has that much demand in UK to satiate. BTW, for GBP 199, you could pre-order Sapphire's Nitro 4gb version from OCUK. Infact Gigabyte's AIB version, is also under GBP 240 and surely more are coming, including Powercolor's Devil.

 

[garagisti]

Not according to Gibbo at ocuk, they still waiting for 5000 reference cards for UK alone.

I dont know how you managed to say we cannot buy 480 when OCUK has more 480 in stock and at lower price than 1060.

That number, 5000, is for Sapphire, one AIB alone. Sure Sapphire is popular, but surely other AIB's must be supplying some cards too.

 

[sontin]

They always do, unless you pull a fast one & rebadge stuff as FE; as it's the norm here,so you got any proof ?

Hardware.fr has used the XFX Black Edition in their GTX1060 Review:
The card uses 60-80W more than the GTX1060 Founders Edition while in average 4% slower.

AIB's only hope is that AMD will reduce the MSRP of the RX 480 so that they can undercut the GTX1060.

 

[poofyhairguy]

AIB's only hope is that AMD will reduce the MSRP for the RX 480 so that they can undercut the GTX1060.

Reduce? $199 is already far below the 1060.

 

[sontin]

So the RX 480 with 8GB is EOL?

 

[lukart]

AMD needs to get the $149 RX 470 out ASAP. This card actually has the potential to be a hit since it's much cheaper than the 480 8GB and 1060 and yet still likely very good for 1080p gaming if it comes close to the R9 290's level of performance.

Maybe you guys didn't notice but AMD is having hard time finding those precious GDDR5 7Gbps chips.
Why do you think they just had 8Gb cards flashed for 4Gb? because they are so nice? No, they just wanted the 199$ PR Spin with very little intention of having many cards for sale. It sounds much better 199$ card than 239$, let's say its almost like Founders edition style move, but more smooth

Now considering that 199$ was a last minute decision, the 470 was meant to be 199$ 4Gb which now is going to be 179$ or just bit under. AMD will give an excuse that it's because it's custom boards, but it's not like that at all, even if AMD wanted they wouldn't have margin to hit the 149$ mark.

Remember this post on the 4th of August.

 

[Erenhardt]

Hardware.fr has used the XFX Black Edition in their GTX1060 Review:
The card uses 60-80W more than the GTX1060 Founders Edition while in average 4% slower.

AIB's only hope is that AMD will reduce the MSRP of the RX 480 so that they can undercut the GTX1060.

Which is still a reference design with increased clocks. Probably throttling to a regular reference card
http://xfxforce.com/en-us/products/amd-radeon-rx-400-series/rx480be-rx-480m8bba6

The proper Black Edition is coming...
http://videocardz.com/62454/xfx-reveals-radeon-rx-480-black-edition-performance

 

[Thala]

Which is still a reference design with increased clocks. Probably throttling to a regular reference card

Indeed. In particular when you consider that reference card shows increased performance by 8% across the board when you remove power limit. So it is probably throttling little less but still below 1266MHz.

 

[tential]

There never was a $200 4gb card from amd it's painfully obvious it's the 8gb card that was meant to be $200 and then amd did some marketing magic and released a small handful of cards at 4gb and then upcharged the original 8gb sku to $240.

 

[AnandThenMan]

Says who?

Says Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.

 

[Yakk]

Really? Gibbo must be absolutely insane that he had ordered such a huge pile of 480's? Or, it's just that he has that much demand in UK to satiate.

UK and many other parts of the world it seems like. I know in Canada the couple retailers I talked with are working hard to get more in stock (and kicking themselves for not ordering more).

 

[Ketchup]

Coming from someone who isn't in the VC&G section much, starting low end looks weak. We already know that AMD can't compete with Intel on the CPU side, and now it looks like they can't compete with Nvidia on the GPU side either.

 

[railven]

Coming from someone who isn't in the VC&G section much, starting low end looks weak. We already know that AMD can't compete with Intel on the CPU side, and now it looks like they can't compete with Nvidia on the GPU side either.

Run away while you still can. That opinion and your signature, you've already been labeled!

 

[Silverforce11]

Coming from someone who isn't in the VC&G section much, starting low end looks weak. We already know that AMD can't compete with Intel on the CPU side, and now it looks like they can't compete with Nvidia on the GPU side either.

Does it look weak if you want to regain marketshare %?

What's weaker, every quarterly report showing 18% vs 82% marketshare for dGPU, or creeping up steadily?

 

[sirmo]

The world doesn't revolve around desktop GPUs. Polaris 11 is the real star in this wave.. Apple OEM contract and all the others is why AMD was smart to start low and mid tier.

It's also pretty telling that based on Steam Survey the 1070 and 1080 have already sold more than all the Fury cards so far. So it's also our own fault for not buying those GPUs.

 

[RussianSensation]

RX 480 is 10% slower than the cheapest GTX1060. Custom cards will cost more and perform in best case the same while using nearly 80W more power.

Highly debatable. Average reviews show a far lower delta and that's taking into account that many of the North American reviews heavily penalized the RX 480 (or gave the 1060 an unfair advantage) by running Doom under OpenGL. Considering RX 480 and 1060 both perform better under Vulkan, all reviews that tested Doom under OpenGL need to be retested and averages recalculated again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V54W4p1mCu4

Arguably the most trusted GPU review site in Europe - Computerbase.de - shows a 6% lead for the 1060 at 1080p/1440p.
https://www.computerbase.de/2016-07...hnitt_benchmarks_in_1920__1080_und_2560__1440

TPU that actually penalized the RX 480 by running Hitman under DX11, didn't use the latest drivers for the RX 480 and included almost no modern DX12/Vulkan games in the review -- essentially setting up a perfect DX11 testing scenario for the 1060. Despite all of that, the 1060 won by just 7.5% at 1080p and 6.4% at 1440p.
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1060/26.html

It's also pretty telling that based on Steam Survey the 1070 and 1080 have already sold more than all the Fury cards so far. So it's also our own fault for not buying those GPUs.

Fury at $549 wasn't worth buying as it was sitting in no man's land against a $650 980Ti that had 20-25% overclocking headroom and 50% bonus VRAM.

What's appalling is seeing the same individuals moan for years how AMD cannot compete (always behind blah blah blah) after they have been recommending/buying NV each and every generation even when the NV cards were overpriced, aged worse or had awful price/performance -- a metric they are too eager to discount since they would rather pay extra to pay for their preferred brand. Objective PC gamers don't assign any extra value for the brand name and fuzzy warn feelings associated with the name Intel/AMD/NV, etc. They buy a GPU as a tool to perform work that outputs entertainment. It's as simple as that. I mean seriously if you happen to have bought GeForce 5 + GeForce 7 + Fermi + Kepler, do you think you are an objective GPU buyer? GTFO! The opinions of these gamers shouldn't even be counted because they are the ones who will never buy AMD because they literally chose to buy garbage instead and support NV. That means AMD has 0 chance of ever converting most of these users but they happen to be the most vocal NV fans on various forums. We aren't just talking 750/750Ti/950/960 vs. 270/270X/280X/380X/290 generation but all the previous generations before that. On this technical forum, people actually paid $350 USD for a GTX570 1.28GB when HD6950 2GB was for sale for $230 and unlocked to a 6970. I know because I distinctly remember buying a GPU and those were exact prices on Newegg USD. I also clearly remember $280-300 HD7950 V2 when GTX670 was $350 and GTX680 2GB was $450; same for $380-450 770 2-4GB when 280X was $300.

This very forum outright dismissed after-market R9 290X $300-325 and $650 R9 295X2 when GTX980 was selling for $550-600. All kinds of excuses were made why a gamer should NOT buy an R9 380X/290/280X but instead buy the garbage 950/960 cards. In fact, we had threads where people outright defended 2GB of VRAM on a $170-200 GPU in 2015-2016!

Fact is the same people on here who defend NV keep buying NV only and will surely not switch to AMD no matter the value, the performance, etc. If they stayed in the NV subsection and let the general VC&G forum remain neutral, it would be great. But instead, they troll every single AMD launch and every AMD thread by blindly recommending NV when their cards are clearly worse.

I mean we have Kepler users on here defending NV when Kepler was the worst NV GPU series since GeForce 7. Did they get mad at NV and reward AMD for having better products from 2012-2014? Nope.

NV just needs to get into more OEM design wins, push for VR and go all out in the Asian/emerging markets where A LOT more gamers buy GPUs than in the US. AMD needs to worry less about the North American and European DIY markets and target the Asian/South American/Russian markets where millions of gamers are buying NV ONLY because for years the logistics/supply in those areas for ATI/AMD cards has been simply awful where most of the time the prices of ATI/AMD cards are so high and the brand perception that highly favours NV ensures the market share is heavily in favour of NV.

According to NV's Investor Day slides, ~70% of their customer base were on pre-Maxwell GPUs. That means the idea that most PC gamers upgrade their GPUs every 1-2 years (often heard on these forums) is pure non-sense/made up facts.

Even further, Canaccord Genuity makes a startling revelation about the global GPU markets and what the average NV gamer owns:

"NVIDIA Corporation

Ramsay also weighed in on NVIDIA in light of the recent strong growth in enterprise and automotive revenue and the launch of Pascal.

According to the analyst, substantial installed base upgrade potential still exists within the gaming market and there is sizable growth to be had in VR. According to Ramsay, “With 80% of the GeForce installed base still not upgraded to VR-capable GPUs and GeForce penetration in emerging markets [and] only 1/10th of developed markets, we believe the NVIDIA gaming franchise is well positioned for sustained strong low-teens growth catalyzed by the launch of Pascal, despite a much improved product portfolio from GPU competitor AMD that is likely to regain discrete GPU share back toward 30% over the next couple years.”
http://www.smarteranalyst.com/2016/07/19/can-accord-tenuity-analyst-bullish/

BOOM! That shows 80% of GeForce users have GPUs below GTX970 (that's NV's minimum VR spec). According to their research, the biggest GPU growth is happening in the emerging markets. This is where AMD needs to go ASAP if it wants to gain as much market share from AMD as possible.

Now we are at a point where all the attention is focused on how GTX1060 is better than the RX 480 but literally 99.99% of people online are ignoring that NV literally took a $129-149 GF106/116 segment GTS450/550Ti and raised its price to $249-299. That's NOT NEWS?

No one is talking about how so many "credible" NA review sites tested Doom under OpenGL when RX 480 and 1060 perform better under Vulkan but 480 beats 1060 by 20-30% under Vulkan. That's NOT NEWS?

NV openly introducing black box source code into GW titles for years now and some reviews like Tom's Hardware are testing 5-6 out of 9 games in their RX 480 review using GW titles. That's reasonable? Ya sure.

The objectivity in the industry is close to none because ad dollars and free review samples/PR with NV drive the business.

 

[sirmo]

Highly debatable. Average reviews show a far lower delta and that's taking into account that many of the North American reviews heavily penalized the RX 480 (or gave the 1060 an unfair advantage) by running Doom under OpenGL. Considering RX 480 and 1060 both perform better under Vulkan, all reviews that tested Doom under OpenGL need to be retested and averages recalculated again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V54W4p1mCu4

Arguably the most trusted GPU review site in Europe - Computerbase.de - shows a 6% lead for the 1060 at 1080p/1440p.
https://www.computerbase.de/2016-07...hnitt_benchmarks_in_1920__1080_und_2560__1440

TPU that actually penalized the RX 480 by running Hitman under DX11, didn't use the latest drivers for the RX 480 and included almost no modern DX12/Vulkan games in the review -- essentially setting up a perfect DX11 testing scenario for the 1060. Despite all of that, the 1060 won by just 7.5% at 1080p and 6.4% at 1440p.
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1060/26.html

AdoredTV goes over all those basically confirming what you're saying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V54W4p1mCu4

 

[Silverforce11]

AdoredTV goes over all those basically confirming what you're saying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V54W4p1mCu4

Well he's spot on. It's inexcusable to include Project Cars in any benchmark, nobody plays it anymore and Forza is the better game, it's free, much more players and also DX12.

But yes, the sin here is Doom OpenGL testing when Vulkan has been thoroughly tested by some of these vary same sites. Going from 20% slower to 20% faster is a huge swing that will affect the final result.

I mean at Computerbase.de's review, the one game that swung the results: Anno, if you remove that, the gap is like 3%.

One game can alter the results and many of these sites choose to go with Doom OpenGL, the result is the 480 looks worse and the 1060 looks better. Whether intentional or not, we don't know.

 

[sirmo]

Well he's spot on. It's inexcusable to include Project Cars in any benchmark, nobody plays it anymore and Forza is the better game, it's free, much more players and also DX12.

But yes, the sin here is Doom OpenGL testing when Vulkan has been thoroughly tested by some of these vary same sites. Going from 20% slower to 20% faster is a huge swing that will affect the final result.

I mean at Computerbase.de's review, the one game that swung the results: Anno, if you remove that, the gap is like 3%.

One game can alter the results and many of these sites choose to go with Doom OpenGL, the result is the 480 looks worse and the 1060 looks better. Whether intentional or not, we don't know.

Another thing most people miss is that the reference 1060 had an 1840Mhz avg. boost in games tested.. while rx480 had an average boost 1197Mhz (due to power throttling).

So say overclocking a 1060 to 2100Mhz would mean a 14% higher clock.

By the same token we know rx480 should be able to hit 1400Mhz on AIB custom cards.. which is a 16%.

So rx480 had a bad reference handicap.. but the end result is AIB vs. AIB rx480 should actually be identical to 1060 in actual performance on DX11 and faster in DX12. I do think rx480 will scale better with GPU clocks.