Official AMD Polaris Review Thread: Radeon RX 480, RX 470, and RX 460

[sm625]

200$ mainstream card that beats 970 and 390 is trash? ahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Its the fact that it is so close to the 970 in terms of power and performance. The 970 is 28nm and two years old. The 480 should be beating it hands down. It shouldnt be close. The fact that they are so close cannot be spun into anything but a failure. It directly implies that Vega is only going to match 1070 and 1080 by guzzling 60% more power.

On a plus note, given the horrid performance of GF 14nm, I bet AMD is getting these chips for $50 apiece. So we might very well see rapid price drops even before the end of the summer.

 

[geoxile]

I can't say 390 performance was unexpected, but the efficiency is truly disappointing. It seems like they've about caught up to Maxwell but that's not saying much. What happened to the super efficient boards they created for the Fury Nano, just a one off? And it doesn't seem like GCN gen4 changes much of the uarch so I doubt drivers will change much.

Maybe the 850mhz rumors or raised clocks rumors were true and AMD pushed this one out in a jiffy somehow because the efficiency isn't even 2x the 390 in some cases.

 

[HiroThreading]

...are people really freaking out over 40 watts? This must be some kind of joke.

It performs exactly as expected -- roughly 390/GTX 970 levels. It costs $199. People need to take a moment to let that sink in. The fact of the matter is that this card currently has THE BEST perf/$ on the market. Period.

All the people spazzing out: Would you really be throwing confetti and praise on this card if it consumed 110 watts as opposed to 150 watts? Please. 🙄

Christ, I have an Nvidia GPU and even I'm surprised at how disappointed everyone here is.

 

[littleg]

If the AIB cards are going to be the business then they should have launched with them. It's so simple it's just amazing that the AMD marketing department haven't worked it out yet.

They genuinely just have no clue how to market a product.

 

[boozzer]

...are people really freaking out over 40 watts? This must be some kind of joke.

It performs exactly as expected -- roughly 390/GTX 970 levels. It costs $199. People need to take a moment to let that sink in. The fact of the matter is that this card currently has THE BEST perf/$ on the market. Period.

All the people spazzing out: Would you really be throwing confetti and praise on this card if it consumed 110 watts as opposed to 150 watts? Please. 🙄

Christ, I have an Nvidia GPU and even I'm surprised at how disappointed everyone here is.

I find it to be funny 😀

Its the fact that it is so close to the 970 in terms of power and performance. The 970 is 28nm and two years old. The 480 should be beating it hands down. It shouldnt be close. The fact that they are so close cannot be spun into anything but a failure. It directly implies that Vega is only going to match 1070 and 1080 by guzzling 60% more power.

On a plus note, given the horrid performance of GF 14nm, I bet AMD is getting these chips for $50 apiece. So we might very well see rapid price drops even before the end of the summer.

but it has always been that way in the old days. every node shrink, xx60 class beating xx70 or xx80 classes. 480 matching or beating 970 is perfectly normal for a cheaper price tag. it is what I expected. remember trash 960 costing 220$ or more? and the posters recommending it? defending it? where are they now? right here in this very thread trashing 480 🙂

 

[sm625]

All the people spazzing out: Would you really be throwing confetti and praise on this card if it consumed 110 watts as opposed to 150 watts? Please. 🙄

Not even 150, it is 165. Yes I would be throwing confetti, if it was consuming 110W instead of 165W. Because 110W @ 232 implies Vega scaling of 250W @ 512 mm^2 @ around 1.25GHz. Instead, now we're looking at 320W @ 512 mm^2. Which means Vega is going to clock lower and its basically going to be garbage. Vega will barely beat 1080 in performance while consuming 30% more power, and there will be no answer at all to 1080ti. All of this is basically confirmed today.

 

[Mercennarius]

Not even 150, it is 165. Yes I would be throwing confetti, if it was consuming 110W instead of 165W. Because 110W @ 232 implies Vega scaling of 250W @ 512 mm^2 @ around 1.25GHz. Instead, now we're looking at 320W @ 512 mm^2. Which means Vega is going to clock lower and its basically going to be garbage. Vega will barely beat 1080 in performance while consuming 30% more power, and there will be no answer at all to 1080ti. All of this is basically confirmed today.

2017 Is when you will see the Fury replacement which will more than just answer the 1080ti. The 490 expected to release near the end of this year is the 1070 competitor, not the 1080.

 

[ozzy702]

290/290X and 970 are the three cards that really put a damper on the 480 release. It really does appear that GF 14nm blows. Power efficiency should be much higher and really makes me think we'll see poor overclocking headroom with AIB cards and skyrocketing power consumption.

I was hoping to replace my 780 with an AIB 480, and now I'm questioning that decision. Idle power consumption isn't any better on the 480, load power consumption is slightly better, it's slightly faster overall, pretty meh. I was hoping to see more out of a node shrink. NVIDIA worked magic with their node shrink to 16nm with crazy high clocks and decent power efficiency.

 

[SPBHM]

...are people really freaking out over 40 watts? This must be some kind of joke.

It performs exactly as expected -- roughly 390/GTX 970 levels. It costs $199. People need to take a moment to let that sink in. The fact of the matter is that this card currently has THE BEST perf/$ on the market. Period.

All the people spazzing out: Would you really be throwing confetti and praise on this card if it consumed 110 watts as opposed to 150 watts? Please. 🙄

Christ, I have an Nvidia GPU and even I'm surprised at how disappointed everyone here is.

I have to agree that it's not such a big deal, it is a lot more disappointing for Polaris and the GloFo process, but not all that much for the 480X.

it kind o feels like people were more OK with the 390 eating over 100W more than the 970 and performing around the same...

 

[littleg]

2017 Is when you will see the Fury replacement which will more than just answer the 1080ti. The 490 expected to release near the end of this year is the 1070 competitor, not the 1080.

That's not good. That just means they've ceded the high end for the best part of nine months. Mid range for six months.

 

[sm625]

2017 Is when you will see the Fury replacement which will more than just answer the 1080ti.

There cant be an answer to 1080ti. All Nvidia has to do is pull the maximum amount of power and AMD has no answer because Nvidia is obviously 2 years ahead on power efficiency.

 

[HiroThreading]

Not even 150, it is 165. Yes I would be throwing confetti, if it was consuming 110W instead of 165W. Because 110W @ 232 implies Vega scaling of 250W @ 512 mm^2 @ around 1.25GHz. Instead, now we're looking at 320W @ 512 mm^2. Which means Vega is going to clock lower and its basically going to be garbage. Vega will barely beat 1080 in performance while consuming 30% more power, and there will be no answer at all to 1080ti. All of this is basically confirmed today.

So your anger and disappointment toward a $199 video card, which offers the best perf/$ on the market, is based on very rough estimates of a card based on a completely different GPU architecture, featuring a different memory interface and which is to be launched in 2017?

...right...

 

[Mercennarius]

There cant be an answer to 1080ti. All Nvidia has to do is pull the maximum amount of power and AMD has no answer because Nvidia is obviously 2 years ahead on power efficiency.

LOL holy cow your so brainwashed.


Insulting others is not allowed here. This is a technical forum
Markfw900

 

[boozzer]

That's not good. That just means they've ceded the high end for the best part of nine months. Mid range for six months.

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/video-card/#sort=a8&page=1 cheapest 1070 is 450$ 😀 that is not mid range 😀

 

[Mercennarius]

That's not good. That just means they've ceded the high end for the best part of nine months. Mid range for six months.

The 480 solidly bites into the mid range market and there has been no set date for the 490 other than an assumed Q4 2016 release.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Originally Posted by KaRLiToS View Post
Another AMD launch, another fail in my opinion.

Seconded. Whole lot of hype surrounding this launch for nothing. Nothing to see here folks...

I don't agree while the card isn't revolutionary it was never positioned to be that. The 480 is a great card for someone looking to spend $200-$250. This price segment has been ignored for too long it was rapidly becoming if you wanted a decent card you'd either have to buy refurb, last generation or be one of the lucky people to get a discontinued model on the cheap side to stay in this price range.
The 480 seems to be a good solid performing card at 1080 with a good price to accompany it.

 

[boozzer]

I don't agree while the card isn't revolutionary it was never positioned to be that. The 480 is a great card for someone looking to spend $200-$250. This price segment has been ignored for too long it was rapidly becoming if you wanted a decent card you'd either have to buy refurb, last generation or be one of the lucky people to get a discontinued model on the cheap side to stay in this price range.
The 480 seems to be a good solid performing card at 1080 with a good price to accompany it.

exactly, this is a 960/280x/380 replacement :thumbsup:

 

[frozentundra123456]

Yeap, now that 480 doesnt live up to the efficiency claims, we are going back to "power consumption doesn't matter".

 

[96Firebird]

Sadly, you guys only have yourselves to blame for hyping this card to the moon. And anyone who attempts to slow the hype train is labeled an Nvidia fanboy and shill and all that.

You guys should feel ashamed.

 

[Mercennarius]

Yeap, now that 480 doesnt live up to the efficiency claims, we are going back to "power consumption doesn't matter".

What card is as fast as the 480 at $200 and uses less power??? There are zero cards on earth that can out perform it for the same money and less power consumption. That's considered a win.

 

[Headfoot]

I've only read Anandtech's preview for the card, and if you're only willing to spend $200 on a card, it seems like a decent catch. I think the biggest bummer is how some people seemed to hope that the 480 in Crossfire would beat the 1070. To be fair, I haven't seen any reviews with Crossfire numbers (if they even exist), but I'd assume scaling to be around 50-60% on average. If you can keep that scaling factor, you may have a competitive setup depending on the game, but you're spending around the same amount, using more power, and getting close to the same performance. In other words, there's just not much of a benefit.

Now, if you really like Hitman: Absolution, then apparently, the 480 is a winner. 😛

W1zzard at techpowerup has crossfire graphs. 480 crossfire equals the 1070 or even the 1080 at times, when it works. But CF doesn't work all the time, and doesn't scale at all in a lot of newer games.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

W1zzard at techpowerup has crossfire graphs. 480 crossfire equals the 1070 or even the 1080 at times, when it works. But CF doesn't work all the time, and doesn't scale at all in a lot of newer games.

Doesn't DX 12 remove most of the little benefit that SLI/Crossfire had?

 

[boozzer]

What card is as fast as the 480 at $200 and uses less power??? There are zero cards on earth that can out perform it for the same money and less power consumption. That's considered a win.

bro, price doesn't matter, we all should spend 450$ to buy the 1070 😀

 

[Yakk]

Newegg.ca has them in stock for $309.99, which is right at MSRP. Shipping's a little pricy, but the card itself is right at MSRP.

Ahhhhh much better, weren't there yet the last time I checked.

 

[poofyhairguy]

if you have a 390 or better, 480 is not for you. this is for people with a 380 or lower.

I am strongly considering Crossfire is my reasoning, something I don't want to try with the 390x. My thought was maybe get one of these lessor 480s today to play with, then get a AIB one later that has better cooling and let the AIB one be my primary card at that point (so it's overclocked self could do well in non-Crossfire games).

Is the backplate worth ANYTHING? I see a $10 gap for XFX version vs Sapphire and that seems to be the key difference. Is one better for a warranty than the other?