Will the RX 480 really be available on the 29th?

[subtraction]

So what do you think? Will I be able to drive down the street to Frys or Microcenter and pick up a RX 480 on the 29th?

My R9 380x died about 2 months ago and ive been not so patiently waiting for the new cards to get a replacement. Running on integrated graphics is no fun.

Im almost tempted to try and snag a gtx 1070 if they are readily available on the 10th but am really liking that $200-$250 price range a whole lot better.

 

[Adul]

Hard to say at this point, we will know more by the 29th. At least by waiting, if it isn't available that day, supply of the 1070 should be in a better position and you can snag an non Founders Edition version. Isn't your card under warranty, or was it one of those 1 year only warranty brands?

 

[subtraction]

Sapphire was being a pain in the ass. So I just returned it to MicroCenter and got my money back and figured at that point I might as well just wait for the new stuff to come out.

 

[Bacon1]

Thats the announced release date, more info will be coming in the next few weeks according to the computex video.

 

[subtraction]

I know its just been announced and who knows if they'll actually be readily available. I guess I am just more curious in hearing peoples speculations.

 

[Sonikku]

It'll probably be another paper launch knowing these guys.

 

[selni]

Crystal ball says who knows. Available maybe, readily available probably not given likely sales of both lines of new GPUs. Keep in mind the 1070 (particularly non FE) is likely going to be pretty hard to find for a while too...

 

[Magee_MC]

My guess is that it will. Lisa Su said that it will be on the shelves on the 29th, and it would make sense that the reason that they've waited to release it is to build up stocks. Since Polaris 10 is a smaller chip than GP104, they should have better yields and AMD should be able to produce a larger volume. But that's all just speculation and nobody will really know until we see what happens on the 29th.

 

[nitromullet]

My guess is no. I can't remember the last time AMD hard launched anything unless is was a re-badge of an existing card.

7970/7950 - poor initial availability
R9 290/290X - no where near enough cards to meet gamers' demands after the miners bought up all the price gouged cards. These cards were scarce and priced above MSRP for months after launch.
Fury/Fury X - poor initial availability for the Fury X, and a bit of a wait for AIB Fury cards. To make matters worse, the initial batch of Fury X cards shipped with a noisey pump that AMD claimed to have resolved before shipping to retail.

edit: even if there are some cards on the 29th, expect them to sell out. If you think the demand for a $700 GTX 1080 on launch day was strong, imagine how many people will want a $200 RX480!

 

[IllogicalGlory]

It might be ok as it's a small die and regular GDDR5, but you'll have to be vigilant if you want one, probably for a fair amount of time.

 

[Bacon1]

My guess is no. I can't remember the last time AMD hard launched anything unless is was a re-badge of an existing card.

7970/7950 - poor initial availability
R9 290/290X - no where near enough cards to meet gamers' demands after the miners bought up all the price gouged cards. These cards were scarce and priced above MSRP for months after launch.
Fury/Fury X - poor initial availability for the Fury X, and a bit of a wait for AIB Fury cards. To make matters worse, the initial batch of Fury X cards shipped with a noisey pump that AMD claimed to have resolved before shipping to retail.

edit: even if there are some cards on the 29th, expect them to sell out. If you think the demand for a $700 GTX 1080 on launch day was strong, imagine how many people will want a $200 RX480!

All your examples are of high end cards not mid / low range.

290 like you stated was gobbled up because people could make money off it, I'm sure miners will go after 480 as well.

 

[Elixer]

Well...

GLOBALFOUNDRIES’ 14LPP FinFET is ramping with production-ready yields and excellent model-to-hardware correlation at its Fab 8 facility in New York. In January, the early-access version of the technology (14LPE) was successfully qualified for volume production, while achieving yield targets on lead customer products. The performance-enhanced version of the technology (14LPP) was qualified in the third quarter of 2015, with the early ramp occurring in the fourth quarter of 2015 and full-scale production set for 2016.

So, there you have it, from the horse's mouth.
Assuming they didn't run into multiple tapings, then, they should have a good quantity on hand.
What isn't known is, how far up the food chain the RX 480 is.
The NY plant is the one making these chips, and if rumors about the update to PSX & XB1 & NX are true, (and even the rumor of Apple having a large chunk of chips) that is the big unknown. There is no way they would sacrifice any of these customers to appease consumers.

Another unknown is, will they have only the 480, or will they also have 480X, and something mobile?

OP, I would just get a used card to tie yourself over a few weeks and wait for the dust to settle. At the end of the day, you will end up with either a better & cheaper product, or, at least have multiple choices instead of going with the 1070, and regretting it a few weeks later (if the 480 pans out).

 

[topmounter]

I'd say yes, but I'd expect demand will outstrip supply.

 

[Vesku]

I'd say yes, but I'd expect demand will outstrip supply.

My guess as well. Lisa said on shelves but at $199 with low PSU requirement there is going to be high demand.

 

[RussianSensation]

I doubt it will be easy to buy. This card appeals to a wider gaming customer base than 1070/1080, but it also appeals to miners due to its low price and power usage. I just don't see AMD making enough. Between myself and 2 guys I know, we are lined up to buy 18 cards and that's just 3 of us.

Russian stores are hinting no cards in Moscow until August which suggests global availability is going to be strategically assigned due to supply not keeping up with demand.

 

[boozzer]

I doubt it will be easy I buy. This card appeals to a wider customer based than 1070/1080, but it also appeals to miners due to its low price and power usage. I just don't see AMD making enough. Between myself and 2 guys I know, we are lined up to buy 18 cards and that's just 3 of us.

damn it rs, leave some for gamers :\

 

[nitromullet]

All your examples are of high end cards not mid / low range.

That's true, but more importantly they were the first cards of their respective architectures. I assume that AMD and NVIDIA choose which chip/card to launch first because for whatever reason it is the most feasible to manufacture and sell at the time.

 

[subtraction]

I guess Ill just keep hoping to have either an RX 480 or a GTX 1070 by the end of the month. Preferably the former because the price is a lot more attractive and my monitor is only 1920x1080. I want to be able to get back to playing my games, I still havent even got to so much as mess with the newest Dark Souls.

 

[MrTeal]

To give some further context to what Russian said, initial availability of the 480 will be extremely limited barring a major change in the mining scene between now the end of June.

If (and big if) a 480 hashes at the same rate as a 390 (~30MH/s), at the current difficulty it brings in $120 USD/month before power costs. Right now the network is at 3000GH/s, and has been adding about 600-700GH/s per month for the last few months. That's equivalent to ~22,000 290s (or possibly 480's) per month added to the ethereum network, and it's pretty much impossible to find a working 290 today for under $200. If a 480 is available at $200, just deplacing the current network growth that's due to older GCN cards would suck up 20k+ launch units.

I would speculate if the current ethereum price holds that AMD could sell close to 100k units (essentially a doubling of the network) just to miners over the first couple months. That's one of the reason's I'm surprised by their pricing. Essentially they will likely sell out of their initial stock for months whether the 4GB model is $200 or $250. I expect eBay prices above MSRP for the first month.

Edit: As an aside, back when I was big into BTC mining, I ran ~80A@240V worth of gear in my relatively modest setup. I still have all the needed server PSUs and stuff like that kicking around from it. While I'd have to buy some MB/CPU/RAM to flush out systems, as a random guy with some mining equipment I could soak up 100 launch units if it made economic sense to do so.

 

[IEC]

Hopefully availability is good. I'm going to be pretty much off work for a month starting a few days prior to then, so timing is good

 

[trane]

It will. The simple reason is the very aggressive pricing. They wouldn't have priced it $200 otherwise.

If you have short supply, you charge a premium for your products. (Fury) If you have very short supply, you rip off early adopters by overpricing the reference edition. (1080)

 

[maddie]

To give some further context to what Russian said, initial availability of the 480 will be extremely limited barring a major change in the mining scene between now the end of June.

If (and big if) a 480 hashes at the same rate as a 390 (~30MH/s), at the current difficulty it brings in $120 USD/month before power costs. Right now the network is at 3000GH/s, and has been adding about 600-700GH/s per month for the last few months. That's equivalent to ~22,000 290s (or possibly 480's) per month added to the ethereum network, and it's pretty much impossible to find a working 290 today for under $200. If a 480 is available at $200, just deplacing the current network growth that's due to older GCN cards would suck up 20k+ launch units.

I would speculate if the current ethereum price holds that AMD could sell close to 100k units (essentially a doubling of the network) just to miners over the first couple months. That's one of the reason's I'm surprised by their pricing. Essentially they will likely sell out of their initial stock for months whether the 4GB model is $200 or $250. I expect eBay prices above MSRP for the first month.

Edit: As an aside, back when I was big into BTC mining, I ran ~80A@240V worth of gear in my relatively modest setup. I still have all the needed server PSUs and stuff like that kicking around from it. While I'd have to buy some MB/CPU/RAM to flush out systems, as a random guy with some mining equipment I could soak up 100 launch units if it made economic sense to do so.

The market for this class [pricewise] of card is probably around at least 1M /month. 85% of 50M for less than $330.

I would hope AMD is catering for at least several hundred thousand per month sales. This isn't really that much as it's only about less than 1K wafers / 100K cards.

Seriously, 100 launch units. Have some pity.

 

[MrTeal]

The market for this class [pricewise] of card is probably around at least 1M /month. 85% of 50M for less than $330.

I would hope AMD is catering for at least several hundred thousand per month sales. This isn't really that much as it's only about less than 1K wafers / 100K cards.

Seriously, 100 launch units. Have some pity.

I'm not sure who I should have pity on, but as I said, I'm just a random person with a garage. There's a lot of people with a powered garage.

Regardless, I think you're being extremely optimistic. This isn't the PS4, and I would be shocked if they had several hundred thousand units available on launch day. In an environment where every 480 is possibly earning $30/week, miners are incentived to purchase and deploy early. I expect the initial shipments to sell out pretty much immediately, and supply to be short for awhile. You might poo poo mining, but it significantly affected the launch of Hawaii on a mature 28 nm process and the market cap and production rate of Litecoin (the primary driver at the launch of Hawaii) was less than what Ethereum is doing today. A 480 is going to be extremely challenging to find on the 29th of June, if that's when they do launch.

 

[Stuka87]

AMD stated during the unveiling that it will be on shelves June 29th.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

So AMD is going to get boned by miners again? Hard to develop brand loyalty with gamers when miners drive the price of your card through the roof. And then in a few months the used market gets flooded with RX 480 once this mining is unprofitable? Ouch.