AMD RX 480 Offers Best-in-Class Performance For $199/$239 99
Reader Vigile writes: It's been a terribly long news cycle, but today is finally the day reviews and sales start of the new AMD Radeon RX 480 graphics card based on the company's latest Polaris architecture and built on 14nm FinFET process technology. With a starting price tag of $199 for the 4GB model and $239 for the 8GB, the RX 480 has some interesting performance characteristics. Compared to the GeForce GTX 970, currently selling for around $280, the RX 480 performs +/- 5-10% in DX11 games but PC Perspective found that the RX 480 was as much as 40% faster in DX12 titles like Gears of War, Hitman and Rise of the Tomb Raider. Compared to previous AMD products, the RX 480 is as fast as a Radeon R9 390 but uses just 150 watts compared to 275 watts for the previous generation. Chances are that NVIDIA will have a competing product based on Pascal available sometime in July, so AMD's advantage may be short-lived; but in the meantime, the Radeon RX 480 is clearly the best GPU for $200.AnandTech has more details.
Re:How much was this advertisement? (Score:5, Insightful)
So a tech site posts an article with a review about a new piece of tech and it's an ad? As a gamer I find it personally quite interesting to see that AMD has managed to top my current card for significantly less money.
People, reviews about tech products on a tech centered site != ads. If they post an 'article' about budweiser beating out coors in a taste test on this site, that's an ad.
Re:How much was this advertisement? (Score:4, Insightful)
The only way you'd need to replace the card in 1-2 years is if you're pushing out 4k. More like 4-5 for 1080p As 66+% of people running games on Steam are still at 1080p with one or two monitors, with the vast majority of the rest being below that that it is a perfect price point to sell a shitload of cards.
Re:How much was this advertisement? (Score:5, Informative)
So, where you can find a 1070 for $300? The cheapest one in Newegg is $450, or 2 times the MSRP of the RX480... and thats almost one month after launch.
Not to mention that the 480 is NOT in the same price class as the 970, as the name implies, is the successor of the 380/380X and goes directly against the 960 and 1060. The fact that performance-wise is between the 970 and 980 (or 390/390X) at the same MRSP as the 380 is great news for everyone, specially for NVidia users that right now are being gouged left and right with those overinflated prices and the FE scam.
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Not to mention that the 480 is NOT in the same price class as the 970
The 8GB 480 is $239, while the 970 starts at $259. I'd say that's the same price class.
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Yes, same price class. But that's only because of the recent price reduction of the 970 to clear them out before the 1060 (which will probably offer comparable performance) is released. And that $259 card doesn't have 8GB of RAM; it's more directly comparable to the $199 version of AMD's card.
So, I agree with the posters who say that it is great news, and it is certainly relevant to the Slashdot audience. Is it the right card for you, or would you do better to buy a 1070 (if you can get one), wait for the
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So a tech site posts an article with a review about a new piece of tech and it's an ad?
No, but when they're obviously cherry picking facts to suit a pro-AMD narrative, people are justified in calling it an ad. I'm not even a video card enthusiast (I'm rockin' a Mac mini as my primary machine, so I have no horse in this race), but these immediately stood out as red flags to me:
- Boasting about just-launched products beating a two year-old products (GTX 970 was launched in September 2014) without making it clear that that's what the comparison was.
- Conveniently forgetting to mention that the c
Re:How much was this advertisement? (Score:4, Interesting)
- Carefully selecting price points that let them pretend there's no elephant in the room: that AMD lacks a proper response to the 1070 and 1080.
I genuinely want AMD to do well, since I want a competitive ecosystem where they're all being pushed to do better, but this whole summary is so clearly one-sided that it's no surprise people view it as an ad.
Funny - the cheapest 1070 is $120 more than the AMD card. That's over 50% more cost for a modest (20% ish) performance improvement. Considering that less than 5% (wheee lots of percentages here) of gamers buy a card that costs over 200 bucks (source: steam) I think you are being dishonest. Nvidia is the one that doesn't have a product to compare.
For someone who isn't a 'video card enthusiast' you sure did regurgitate the entirety of the Nvidia talking points against the competition though!
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- Carefully selecting price points that let them pretend there's no elephant in the room: that AMD lacks a proper response to the 1070 and 1080.
I genuinely want AMD to do well, since I want a competitive ecosystem where they're all being pushed to do better, but this whole summary is so clearly one-sided that it's no surprise people view it as an ad.
Funny - the cheapest 1070 is $120 more than the AMD card.
And you can not buy it at that price. GTX 1070s are missing in action, especially at official prices. If you want a 1070 you either need to wait for months, or pay an additional 50% markup on eBay or Amazon.
Re:How much was this advertisement? (Score:5, Insightful)
- Conveniently forgetting to mention that the competing product is already obsolete (the GTX 1070 launched three weeks ago).
- Carefully selecting price points that let them pretend there's no elephant in the room: that AMD lacks a proper response to the 1070 and 1080.
At $379/$449 it's a big step up in price from the $329 the GTX 970 launched at and way, way beyond the $199/$239 that AMD is charging. The GTX 970 now retails for ~$250 so in one sentence you lambast them for comparing to the closest competitor in price and then in the next sentence you complain about not comparing to a card that you yourself admit belongs in a completely different league? You're trolling for team green, comparing this card to the 1070 would be ridiculous. And if you wonder why they don't give hints or spoilers about the GTX 1060, it's because they're under NDA and that's exactly the sort of thing that's supposed to prevent. Until the NDA lifts it doesn't just have unknown price and performance, officially it doesn't exist. It's a review of the RX 480, not all the cards AMD chose not to make. Those who consider buying this card doesn't give a rat's ass about whether AMD has a 1070/1080 competitor or not, it's off-topic.
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My post was intended to fill in some gaps in the summary. If you read it as a standalone piece, you're quite right that it's just pro-NVIDIA trolling. And that's not something I want, because NVIDIA absolutely has some glaring holes in their lineup too. Not to mention that I'm not a fan of the price hikes with the 1000 series. It feels like they're coasting because they know they're ahead, whereas AMD really is making some significant strides, but is unfortunately also having to play catch up.
But I feel as
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Your comment is almost equally as misinformed so should we assume that it's an Nvidia ad?
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The 1070 costs ~$200 more an by your logic it's also obsolete because you could buy a 1080 instead
If that's your understanding of my logic, then it appears I did a very poor job of explaining myself.
By your understanding of my logic, the Mac Pro renders the Mac mini obsolete, but that's not the case, of course, because they're aimed at different price points in the market, in much the same way that the GTX 960, 970, and 980 are aimed at different types of users at different price points. The latter two have been obsolesced by the launch of their successors, the 1070 and 1080, respectively. The 960, howe
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The 970 is the only Nvidia card at the 480s price point
Which is true if you ignore the 960. If the 480 is a Mustang, the 970 wouldnt be a Camaro: it'd be a BMW from a few years back. The 960 is the Camaro, and, as you'd expect, the 480 blows it out of the water, but at least it's a like-to-like comparison between two current models, given that NVIDIA hasn't updated that part of their lineup yet.
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I presume you missed my other posts in this thread where I praised AMD for beating NVIDIA at this price point and wholeheartedly agreed that NVIDIA has a gaping hole in their product line right now?
You're welcome to read a fanboy motivation into what I wrote, but you'd be incorrect in doing so. I have no interest in the 1000 series so far (they fall on the wrong side of the "bang for the buck" proposition for me), and while the 970 is likely what I would have gone for last year, I agree that it's beginning
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I found the review quite reasonable overall.
Boasting about just-launched products beating a two year-old products (GTX 970 was launched in September 2014)
The GTX 970 was one of the price/performance darlings of the market prior to the RX 480 launch. For people who were looking at something in that performance bracket, the introduction of the RX 480 is huge. It offers comparable performance for 2/3 the cost (until nVidia adjusts their MSRPs, anyway).
The GTX 970 is a previous generation card from a higher performance segment than the RX 480, and comparisons like that are fairly common.
Trying to leave the impression that NVIDIA doesn't have a Pascal-based product on the market
Not sure where you're getting th
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As long as ATI drivers continue to be sketchy, my first choice will be Nvidia.
Well, that's the question, isn't it? I just watched a video on this card and I find the price-performance proposition promising, but I'm also extremely leery of any video card that comes from AMD. The system I'm typing this on right now has an octocore AMD processor and an nVidia 750 Ti, and it could use some more GPU, so I am actually in the market for a new card. I'm more tempted to just sit back and wait to see if nVidia offers a further price drop or a new card, though, for just the reason you describe.
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Not really, no. I'm sure they work quite good in benchmarks though.
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there's no reason to think that this will be significantly better than an nVidia GTX 970, which you can get now for just ~$50 more. or you can wait for the GTX 1070 to be commonly available and then either get that (~$380), or a further-discounted GTX 970. if you suspect AMD will suck, why risk it? wait a month or two, read some real-world reviews, and then buy. the market is only going to get better for this range of card.
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It's amusing to see the effect NVIDIA's continuous FUD campaign for the past decade has managed to achieve.
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It's amusing to see the effect NVIDIA's continuous FUD campaign for the past decade has managed to achieve.
I've been watching ATI drivers blow up Windows since the Mach32 in Windows 3.1, and as stated, my own personal ongoing experience is that they can't code their way out of a nutsack. I logged in and associated this anecdotal information with a login, which is more than you've done, shill.
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Like the NV drivers in that time that literally bricked their own GPU's? How about the drivers that deactivated heat protections? How about the driver that turned off the fans?
Yeah, and I had the G71 die bonding problem too. nVidia ain't perfect. They're just less imperfect than AMD.
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I'm not "rooting" for AMD to fail, or for nvidia to "rule", because I'd much rather have good stiff competition to keep prices low.. but I've never had a problem with nvidia outside of compatibility with an older motherboard; AMD has given me nothing but prob
Re:Raw power was never the issue (Score:5, Informative)
As long as ATI drivers continue to be sketchy, my first choice will be Nvidia.
Well, that's the question, isn't it? ...
I don't see reviewers complaining about driver issues or rendering artifacts, I do see them commenting on the high performance for low price.
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yup, the GTX 970 is already down to $270 on amazon. it will probably be down to $240 within a month or two.
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nVidia offers plenty of support for open source systems. their support just happens to take the form of a proprietary driver for their already proprietary card, to which i can only say "who gives a shit?"
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When Snowden finally gets his fair trial (ha ha ha ha ha ha), the first witness called by the defense will be one Doctor Puffystein [openbsd.org].
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Blobs can be 'de-supported' by vendors at any time.
That's okay; it works fine as is. I can use an old kernel if I have to. It's well worth it for the CUDA libraries and performance. The rest of the computer is mostly there to feed the GPU, honestly.
Blobs cannot be audited.
That's not really true. You can rev eng the shit out of them, as the accompanying folk song points out. The card itself is a much harder target, and that's true whether or not the glorified API is open source or not.
Blobs are specific to a
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it's open source; why don't you fix the kernel "bug" (possibly intentionally ideological crippling) yourself? that's the strength of it, right?
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That article was a piece of shit. Go to the source and look at the original reviews. They're actually quite positive. There's a wide gap between genuine "rubbish" and "not as fast as Windows".
Even on Linux, those games make you understand why people would bother with PC gaming.
Re: Raw power was never the issue (Score:2)
I keep reading this, but have experienced a problem with ATI drivers only twice: radeon hd 5770 with fallout 3, which was quickly fixed, and early rage fury drivers, but this was around 1999.
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I'm happy that your experience is good with AMD drivers. Let me tell you mine. When I upgraded by Phenom II x3 / 2 Crossfired 7790 system to Windows 10, I decided to play some older games. First, I ran 3DMark, and couldn't do it with Crossfire enabled. Mass Efffect 1 kept crashing on me, and when it did crash, I could not access the Task Manager to close it. It was as if some overlay was stealing focus. I had to log off to fix things. Mass Effect 2 crashed on me. I can't remember what else right now.
So I ta
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Rx480 (Score:5, Funny)
Vigile Clearly Works for pcper.com (Score:4, Informative)
A quick glance at the Vigile's submission history shows that every one of his or her post links to pcper.com. Never heard of the site, and definitely not going to check them out now. If you're going to submit posts like this, at least making your conflict of interest be clear.
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A quick glance at the Vigile's submission history shows that every one of his or her post links to pcper.com. Never heard of the site, and definitely not going to check them out now. If you're going to submit posts like this, at least making your conflict of interest be clear.
Well before this it used to be hothardware.com's shill, so at least they're doing some variation.
Re:Vigile Clearly Works for pcper.com (Score:5, Informative)
So?
It's just another hardware review site and it wrote about a topic of interest to the /. crowd.
I'd like to remind you that /. is a news aggregator. That means someone submits stories. Whether we accept them is ultimately up to the firehose and the people here.
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I'm not sure what the point is you're trying to make. People promote the blogs they work for, big deal. MojoKid [slashdot.org] works for Hot Hardware and itwbennett [slashdot.org] works for IT World/CSOO Online, and we see gobs of posts from them, sometimes once or twice a day.
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If you have never heard of PCPer than you shouldn't be reading articles about enthusiast PC hardware components at all. You will find MacRumors or 9to5mac.com more to your liking. Don't bother watching This Week In Computer Hardware on Twit.tv either, you will see some guy named Ryan Shrout that you never heard of before and remain befuddled by the audacity of Twit to have someone host a show you don't know personally.
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Wow. Seriously?
Which reviews are you reading (I have read multiple from various sites).
All have said the same thing:
- Faster then a 960 by quite a margin.
- Faster and slower then a 970. (+/- 10% in either direction)
- $150+, for a slower gtx 960 2GB card (3gb seems to be the sweet spot for most consumption of games)
- 1440p is acceptable.. but not great (but a 970 is only +/- 1-2fps off, so not much)
Basically it's GTX 970 performance (and lower power consumption, for those who care) for $60 less.
It's no GTX 1
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UK will totally regret it when EU becomes a full fledged country with an unified army and start to attack all the countries they want included in.
Going to let this one simmer (Score:1)
Dunno Why (Score:1)
Dunno why everyone is bitching about this being an "ad."
You've got 2 choices when it comes to discrete video cards. You know, that component you're using to read what I'm writing. (This is /. apologies to anyone who is reading this without a gpu.)
One of those companies just released a new architecture, with a 2 generation die shrink. Some douche links to his review and the editors link in anandtech. And you morons bitch about it being an ad. What would you rather have on this site? More SJW articles about w
Best business move AMD has done in a long time (Score:5, Insightful)
It goes toe to toe with the GTX970 for $199/239, with the lesser card already having 0.5GB more memory in practice. If the GTX1060 pricing rumors of $249/299 for the 3/6GB version are true, they'll enjoy a substantial time alone at the $200 price point and that $50 difference really matters. They'll move a lot of "boring" value cards, it's maybe not exciting for enthusiasts that want to see them push the envelope, but this looks like the best business move AMD has done in a long time.
I don't think their technology quite competes with Pascal but the leap from their last generation to this is huge, it's around Maxwell 2 class efficiency. Still it's in the realm of performance where I think nVidia will cash in on their advantage rather than try for the killing blow by reducing prices.
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It seems the words "often" and "fast" don't mean what you think they do...
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A quick perusal of the benchmark sites seems to show that this varies by benchmark and game. So it may ultimately come down to which particular games you own.
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Strange power consumption numbers (Score:2)
I am all for AMD making a comeback (would especially like one in CPUs though) in order to drive competition, but this particular product seems a bit weaker than I'd expect in power consumption, which worries me. At 150W it has about the same power consumption as the much larger and faster nVidia GTX 1070. Unless GloFo's 14nm node has some sort of disadvantage (over the 16nm process nVidia is using), it would seem that AMD's design is not as good, which might mean they will not be competitive enough this rou
RX 480 draws more power than PCIe spec (Score:3, Informative)
Tom's Hardware tested the power consumption [tomshardware.com] of AMD's reference card and saw that could draw more power from both the motherboard and the 6-pin power connector than the PCI Express specification allows for either of them.
I would wait a while before this issue is resolved. Maybe the issue could be fixed with a driver update, in which case only benchmarks done after the driver update would matter.
Maybe a non-reference card will be released with an 8-pin power connector and better power distribution.
Hell yeah (Score:2, Interesting)
These cards seem to work great with open source drivers on Linux. Check out the comparison between open source driver and Pro driver here: http://openbenchmarking.org/prospect/1606281-HA-RX480LINU80/54caad64cb9009a3376fea79c64da84e01d7e108
And two of these will blow away GTX 1080 at 1/4 of the price! And for 1/2 of the price of 1070!
On top of that, with the two cards, I can setup KVM with VGA passthrough and play games in KVM without ever rebooting into windows!
I am sick of having to install the damned propr
Best fanless video card? (Score:3)
OK, I'm off-topic, but what's the best fanless video card? I want to run a 4k screen on my Linux box but don't care much about performance (no games) and want my machine to be quiet/silent.
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Oh, and I want to drive the 4k screen at 60Hz, so displayport is a requirement.
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With a new CPU? It's inbuilt GPU. If you're doing no gaming whatsoever with browsing as your most graphics intensive application it's the same as running four 1080P screens, not really a big deal by itself.
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Yes but motherboards with the Displayport out are a rarity, especially with AMD motherboards for APU.
Low end graphics cards get no love either : the semi-current AMD low end is R7 240, and has no Displayport. It's not even low end enough for fanless. You could get an R7 360 : it's way overpowered (similar to Xbox One) but with a big fan and modern power manamagement it would be quiet ; it supports the "AMDGPU" driver on Ubuntu 16 and such. It has the same tech revision as an APU like AMD A8-7600.
There is nv
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Newegg lists at least 77 motherboards that support displayport and Intel 6th generation (skylake) CPUs that will do 4K. I beleive 5th generation Broadwell-H CPUs will also do 4K over displayport. Why are you stuck on just using AMD motherboards with APUs?
uhhh... (Score:2)
what nonsense is this? All reviews I saw is that the RX480 doesn't even outperform the 2 year old 970 in most games, it does have a slight increase on DX12 games, but marginal.. The RX480 cannot make it's promises true in real benchmarks (as in actual games etc).. Yes it's cheaper than the 970, but the 970 is a little bit faster on a lot of games. And especially on powerconsumption the RX480 is a real let down, for a GPU which was manufactured on a much smaller size..
I certainly would wait before buying thi
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for a GPU which was manufactured on a much smaller size..
Unfortunately, we don't live in that kind of technology advancement period anymore. You can't hope for the kind of efficiency jumps that we had in the past.