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

[Snarf Snarf]

There does however need to be change in the way graphics cards are reviewed but no sites want to make the effort and they all have their reasons, good and bad.

Cards need to be tested in actual, used setups. No open benches, no 2 min runs. No one games like that. Some older games need to be thrown out. A shift to to DX12/Vulkan needs to be made as that is where the market it at today and is going tomorrow.

The problem with this kind of testing is that it won't allow reviewers to get their content out on day 1 launches of new products. This kind of testing requires swapping lots of parts or having multiple benches that you can run at the same time. Also it's not click bait worthy content. The newest hardware tested with the newest games tends to be what gets people the views regardless of whether half the people reading actually will ever have a set up like the ones being tested.

I'm okay with the generic launch day stuff, but would also love to see more "real life" cases where lots of people are using non-K model CPU's that are several years old. I also agree with no open benches and more than 2 minute runs, or if a 2 minute bench is being used to warm the card up for 15-20 minutes first. This type of content would be more of a one to two week delay but would be well worth the waiting for a lot of gamers out there. Hell I would even donate to a site like this for such great content if it existed.

We can always dream:wub:

 

[RussianSensation]

Does no one see how this is absurd? This is the real world?

So basically if an AMD user is not mining and rocking a freesync monitor, you aren't part of the real world.

This isn't the rest of the world, but AT technical forums. You and many others on here have been ignoring mining for years. At first, the argument could somewhat make sense since during the 2008-early 2009 years, there was no track record or a large community that was willing to help. It's been 8 years now and you and others keep ignoring this.

This is you:

$500 GTX680 vs. $0 7970 CF
$500 GTX780 < $0 7970 CF
$550/$650 GTX980Ti < 2-3 $0 Hawaii cards CF/Tri-Fire
Insert whatever else the next 1080Ti/Titan XP NV card costs < $0 Vega/Navi CF/Tri-Fire

With mining, it's possible to upgrade the entire PC for free, not just the GPU. If $1000-1500 in GPUs is nothing to most people in the world, then why aren't they all gaming on BW-E and 980Ti/1080/Titan Xs?

Here is the kicker, if someone also listened to this forum's advice over the years and bought a good PSU, not a $30-40 junky 450-500W unit, they could have been buying multiple GPUs for mining, multiplying the rewards.

Watch this: $250 x 3 RX 480 (almost all mainstream Z170 boards can support this) = paid off in 4-6 months => Resell the RX 480s and that's enough $ to buy high-end cards for free: NV/AMD doesn't matter. GTX1060? That's just $ wasted down the toilet because it's not tangibly faster than the RX 480 and makes $0 in Windows.

And no, don't say stuff like well if someone can afford to spend $750 on RX 480s, then they are buying a GTX1080. No, they are not. The reason they would be willing to buy RX 480s (or all the previous gen AMD cards) is because those cards are investments that generate cash flow while GTX1080 is just a $600-700 USD money sink. Rinse and repeat for 8-9 years and suddenly the NV upgrade path costs thousands of USD. By the time next gen games come out that actually require a GTX1080/Titan X style card, AMD usually has a card that costs a fraction with 90-95% of the performance.

Let's face reality: the overall gaming experience between AMD and NV cards is largely the same and since GPUs become obsolete so fast, just upgrade to the next generation when more performance is needed. The difference is one upgrade path is either free or is substantially cheaper.

For budget/mainstream PC gamers, RX 480's ability to make $ is a real feature but NV fan club keeps ignoring it since it doesn't fit their agenda.

You're not alone.

That's great. You aren't the target market for RX 480/GTX1060 level cards. The target market for these products building gaming PCs couldn't care less about 6950X and Titan XP.

The problem here is you don't know how to put yourself in other people's shoes. If everyone could afford 6950X and Titan XP, they'd have it.

The PC community which is promoting mining is trying to get fellow PC gamers to save $$$ because why would anyone voluntarily waste $ on a product that's not tangible better when the alternative is just as good but is miles more affordable?

If $30-50 USD a month doesn't matter, then why does 80% of NV's customer base still have GPUs slower than a GTX970, huh?

Are you trying to insinuate that if NV's customer base knew and learned how to make $$$ with an AMD graphics card they wouldn't buy it instead? We aren't talking about GTX980Ti/Titan X/1080 owners here. We are talking about the vast majority of NV's customers whose GPUs are all worse than the RX 480. If someone showed to them that an RX 480 can be had absolutely free or largely subsidized over a period of 4-6 months, I highly doubt they would buy a GTX1060. So it seems it's in your best interest to make sure they don't know, am I right?

Why keep reiterating this same point over and over again. Are you really that big of a luddite?

We all know DX12 and Vulkan is new no one is disputing that.. they are here however, DX11 is legacy, on its way out. If you want a GPU that performs better with old tech get an Nvidia card.

Let's level the playing field.

1. NV lied about 970's VRAM.
2. NV lied about bumpgate
3. NV tries to lock PC gamers into proprietary eco-system thus stopping competition (PhysX, GSync)
4. NV throws older GPUs under the bus (today a $700 780Ti isn't even faster than a $400 R9 290). That's to say nothing of the garbage GeForce 5 and 7 series.
5. NV VRAM gimps its GPUs and charges obscene amounts for VRAM (770 4GB, 780 6GB, 680 4GB, etc.)
6. NV removed voltage control on Kepler because it's somehow better for PC enthusiasts
7. NV tried to lie by claiming notebook dGPU overclocking was a bug.
8. NV lied about Async Compute capability of Maxwell and Pascal.
9. NV lied about DX12 support for Fermi.
10. NV has a history of inferior IQ: Full RGB broken over HDMI for decade(s), inferior AA/AF, horrible 2D up to Fermi, tri-linear/texture filtering cheating with Performance setting in the driver panel that took Computerbase.de and other Euro sites to investigate, etc.

Worst of all, NV has increased prices 50-150% per each tier.

GF106 GTS450 = $129 & GF116 GTX550Ti = $149

Now became $249-299 GP106 GTX1060.

GF104 GTX460 $199-229 & GF114 GTX560/560Ti = $199-249

Now became $399-449 GTX 1070 and $599-699 GTX1080

GF100/110 $349 GTX570 became the $649 GTX980Ti and now sells as a $1200 Titan X. :whiste:

So one would think that any logical NV fan would want as much competition as possible so that we could go back to the old days of price competition. But no, they actually want to pay MORE. They are proud to pay more and it makes them more of a PC Enthusiast. That's the part that's mind blowing.

That's why it's become impossible to have any objective discussions with the NV loyalists. No matter what AMD releases, they will always find some reason to recommend NV. Same reason they are ignoring 4GB RX 480 $199, same reason they have ignored mining for 8 years, same reason they ignore FreeSync on large monitors, same reason they ignored the amazing value of R9 280X/290/390 and kept recommending/pushing the 950/960/970 level cards instead.

Believe it or not they don't believe in the idea of principles. They can't objectively reflect back on what happened with GTX600/700 and 900 series against AMD.

Remember when R9 295X2 and GTX980 sold for almost the same price? Again, they only focus on games where CF doesn't work, and ignore all the games people all over the world play where 980 gets owned.

What does that example prove? It proves that NV loyalists only want to see what they want to see not what's happening in reality.

Notice how NV stated that 70% of its consumer base is on pre-Maxwell GPUs and recently an analyst stated that 80% of NV's customer base is using GPUs slower than a GTX970 (minimum NV VR Spec).

Source:
"With 80% of the GeForce installed base (~80M systems) still not upgraded to VR-capable GPUs "

This means for a fact we know that the VAST majority of NV users keep their GPUs for 3-4 years, not 1-2 years. It also means that because of that, the VAST majority of NV users would benefit greatly from a card that better suited for future DX12/Vulkan games because based on the past they will keep a GTX1060 for 3-4 years, just like they kept the previous NV GPUs for that long.

And yet on this forum we still have the tiny fraction of users who upgrade every 6-12 months trying to disregard these actual facts about upgrade path of most PC gamers. Downplaying DX12/Vulkan is exactly the same as disregarding what 70-80% of NV users actually do when it comes to GPU upgrades --> They keep their cards beyond 2 years.

What does that tell you about these PC gamers who would rather focus on DX11 and not the future next gen APIs? They aren't interested in objectively analyzing and recommending GPUs for the average PC gamer. If the typical PC gamer is buying an RX 480 or a GTX1060, statistically speaking, they will keep their card long enough to play DX12/Vulkan games.

The difference this time is the RX 480 not only has the superior DX12/Vulkan GPU architecture, but it can also cost less in North America.

 

[guachi]

As soon as the RX 480 4GB comes back in stock, it'll be the best value card to recommend as a 1-2 year stop gap. In fact, the RX 470 4GB, if priced at $149-159, could actually become the best budget 1080p gaming card of 2016.

The fact that RX 470 and RX 480 all make $$ monthly is an amazing bonus.

In the real world:

$340 i7 6700K
$0 RX 480 (within 6 months)
$0 FreeSync monitor premium

vs.

$340 i7 6700K
$250 GTX1060
$100-200 GSync premium

It's wise to include total cost like mining (for the time being) and *Sync costs.

Also, if your monitor is 1080 @60Hz, not improbable if you are cost sensitive enough to buy a 470, it doesn't matter if another card can hit 60+fps.

In addition, the cheapness of Freesync is more valuable the lower down the GPU chain you go, especially at 1080. A modestly priced 470 or 480 (or 1060) will likely always be in the *sync zone. For the price of a Gsync monitor I can get a Freesync monitor and a 470 or 480. FREE GPU!

I see no reason for anyone to get a 1060. Ever.

 

[IEC]

Objectively speaking, there are use cases where I would prefer a GTX 1060 to a RX 480 or the 470 launching next week.

1. If I primarily played only Blizzard games, where their game engines tend to play more favorably on nVidia architectures versus AMD GCN * cards
2. If I had a Gsync monitor
3. If I got a good deal on a GTX 1060 (there have been a few good deals after coupon/discount code recently)

Overall, the two cards are generally pretty close, with the 1060 winning some games/benchmarks, and the RX 480 winning others. But DX12/Vulkan and the compute power of the RX 480 indicate there is potentially more untapped potential with the RX 480. That's why a lot of the 80-85% of mainstream gamers chose the RX 480, next to the lower absolute cost of entry (especially considering 4GB RX 480 and Freesync monitors).

 

[Ranulf]

RS: "What does that tell you about these PC gamers who would rather focus on DX11 and not the future next gen APIs?"

To be fair, traditionally we generally haven't seen such a fast transition to a new DX version. Favoring DX11 cards though is last year's argument. The ship has sailed, especially since my R9 290s look to be far better off long term than my 970. But then, I got my 970 with two free games. I'll be somewhat interested in a 1070 when it drops $100 in price.

 

[railven]

You are never going to buy an AMD GPU no matter what. Don't kid anybody.

Do you mean I won't buy another AMD GPU again? Because I've bought a bunch of them since the AMD buyout.

Or are you just taking a swipe at me?

To be honest it does tend to read that way but would need to change "Poster: That changes with DX12/Vulkan." to Poster: That changes with DX12/Vulkan, cuz DX11 is DED!" to be more accurate.

There does however need to be change in the way graphics cards are reviewed but no sites want to make the effort and they all have their reasons, good and bad.

Cards need to be tested in actual, used setups. No open benches, no 2 min runs. No one games like that. Some older games need to be thrown out. A shift to to DX12/Vulkan needs to be made as that is where the market it at today and is going tomorrow.

On the flip side if a reviewer is testing an RX 460/470 and whatever the 1050 and lower end up being I would like to see a test with an i5 2400 or an sandy-haswell i3 and test things like LoL, WoW (in an actually demanding area, even a 5 man or LFR), CS:GO, stuff people actually play and are buying the card for.

Credence needs to be given for the current (mix of dx11/12) future (mostly dx12), and what people actually play in a test setting that actually resembles what people actually have. There's no point in testing crysis 3 and metro for another 5 years.

A person can dream right?

Reviews can use a shot in the arm. But there really is no standardization. There are enough vocal people - start a site up. It's dirt cheap. Build the credibility and go from there.

But the sour grapes reek when a site doesn't cater to the whims of said posters. Again, Trent got destroyed here. He said some unfavorable things. That sort of stopped when he started singing AMD's praise.

This isn't the rest of the world, but AT technical forums.[/IMG]

I've ignored mining? I mined for a few years. I stopped when Bitcoining collapsed. I got my little 290X working on Etherium. Do you have me confused for someone else?

I mean, I openly said mining on my 5870+5830 paid for my first 7970. And I was mining with my two 7970s until I couldn't take the heat (and for gaming the driver issues). You got anything else you want to claim you know about me?

 

[Silverforce11]

Possibly only for DX12/Vulkan games, of which are currently a minority of the catalog of games people will be playing.

Posters are being a tad disingenuous when they keep harping about DX12/Vulkan future potential for a product available now that has to deal with 99% of the games not designed to use its strengths.

It's all good and dandy to "future proof" a purchase, but that is basically the sales slogan AMD has been using for almost a half decade. "Just wait and see."

99% of games on the PC don't even need a fancy GPU. You only need it for the major titles, we've been through this before. You only play a handful yourself per year!

Some sites only test 4-8 games. There's 8 big games coming soon that are DX12, on top of the current 6. -_-

You think it's not going to make a difference when Deus Ex, BF1, Watch Dogs 2 and Civ 6 are included in benchmarks? Come on man, you aren't that dense to realize that if AMD sponsors these and they are included in review sites, it's going to look much better for the RX 480 vs 1060 scenario.

One game, Doom, changed many people's opinions. A few more games like that...

The question on people's minds will be: how many of the major titles releasing in the next 6 months, 1 year, will be DX12/Vulkan vs DX9/11? These are the games that people buy GPUs for. Not 99% of the titles on PC.

 

[bononos]

.......
Let's level the playing field.

1. NV lied about 970's VRAM.
2. NV lied about bumpgate
3. NV tries to lock PC gamers into proprietary eco-system thus stopping competition (PhysX, GSync)
4. NV throws older GPUs under the bus (today a $700 780Ti isn't even faster than a $400 R9 290). That's to say nothing of the garbage GeForce 5 and 7 series.
5. NV VRAM gimps its GPUs and charges obscene amounts for VRAM (770 4GB, 780 6GB, 680 4GB, etc.)
6. NV removed voltage control on Kepler because it's somehow better for PC enthusiasts
7. NV tried to lie by claiming notebook dGPU overclocking was a bug.
8. NV lied about Async Compute capability of Maxwell and Pascal.
9. NV lied about DX12 support for Fermi.
10. NV has a history of inferior IQ: Full RGB broken over HDMI for decade(s), inferior AA/AF, horrible 2D up to Fermi, tri-linear/texture filtering cheating with Performance setting in the driver panel that took Computerbase.de and other Euro sites to investigate, etc.

Worst of all, NV has increased prices 50-150% per each tier.
.......

Is there some scandal about about async compute with Pascal?

 

[JDG1980]

99% of games on the PC don't even need a fancy GPU. You only need it for the major titles, we've been through this before. You only play a handful yourself per year!

Yes, I think this factor is often overlooked. The top two games on Steam, by number of players, are DOTA 2 and CS:GO. Nothing else even comes close. And both of those games can hit a consistent 60 FPS even on Cape Verde (HD 7770). That's a budget card from four years ago.

Looking over the Steam top 100 games list, a majority of titles have GPU requirements so low that almost any decent modern card will suffice. Whether these games use DX11, DX12, or Vulkan is irrelevant. What matters, for most users, is whether a majority of demanding AAA titles will use DX12 or Vulkan going forward. And the answer is that they almost certainly will.

 

[Stuka87]

Is there some scandal about about async compute with Pascal?

Not really a scandal, just that nVidia jumps around the subject by misleading people about preemption, which has nothing to do with async compute. Pascal has no async compute support in hardware, it has to be done in software by context switching.

 

[coercitiv]

.

That moment when you encounter a RussianSensation post, start scrolling through , and realize it feels like the Star Wars opening scene: that imperial destroyer had no end in sight

/ot

 

[Silverforce11]

Reviews can use a shot in the arm. But there really is no standardization. There are enough vocal people - start a site up. It's dirt cheap. Build the credibility and go from there.

But the sour grapes reek when a site doesn't cater to the whims of said posters. Again, Trent got destroyed here. He said some unfavorable things. That sort of stopped when he started singing AMD's praise.

How much more do you want us to bag [H]? I mean we only do it when they release an article full of crap. They have stopped so you want people to continue bashing a dead horse?

Really, your expectations are odd.

He's never sung AMD's praise lately btw. Don't know where you got that from. [H] is still a useless site to judge overall GPU performance because of their 4-5 games tested, period. That will not change until they up their game and expand their suite.

 

[tg2708]

That moment when you encounter a RussianSensation post, start scrolling through , and realize it feels like the Star Wars opening scene: that imperial destroyer had no end in sight

/ot

Lol, his posts are quite insightful. While he always posts a wall of text he is giving good advice to the budget minded gamers. I can also see where he is coming from because some posters are recommending to people that don't upgrade often cards that are too expensive which will lose performance down the line (inevitable) to newer budget cards a year or less from now.

If I'm understanding this correctly one can spend $700 now or go with a bit slower card for 350 and next year (or the year after) get the newer tech with equal performance and even more longevity for another 350. The latter 350 will most certainly close the gap while offering more exciting features so instead of holding onto an expensive old tech you could have spent less and get the newer fancier budget card. FWIW this reasoning is aimed at people that can't buy 700+ cards as they come out each year. Just take a look at the 1060, much lower power consumption, equal or better performance in old and newer titles while costing considerably less than what the 980 launched for.

Edit: If the person decides to upgrade he can sell the first card for a minimal loss (compared to the more expensive card) and use the money to make the cost of the upgrade that much lower.

 

[Silverforce11]

Looks like Powercolor's custom 480 is the winner.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/powercolor_radeon_rx_480_red_devil_review,5.html

Same power usage as reference 480, higher performance, the quietest card Guru3D tested while running at a great temperature.

 

[Maverick177]

Question: What else AMD haven't told us about Polaris 10. I feel like they are still hiding something. What's the secret sauce?

Also, can anyone bring up Polaris 10 full die showing 2306 not being the magic number but 2916 is? Thanks.

 

[mohit9206]

Look at this.AMD's own perf estimations.

First off RX470.I'll take the lowest gain as the truth.So 50% faster than R9 270.So about 380X perf.People expecting more will be disappointed again.Not that i'm complaining about 380X perf at $150.So its all good.Should be a great card.

Next RX 460.

1.2X perf of R7 260X.Means slightly slower than R7 370 and MUCH slower than GTX950.Pretty bad value for money as 950 already available in US for as low as $110.
So RX470 great card for the price but RX460 fails to provide great value.

 

[boozzer]

I will not take lowest, but I will take warhammer into account over all others. this new game in the total war series is very well made.

 

[Silverforce11]

Look at this.AMD's own perf estimations.

It's not hard to figure where the 470 will land in performance. It's only a small cut from the 480. Like the 7950 vs 7970, 290 vs 290X. The gap will be very small. Probably 10%. A good price will be $169. I don't think they can price it $149, it would instantly neuter 480 sales.

 

[sze5003]

That moment when you encounter a RussianSensation post, start scrolling through , and realize it feels like the Star Wars opening scene: that imperial destroyer had no end in sight

/ot

Ha, try it on a phone. His posts are useful, that's my opinion. For people that don't sit here and deconstruct amd/nvidia architecture with a comb and debate what is/isn't better, he offers an advice synopsis of each brand.

This sort of info and comparison is useful for people that don't follow the tech except for when new stuff launches and want an idea of how to upgrade.

 

[zinfamous]

Question: What else AMD haven't told us about Polaris 10. I feel like they are still hiding something. What's the secret sauce?

Also, can anyone bring up Polaris 10 full die showing 2306 not being the magic number but 2916 is? Thanks.

I believe AMD confirmed recently that 2306 is the full Polaris 10 die. This tidbit has its own thread, iirc.

There isn't much hiding going on, save for the revisions that will probably be out some time Q1 2017--the 485, 475 and such. No details on what features will be different in these, but I'm guessing that these chips will be "more optimized" whatever that means, and might have gDDR5x (my guess).

I'm sitting patiently, waiting to see what 485 and 490/95 offer.

 

[coercitiv]

Ha, try it on a phone. His posts are useful, that's my opinion.

I appreciate his posts as well, just thought I'd share that one impression I got this morning

 

[felix5]

So will these be available on Canadian sites today? (NewEgg.ca, NCIX.com, Amazon.ca, etc). I woke up early just to buy it. If not I am going back to bed.

 

[zinfamous]

So will these be available on Canadian sites today? (NewEgg.ca, NCIX.com, Amazon.ca, etc). I woke up early just to buy it. If not I am going back to bed.

supposedly? Who knows, really. They will likely sell out in minutes, though. So you probably have to monitor it closely. But Amazon (at least in US) had the Nitro on presale, so I would assume that stock is probably sold out already.

Would be interesting if nVidia has a nice stock of various 1060s magically appearing on these sites at the same time, as plenty of AIB 480 buyers would probably just buy those if available and they can't find the 480 they were aiming for.

 

[felix5]

Looks like it's not coming out today. I'm going back to sleep.

 

[Yakk]

supposedly? Who knows, really. They will likely sell out in minutes, though. So you probably have to monitor it closely. But Amazon (at least in US) had the Nitro on presale, so I would assume that stock is probably sold out already.

Would be interesting if nVidia has a nice stock of various 1060s magically appearing on these sites at the same time, as plenty of AIB 480 buyers would probably just buy those if available and they can't find the 480 they were aiming for.

FYI, there's a good amount of stock of 1060s in most Canadian retailers, they just aren't moving much. It's the demand for 480s that is through the roof.