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

[antihelten]

It has very variable performance - the Gainward Phantom GTX960 is one of the best GTX960 cards especially with its massive cooler,and in some games the RX460 is still matching it but in others it gets thrashed.

GTAV for one,is very surprising for me.

That is why it's probably better to compare it to the other Polaris cards in the review instead of the Nvidia cards. All of the Polaris cards should vary along the same pattern, and as such the relative performance between these cards is probably a more reliable measure of overall performance.

 

[USER8000]

That is why it's probably better to compare it to the other Polaris cards in the review instead of the Nvidia cards. All of the Polaris cards should vary along the same pattern, and as such the relative performance between these cards is probably a more reliable measure of overall performance.

True,but the RX470 and RX480 might be more bandwidth and ROP constrained - Polaris 11 is not exactly half the size of Polaris 10,and the RX460 is less than half the specs of a RX470 too.

 

[dark zero]

Tomorrow is the day what is true and what is fake.

Only one thing is sure. This card is the perfect match for pre Haswell processors due superior GPU.

 

[IntelUser2000]

How are you so quick to dismiss that Glofo is not to blame. AMD is basically pumping a lot more voltage than necessary as to qualify a lot more dies as working Rx 480. The fact that you can undervolt and get better performance due to reduced clock throttling shows that the process has significant variance which is forcing AMD to use more voltage to qualify the maximum dies possible.

The WHOLE semi industry is struggling to scale to lower process geometry. Naturally, those with less R&D resources are going to struggle more than others. Of course, I can't help but notice the "Robin Hood mentality" for AMD. Root for the little guy, to rise up against all odds.

Few years ago, Intel was touting about being an IDM, that their process team and architecture team can closely collaborate together because they are all under one roof. That was about the 90-65nm generation.

Nowadays, its a requirement. Design for process. Because that's how hard things are. Reaching the limit. So you can't blame on GloFo only, neither AMD only. GloFo is just providing the recipe, AMD is the one that has to gather the recipes to make something useful out of it.

We are always hoping for that "killer app", "breakthrough material"*. Maybe its time to realize that there's a hard limit. We didn't just pick the low hanging fruits anymore, we've almost exhausted all of the tree, exhausting all energy at getting the every little bit that's left.


*Here's something sobering to think about.

Golden age of Dennard(traditional) scaling
Silver age of device architecture(FinFET, GAA FET)
Bronze age of advanced materials

Golden, because the big gains came easy and at low cost
Silver, because we had medium gains with some effort and moderate cost
Bronze, because we have low gains with lot of effort and is very expensive

 

[majord]

https://elchapuzasinformatico.com/2016/08/sapphire-radeon-rx-460-nitro-4-gb-review/5/

http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/asus-radeon-rx-460-strix-gaming-4gb-review,1.html

 

[antihelten]

https://elchapuzasinformatico.com/2016/08/sapphire-radeon-rx-460-nitro-4-gb-review/5/

http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/asus-radeon-rx-460-strix-gaming-4gb-review,1.html

So looking at the Guru3D review, the 460 is roughly 55% faster than a GTX 950 in DX12/Vulkan games and roughly 8% slower in DX11 games*. Relative to the RX 480, the 460 is 52% slower.

The power usage is significantly lower than a 750 Ti (19W lower). Unfortunately Guru3D doesn't have power numbers for the 950. It's worth noting that the power usage numbers are calculated by taking peak consumption and then substracting the idle power usage. As such it may not be all that representative of average gaming usage.

These numbers are of course quite a bit better than the leaked PurePC numbers, but it is worth noting that Guru3D tested a 4GB version versus the 2GB version tested by PurePC. Furthermore PurePC tested their card in silent mode (1100 MHz), whereas Guru3D had theirs running at 1256 MHz (14% higher).

*this doesn't include TW: Warhammer and Alien: Isolation, since those games didn't have numbers for the 950.

 

[AtenRa]

https://elchapuzasinformatico.com/2016/08/sapphire-radeon-rx-460-nitro-4-gb-review/5/

http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/asus-radeon-rx-460-strix-gaming-4gb-review,1.html

DX-12/Vulkan king of perf/$ and perf/watt in its category, adequate for DX-11 at 60fps in the majority of games.

 

[DamZe]

Looking at the Polaris proposition, the RX480 is where it is at, for 240$ it's almost unbeatable, the 470 is somewhat of an anomaly, if it starts competing with the 4GB 480 price point, then that just won't benefit AMD, unless the 4GB 480 cards are going to be released with limited supply. As for the 460, this card is really underwhelming and won't win AMD any new customers coming from NVidia's 750Ti/950.

 

[mohit9206]

So here's what i got from the various RX460 reviews.
The faster,heavily overclocked,oversized 4GB models like Asus Strix are almost as fast as 950 but significantly more expensive than 950 as well at around $150 or more.
The slightly overclocked 2GB models are slightly above 750Ti but again significantly more expensive than 750Ti at around $120 or more.
So basically the same old story. Instead of these cards being $100 for 2gb and $120 for 4gb,they are $120 for 2gb and $150 for 4gb thus providing terrible value for money.
So what's the point of these cards exactly?Why does it exist?

 

[majord]

Some really strange stuff happening with 2GB performance on Computerbase..

The 950 2GB cards aren't taking anywhere near the massive hit to performance with a 2GB framebuffer (i.e compared to their faster 960 counterparts even)

an exmaple: , (but there's others if you look through ) https://www.computerbase.de/2016-08/radeon-rx-460-test/3/#diagramm-f1-2015-1920-1080

probably important to get to the bottom of that before jumping the gun comparing 950 to 460, but it seems the 4GB model at least is very much a 950 competitor, quite a bit faster DX12 on avg , a bit slower in DX11 on avg.. Sometimes not obvious thanks to all the OC models everywhere of both cards :S

 

[Unreal123]

It is just another victim of AMD over hype. I do not know why some people over hype AMD products. Did you see anyone over hyping Titan X pascal? It delivered what it should end of story and over hyping would not improve its performance magically.

 

[Unreal123]

So here's what i got from the various RX460 reviews.
The faster,heavily overclocked,oversized 4GB models like Asus Strix are almost as fast as 950 but significantly more expensive than 950 as well at around $150 or more.
The slightly overclocked 2GB models are slightly above 750Ti but again significantly more expensive than 750Ti at around $120 or more.
So basically the same old story. Instead of these cards being $100 for 2gb and $120 for 4gb,they are $120 for 2gb and $150 for 4gb thus providing terrible value for money.
So what's the point of these cards exactly?Why does it exist?

Funny thing is that it is marketed for MMO games and should be benchmarked on MMO games first. But, it is slow on MMO games compare to GTX 950.

 

[AtenRa]

So here's what i got from the various RX460 reviews.
The faster,heavily overclocked,oversized 4GB models like Asus Strix are almost as fast as 950 but significantly more expensive than 950 as well at around $150 or more.
The slightly overclocked 2GB models are slightly above 750Ti but again significantly more expensive than 750Ti at around $120 or more.
So basically the same old story. Instead of these cards being $100 for 2gb and $120 for 4gb,they are $120 for 2gb and $150 for 4gb thus providing terrible value for money.
So what's the point of these cards exactly?Why does it exist?

The 4GB $150 card is 50% faster in DX-12/Vulkan games than GTX 950, it has the best perf/watt in DX-12/Vulkan in its category. If you only care about old DX-11 games you can buy the cheaper 2GB GTX 750Ti but next year if you will like to play some new DX-12/Vulkan games you will have to spend more for a new GPU again.

 

[SPBHM]

computerbase review is very interesting to look at, because they include the 2GB and 4GB mode (4GB is OC, but you can clearly see by the games not limited by vram that it's really a minimal difference for that reason), the 4GB flies ahead of the 2GB card for a huge margin quite a few games...

if the 4GB models are cheap enough, that's a nice card to have for some 1080P gaming.

 

[Unreal123]

The 4GB $150 card is 50% faster in DX-12/Vulkan games than GTX 950, it has the best perf/watt in DX-12/Vulkan in its category. If you only care about old DX-11 games you can buy the cheaper 2GB GTX 750Ti but next year if you will like to play some new DX-12/Vulkan games you will have to spend more for a new GPU again.

You seem to know much better then AMD and their PR team. So can you tell us that why they market this card on the bases of MMO games ,which are on DX11 or DX9 and to my understanding their is no MMO game yet which use DX12.

 

[mohit9206]

You seem to know much better then AMD and their PR team. So can you tell us that why they market this card on the bases of MMO games ,which are on DX12 and to my understanding their is no MMO game yet which use DX12.

Yeah good point. AMD is marketing RX460 towards games like LOL,DOTA 2,CS:GO,etc but in all these games GTX 950 will always be much faster than RX460.
Another thing is power consumption.RX460 eats upto 90W which is very far off than the AMD's 2.8X perf/watt promise.

 

[antihelten]

Honestly the 460 could end up as a kinda crappy option or a great option, it all comes down to price.

If it is possible to find a 4GB version at the $109 MSRP*, then it is IMHO a very decent option (950 is currently selling for $135-160 on Newegg), but according to Guru3D most models will be selling at around $139, which is pretty meh.

At this point I guess we'll just have to wait and see what becomes available.

*does anyone know what the MSRP for the 2GB version is? $99?

Yeah good point. AMD is marketing RX460 towards games like LOL,DOTA 2,CS:GO,etc but in all these games GTX 950 will always be much faster than RX460.

Yeah the GTX 950 is just so much faster in those games:

 

[AtenRa]

You seem to know much better then AMD and their PR team. So can you tell us that why they market this card on the bases of MMO games ,which are on DX12 and to my understanding their is no MMO game yet which use DX12.

There is no MMO this card cannot play at 60fps 1080p (Including Overwatch), it also has ~50% higher DX-12/Vulkan performance than GTX 950 at lower power consumption.
So AMD gave us a bonus, low budget gamers can enjoy their 60fps 1080p MMOs and on top of that they can also enjoy 2016-2017 DX-12/Vulkan AAA titles at 1080p (+ FreeSync).

 

[AtenRa]

Yeah good point. AMD is marketing RX460 towards games like LOL,DOTA 2,CS:GO,etc but in all these games GTX 950 will always be much faster than RX460.
Another thing is power consumption.RX460 eats upto 90W which is very far off than the AMD's 2.8X perf/watt promise.

Well if you like to play DOTA 2/ LoL etc at 200fps with a 1080p 60hz monitor instead of 160fps (fps numbers for illustration only) and you will never play any of the new DX-12/Vulkan games then you are free to chose the GTX 950

And power consumption is lower than GTX 950.

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/95359-sapphire-radeon-rx-460-nitro-4gb/?page=13

 

[Unreal123]

Well if you like to play DOTA 2/ LoL etc at 200fps with a 1080p 60hz monitor instead of 160fps (fps numbers for illustration only) and you will never play any of the new DX-12/Vulkan games then you are free to chose the GTX 950

That is not the point. The point is that this card fail to its competition on which AMD has marketed for.

 

[antihelten]

That is not the point. The point is that this card fail to its competition on which AMD has marketed for.

The 460 and the 950 are neck and neck (1% difference) in e-sports titles. How in the world is that failing?

 

[AtenRa]

The 460 and the 950 are neck and neck (1% difference) in e-sports titles. How in the world is that failing?

He's trolling for the last 3-4 posts on 2-3 different threads, he even said that 50% faster performance in DX-12/Vulkan over GTX 950 is wrong and rubbish.

 

[Rvenger]

The 460 and the 950 are neck and neck (1% difference) in e-sports titles. How in the world is that failing?

Because it shouldn't be competing with the GTX 950, but the upcoming GTX 1050. Likely the 1050 will be 30% faster. Power consumption is definitely good on Polaris 11 though.

 

[AtenRa]

Because it shouldn't be competing with the GTX 950, but the upcoming GTX 1050. Likely the 1050 will be 30% faster. Power consumption is definitely good on Polaris 11 though.

He never talked about the future released GTX 1050, he's talking about the GTX 950 which in DX-11 are both very close. But when the conversation goes to DX-12/Vulkan, that is rubbish because AMD only advertised the card in 3-4 MMOs/esport games

Im certain when GTX 1050 will be release, all those that doesnt like DX-12/Vulkan benchmarks today, will start to talk about future DX-12 titles

 

[Rvenger]

I see those games listed above should demonstrate the worst case scenario since they are Nvidia optimized as well.