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

[tonyfreak215]

"Beyond HD Gaming".

At 1440p with MSAA High, SMAA Ultra with Maxed settings?

This is a $239 card, meant for mainstream. So you would have to turn down some settings.

Not to mention this is a worse case scenario.

 

[boozzer]

damn, and the spams starts in this thread. they are not even trying to hide it.

 

[Bacon1]

It can play @ 1440p, but not maxed settings. Hell the 980 TI only gets 57 fps average.

Project cars is the worst case scenario. It plays fine @ 1080p as I showed in my other post.

I've been using my stock 290 @ 2560 x 1600 for years. Just turn down settings from "Ultra" to "High" and you'll be fine.

"Beyond HD Gaming".

Already covered

 

[PeckingOrder]

now, my expectations were pretty grounded, but to see AMD fail on oh so many levels is just inexcusable

a terrible and loud cooler (even worse than what they pulled off with the 290X - I can't believe people actually thought it'd be sufficient and I got called out for saying it wouldn't), a chip that overheats like crazy and allows for no OC room, power efficiency comparable to a GTX 970 on the 28nm process, the PCI-e power draw fiasco that could kill motherboards (what were they thinking, like seriously)

even if the GTX 1060 was gimped like crazy, it's going to sell much more than this card. it can't come soon enough.

and for those calling me an nVidia shill, well, all I'm doing is looking at facts and trying to be as objective as I can. I'm not on nVidia's payroll.

as soon as the GTX 1060 is released, AMD will have only the very low-end/entry market left to them

with this fiasco, I expect Zen to be worse than Sandy Bridge (a 6 year old part by the time Zen is out) and Vega to be an even worse GPU than the GTX 480 ever was, losing even on the performance front

People on actual budgets are still going to go for the 480, they'll sell like hotcakes, and it will become an even better proposition for enthusiasts once the third-party cards are released. Pretty obvious now that the reference cooler is a cheap, low-end blower to increase the margins on a mass market card, i.e. it's not meant for anyone who cares about the cooling solution on their card. Anyone calling this launch a failure is just not worth listening to.

anyone sweeping every blunder that AMD makes under the rug is not worth listening to

 

[ElFenix]

"Beyond HD Gaming".

HD is 1280x720

 

[Thala]

Just read a few reviews.

I see the following conclusions:
1) Power usage is way higher than anticipated
2) GPU seems bandwidth limited with most of the games.
3) Without increasing power target, the GPU does not reach max clocks
4) There seem to be tangible architectural improvement with respect perf/flops and perf/bandwidth but apprently not enough to offset the memory bandwidth deficit

 

[Arachnotronic]

The power consumption of RX 480 is disappointing, but the product is priced appropriately for its level of performance/features.

 

[Sweepr]

Disowning? If it were NVIDIA people (not saying you) would yell "lies!!". They delivered big time on the price front because they couldn't deliver on anything else. It was clear from moment one it was positioned this way because there was no other option. Of course there is nothing wrong with that and customers are all the better for it given the NVIDIA will likely have to cut their prices as well.

Perf/watt is a mere ~45% or so better than Tonga according to TPU.

Note that I'm being nice by ignoring the HBM cards, Fury is almost at Polaris 10 levels. This is a disaster from a technical point of view, one would expect the move to FinFET alone to provide something like this. Nowhere near to what they promised.

 

[DidelisDiskas]

...a terrible and loud cooler (even worse than what they pulled off with the 290X - I can't believe people actually thought it'd be sufficient and I got called out for saying it wouldn't)....

https://youtu.be/-y6Ky_pCawQ?t=476

 

[sontin]

At 1440p with MSAA High, SMAA Ultra with Maxed settings?

This is a $239 card, meant for mainstream. So you would have to turn down some settings.

Not to mention this is a worse case scenario.

It is also a 165W graphics card. Shouldnt it perform like other 165W cards built on FinFet?!


Threadcrapping and trolling are not allowed
Markfw900

 

[StinkyPinky]

Man that noise and power consumption is not good. Performance is solid for the price, but again, nothing that really wants me to suggest this card to anyone. Hopefully it gets better with non-reference coolers.

Underwhelming, something that AMD seems to excel at these days. Sigh.

 

[Thala]

Performance is solid for the price, but again, nothing that really wants me to suggest this card to anyone. Hopefully it gets better with non-reference coolers.

Performance is not only solid but excellent for the price. It's just that power usage is a disaster. Non-reference cooler will help with performance but not with power and it is not performance where RX480 needs help.

 

[SimianR]

I don't think the power usage is a problem, it's a bonus when it's better than the competition, but its not like the power usage of this card makes it hard to recommend, considering it only requires 1 6 pin connector. Hawaii was hard to recommend at times because not everyone could just drop them into a prebuilt oem and have it work without issue. That should not be an issue with the RX 480. At it's price point it's a great card, and right now it doesn't have much competition if any in its price bracket. The 1060 might change that though, depending on how it performs.

 

[Arachnotronic]

Man that noise and power consumption is not good. Performance is solid for the price, but again, nothing that really wants me to suggest this card to anyone. Hopefully it gets better with non-reference coolers.

Underwhelming, something that AMD seems to excel at these days. Sigh.

I think the main unknown when it comes to suggesting this card to others or not is what the competition has in the market in terms of performance/dollar and performance/watt.

With rumors that GTX 1060 will be announced very soon, I would sit tight and make a more informed decision once both IHVs have their products on the market.

 

[escrow4]

Over here a GTX 1070 is $755 local, this is coming out at $440. Inflated launch prices sure but once prices drop here what else is there for half decent 1080p gaming? I was looking at a 380 but this smashes it. Of course the reference models blow compared to the inevitable Sapphire Nitro version but for 1080p this isn't THAT bad. Is everyone expecting a 1070 slayer for $200? And look how gimped the 960 was (and is), do you really think the 1060 will come with a stack of RAM and ROPs for cheap?

 

[R0H1T]

Just read a few reviews.

I see the following conclusions:
1) Power usage is way higher than anticipated
2) GPU seems bandwidth limited with most of the games.
3) Without increasing power target, the GPU does not reach max clocks
4) There seem to be tangible architectural improvement with respect perf/flops and perf/bandwidth but apprently not enough to offset the memory bandwidth deficit

From what I've seen, & some others have pointed out, that increasing the power target can actually decrease max power consumption.

https://www.computerbase.de/2016-06/radeon-rx-480-test/12

My take is that the reference 480's sent for review are probably the worst of the lot, the best going to Apple, AIB's et al. Also there maybe other bottlenecks like mem bandwidth & ROP count, the latter was also holding back Fiji IIRC.

So, if AMD can make a better balanced card there is a chance that (small) Vega will be competitive with the 1080 or even beat it, also not just in perf/$ but other areas of concern as well.

 

[jpiniero]

The 1060 might change that though, depending on how it performs.

That would be really bad for AMD if the 1060 was around the 480 performance wise but didn't require external power. Seems like it's more likely in the 110 range where people thought the 480 would be.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Jumped on a 4GB model to replace a 750 ti I have in a HTPC, but I shied away from an expensive one to replace my 390x. I was hoping it would be a "480 wins at 1080p, 390x wins at 1440P+" situation but every review I read says that the 390x is still a better card. Oh well, I don't really need more than a 390x worth of power right now anyway, I am trying to buy for the next three years which probably means Vega unless the AIB 480s OC to the moon.

 

[tonyfreak215]

It is also a 165W graphics card. Shouldnt it perform like other 165W cards built on FinFet?!

There's a reason why it's almost half of the cost.

Price/Performance/Efficiency

Pick 2.

 

[DooKey]

The power consumption of RX 480 is disappointing, but the product is priced appropriately for its level of performance/features.

Agreed. It's nice to get 390 performance for $200 bucks.

 

[zinfamous]

HD is 1280x720

well, technically...yes. HD starts at 720, where "TrueHD" had been established at 1080 for some time.

then you go to "WQHD" or whatever at 1440/1600 and now UHD/"4K" at 2560

granted, 720 is completely obsolete and really shouldn't be considered these days (though my 720p plasma that I had up until last year--only abandoned because of a long move--was fantastic for its size and still battled out similar 1080p sets).

but as far as naming goes, >DVD/PAL = HD.

 

[Noctifer616]

There's a reason why it's almost half of the cost.

Price/Performance/Efficiency

Pick 2.

Just lower voltage and you get all 3.

 

[Thala]

My take is that the reference 480's sent for review are probably the worst of the lot, the best going to Apple, AIB's et al. Also there maybe other bottlenecks like mem bandwidth & ROP count, the latter was also holding back Fiji IIRC.

Its not the ROPs, it is memory bandwidth. RX480 scales extremely well with memory overclocks while leaving core clocks and thus ROP performance constant.
When ROP limited it would scale badly with bandwidth.

 

[Arachnotronic]

Agreed. It's nice to get 390 performance for $200 bucks.

Yes. I think the disappointment we are seeing across the web is more reflective of unrealistic expectations being set by some rather than the product itself. It's a reasonable product that should make buyers at that price point happy.

 

[tonyfreak215]

Man that noise and power consumption is not good. Performance is solid for the price, but again, nothing that really wants me to suggest this card to anyone. Hopefully it gets better with non-reference coolers.

Underwhelming, something that AMD seems to excel at these days. Sigh.

Aftermarket coolers can help with the power usage. A cooler running chip will leak less.