Polaris Refresh (RX 500 Series) Rumors

[tamz_msc]

Hardly surprising as OCing a typical RX 480 beyond 1400MHz meant that you had to overwrite the power limit in the BIOS anyway. I think this is probably to avoid the overdraw controversy with the addition of the 8-pin and the fact that it typically consumed a bit more than 150W under normal loads.

Polaris 10 is capable of 150W peak power consumption, as evidenced by the WX 7100:

 

[raghu78]

Well guess that explains it. TBP increased to 185w for Rx 580. Thats more than 15% TDP increase compared to 160w for Rx 480. All of this for 8% higher clocks. Rx 580 will barely equal a GTX 1060 while drawing 50% more power. AMD keep repeating the same mistakes over and over. Pushing a chip well past its efficiency point on the voltage/freq curve. We should see reviewers criticize this product for too much power increase for not much perf gain. AMD is their best enemy. They don't need anybody else.

 

[Crumpet]

I'm just going to patiently wait to see how much Nvidia increase the wattage on the 1060 refresh before making any judgments.

 

[beginner99]

Well guess that explains it. TBP increased to 185w for Rx 580. Thats more than 15% TDP increase compared to 160w for Rx 480. All of this for 8% higher clocks. Rx 580 will barely equal a GTX 1060 while drawing 50% more power. AMD keep repeating the same mistakes over and over. Pushing a chip well past its efficiency point on the voltage/freq curve. We should see reviewers criticize this product for too much power increase for not much perf gain. AMD is their best enemy. They don't need anybody else.

Same fail as with R9 390(x). The main problem with RX 480 and now rebranded RX 580 that they still offer worse performance/dollar than deals on the R9 290(x) over 2 years ago. And at the same time only marginally better performance. Power use only really matters for miners. Same can be said about NV line-up so this is a general critic on price/performance development in GPU space in the last couple years.

Now that we have seen Ryzen which seems to be pretty power efficient regardless of it also running above it's efficiency point I wonder why these GPUs suck so bad as the process itself seems to be ok. Are Ryzen CPUs coming from Samsung and polaris from GF? Or shockingly vice-versa? Or is current GCN really that inefficient?

 

[tamz_msc]

Well guess that explains it. TBP increased to 185w for Rx 580. Thats more than 15% TDP increase compared to 160w for Rx 480. All of this for 8% higher clocks. Rx 580 will barely equal a GTX 1060 while drawing 50% more power. AMD keep repeating the same mistakes over and over. Pushing a chip well past its efficiency point on the voltage/freq curve. We should see reviewers criticize this product for too much power increase for not much perf gain. AMD is their best enemy. They don't need anybody else.

The problem with Polaris 10 is the high variability of the silicon. This results it being power limited, while all NVIDIA cards are thermally-limited. We don't know if this updated process solves the high variability or not. If it does, then the increased TDP won't matter too much.

I agree that AMD has historically made reference cards run at higher voltages to get higher clock frequencies which they themselves struggle to maintain.

 

[Head1985]

Same fail as with R9 390(x). The main problem with RX 480 and now rebranded RX 580 that they still offer worse performance/dollar than deals on the R9 290(x) over 2 years ago. And at the same time only marginally better performance. Power use only really matters for miners. Same can be said about NV line-up so this is a general critic on price/performance development in GPU space in the last couple years.

Now that we have seen Ryzen which seems to be pretty power efficient regardless of it also running above it's efficiency point I wonder why these GPUs suck so bad as the process itself seems to be ok. Are Ryzen CPUs coming from Samsung and polaris from GF? Or shockingly vice-versa? Or is current GCN really that inefficient?

GCN is OLD its from fermi days.NV moved away from fermi but AMD stuck with GCN because they dont have money for new architecture.

Edit:ryzen is brand new architecture.Its not only updated bulldozer thats why its power efficient.
AMD really need get away from GCN and made something new from scratch.

Vega will be still updated GCN.

 

[Arachnotronic]

I'm just going to patiently wait to see how much Nvidia increase the wattage on the 1060 refresh before making any judgments.

The only 1060 refresh is the 1060 with 9Gbps memory.

 

[Crumpet]

The only 1060 refresh is the 1060 with 9Gbps memory.

Is that it?

Huh, in which case those new Rx580 8gbs will probably compete pretty well in the midrange bracket.
Nvidia will win in the small form factor market for obvious powerdraw and thermal reasons.

 

[raghu78]

Rx 580 is just horrible in terms of perf/watt , even worse thanRx 480. AMD just cranked up the voltage and the power results prove it. The partner cards are drawing >= 200w. GTX 1060 FE is more than 65% better in terms of perf/watt. The fastest custom Rx 580 is still slower than custom GTX 1060. imo the Rx 580 is a monumental embarassment and proves how far behind AMD Polaris is against Nvidia Pascal. More importantly it proves again that AMD has the wrong perspective when it comes to launching a product. AMD would have been better off aiming to reduce voltage and power while running the same clocks as Rx 480. They would have been appreciated by improving perf/watt and providing a cooler running GPU. Instead you have a hot pile of mess.

https://www.computerbase.de/2017-04/radeon-rx-580-570-test/2/
https://www.computerbase.de/2017-04/radeon-rx-580-570-test/4/

 

[Phynaz]

30w additional power for 2fps.

Same old AMD

 

[raghu78]

Sapphire Nitro+ Rx 580 seems to have a damn good cooler with exceptionally low noise.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/RX_580_Nitro_Plus/29.html
https://www.computerbase.de/2017-04/radeon-rx-580-570-test/3/

 

[PhonakV30]

Rx 580 is just horrible in terms of perf/watt , even worse thanRx 480. AMD just cranked up the voltage and the power results prove it. The partner cards are drawing >= 200w. GTX 1060 FE is more than 65% better in terms of perf/watt. The fastest custom Rx 580 is still slower than custom GTX 1060. imo the Rx 580 is a monumental embarassment and proves how far behind AMD Polaris is against Nvidia Pascal. More importantly it proves again that AMD has the wrong perspective when it comes to launching a product. AMD would have been better off aiming to reduce voltage and power while running the same clocks as Rx 480. They would have been appreciated by improving perf/watt and providing a cooler running GPU. Instead you have a hot pile of mess.

Exactly, What did you expect? Really ? AMD doesn't have any gun other than Polaris.So ? Still, AMD doesn't have enough resource to bring new uArg. All resources went to Ryzen and it took almost 4 years.

 

[tamz_msc]

RX 480 aftermarket cards can draw over 200W as well.

 

[ultimatebob]

30w additional power for 2fps.

Same old AMD

Well, at least they tried to improve the performance somewhat in this generation. There have been a few "releases" where they just rebranded the existing cards and gave them a small price cut.

But, yeah, we're still waiting for Vega based products to come out before the GeForce 1080ti and new Titan cards get some competition.

 

[ultimatebob]

Well guess that explains it. TBP increased to 185w for Rx 580. Thats more than 15% TDP increase compared to 160w for Rx 480. All of this for 8% higher clocks. Rx 580 will barely equal a GTX 1060 while drawing 50% more power. AMD keep repeating the same mistakes over and over. Pushing a chip well past its efficiency point on the voltage/freq curve. We should see reviewers criticize this product for too much power increase for not much perf gain. AMD is their best enemy. They don't need anybody else.

I'd imagine that there are a lot of people out there who have prebuilt desktop systems from the likes or HP or Dell that only have 450W power supplies in them. Those people would probably run into problems if they tried to upgrade to a Rx 580 without upgrading the power supply first, but a GTX 1060 would work in that system without issue.

 

[raghu78]

Pricing is the only good thing about Rx 580. We can see few partner cards at USD 220 - USD 230.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...N=600494828&isNodeId=1&LeftPriceRange=219 230

 

[Bouowmx]

I feel like AMD Radeon RX 570 and 580 is some kind of sick joke. Nicer idea to grab a 480 while possible.

Also, 550 and 560 no show? EDIT: I should read Anandtech's companion to the 570 and 580 review. 550 has MSRP 79 USD: dead on arrival

P.S. Thread title should become "rumors and discussion".

 

[Mopetar]

So much for all the rumors about Polaris 20, etc.

 

[IEC]

While it may be disappointing to some, some small process tweaks were never going to lead to big changes. The big changes will be with Vega, which is going to be the AMD equivalent of nV's Kepler --> Maxwell.

What will lead to a significant boost for the RX580 versus the RX480 is the exact same thing that AMD did with the 390/X versus the 290/X - got rid of the perceptions based on the hot, noisy reference card. There is no reference card for the RX580. Thus you will see graphs like the following in reviews:

Better get those RX480 and RX470 custom cards before stock dries up though. Performance per dollar on those won't be beat for a while.

 

[happy medium]

This sums up the 580 release.

 

[Crumpet]

And here folks we see the difference between an optimist, who i'm sure will get called an AMD fanboy;

While it may be disappointing to some, some small process tweaks were never going to lead to big changes. The big changes will be with Vega, which is going to be the AMD equivalent of nV's Kepler --> Maxwell.

What will lead to a significant boost for the RX580 versus the RX480 is the exact same thing that AMD did with the 390/X versus the 290/X - got rid of the perceptions based on the hot, noisy reference card. There is no reference card for the RX580. Thus you will see graphs like the following in reviews:

Better get those RX480 and RX470 custom cards before stock dries up though. Performance per dollar on those won't be beat for a while.

And a pessimist, who i'm sure will get called an Nvidia fanboy.

This sums up the 580 release.

What we really have, is both of these scenarios. The Rx580 competes with the GTX1060, is a good card for the midrange, and will be great alongside those Ryzen 5's. However it does draw more power than stock Rx480's and until the price of the Rx5 series drops, or the Rx4 series rises, it will be hard to recommend the Rx470/480 over the rx570/580 unless you care about absolute performance within your price range.

Interested to see what the fully unlocked Rx560 does however.

And now we resume the wait for Vega.

 

[nathanddrews]

I'm liking the $79 price of the 550, makes me hopeful that we'll see sales and rebates under $60. Maybe nvidia will unleash a 1040 or something to compete.

 

[IEC]

I'm expecting street prices significantly below MSRP for the RX580 and RX570 within 2-3 months, if not sooner. There just isn't a compelling reason to get them at MSRP, especially with custom-cooled RX480 and RX470 being so inexpensive in the USA.

Just within the past 24 hours, a 8GB RX480 card for $189 after rebate and an 8GB RX470 card for $133 after rebate.

 

[happy medium]

Interested to see what the fully unlocked Rx560 does however.

That will be the best rebrand/refresh, in my opinion. 460 to 560.
Should be 14% faster.

 

[zinfamous]

Rather underwhelming release, but the 570 looks like it will be the Polaris card to get. The gains over the 470 more or less put it above the 480 in performance, no?