INSANELY LOW PRICE on RX 480 is now rumored in a "mainstream" publication. Price too low to repeat and retain credibility (assuming an AMD fan reporting on AMD has any credibility)

Official price is rumored to be released in a few hours -- and put rumors to rest -- if the rumor is true -- which rumor? -- I'm confused

Is the RX 480 competing with the 1080?

Hoping for some good news from those rumours.

No, according to rumors, not close. Based on rumors, one would have to CrossFire two RX 480 to get nearly one 1080.

The goal with the first AMD cards is full performance on 1440p (2K) monitors (like my 32 inch center monitor) -- at relatively low cost. However, the 1080 seems aimed at three 2K monitors (at least I would use it that way) -- maximum performance at maximum price.

Watching presentation now:

RX 480 $500 card performance (they say) in a $199 card -- the INSANE price rumored above was true.

Kept watching:

Now done with Polaris presentation. Of course, being an AMD presentation, its very "positive" about AMD vs Nvidia 1080. They indicate features in upcoming popular games that 1080 does not support among other things -- like Crossfired RX480 beats 1080 in Doom 4 at much less cost.

So, details will wait until June 29 unless there is an earlier leak.

What's the definition of 'full performance'? I'm guessing workable frame rates or possibly a 60 fps target as it depends on the context - it doesn't sound like a 90fps frame rate will be possible at 1440p which is the target frame rate for VR.

Those are AMD's words. We'll see. Ostensibly on June 29.

I added a few words to my above post. Regarding the ongoing presentation.

They really stressed that AMD wanted to take a new direction to attract 10's of millions of folks who could not afford $700 cards. With the first Polaris models, they wanted to produce maximum performance possible at the low price point most buyers were willing to pay -- under $300. So, they aimed everything they did at the under $300 market. They claim they hit it. Sounded good. We'll see on June 29.

My internet is out here for a few days, but I watched the firzt 10 or minutes while in wifi hot spot, will watch the rest tomorrow

Summary based on last night's presentation and after reading some articles this morning (that had more info from the presentation):

The only "new news" (to me) last night was the confirmed Price -- and a confirmation by AMD management that the Polaris goal was "Price/Performance" leadership. Other items confirmed some of the rumors we've posted above.

AMD RX 480 pricing $199 (4GB) and $229 (8GB).

Performance rumors indicate approximately R9 390 performance (today, R9 390 roughly $300). Also supports latest new gaming features (that 28nm AMD and Nvidia products do not fully support).

Presentation last night showed Crossfired performance of $229 version slightly better than single NVidia 1080 (at least in the game shown). We'll see.

To be released June 29th.

So, as noted above, initial Polaris releases are aimed at "normal people" with limited gaming budgets who want to play everything full speed on a new 2K monitor -- not those with extra money who want the "very fastest regardless of cost" or want multi 2K or 4K monitors (Eyefinity) at very high speed

the 52% utilization was a bit of an eyebrow though, wouldnt that mean a single GPU would perform about the same?

I don't know.

The Crossfired RX 480 were performing a bit better than Nvidia 1080 -- where 2 RX 480 were operating at just over 50 percent capacity (so may have "had head room") -- but 1080 was nearly 100 percent and had "no more to give".

I speculated that may be due to the graphics API being used. The AMD Polaris design is rumored to outperform the 1080 design with some APIs that game companies use. For example, AMD was said to perform very well with the "cross platform" APIs -- for example Vulcan.

I'm assuming we'll know by the time we can actually buy a Polaris.


From AMD site -- regarding Vulcan:

36 CUs = 2304 SPs, Running at 1266MHz/2000MHz, 5.5 TFLOPs.

Considering my Single Lightning is about 3.8 TFLOPs, and in 80% Efficient Xfire scenario, My cards put out about 6.5 Tflops.

Id Consider it, for the sheer fact that I can run 2 of them in the same power envelope as one of my lightnings.

A single card wont match a perfect set of 7970s in perfect Xfire, but it would be a significant single card performance increase while dropping power consumption.

I will wait and see if AMD puts out anything better with Polaris, but Likely gonna wait for Navi.

But seeing Im on a budget, it depends on budget at the time.

Based on the above 2x480s crossfired performing like a 1080 probably means the 480 is about the same as a 980 which 2 SLI'ed equal the performance of a single 1080... so that's a good deal $229 for 980 like performance, that's sure to help the price of the 980 drop in the next few weeks along with the 1080/1070 coming out. We won't truly know until it's in the hands of reviewers and benchmarked.

BTW if you look at the Steam Hardware Survey the most popular GPU is the GTX 970 which has been in the $300-$350 range for 18months, so I think if AMD is going to ignore that segment of the market (which will now be ready to upgrade to a 1070 or AMD equivalent) they are passing up a lot of potential sales.

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

I'm glad to see them have a good bang for the buck card which the 480 appears to be but also would love something that competes with the 1070 or even 1080.

Presumably, the Vega rumored to come this Fall (October 2016 but may delay to 2017 depending on rumor) will compete with 1080 or even the follow-on to 1080. Nonetheless, I believe Nvidia will do whatever it has to do to provide a faster card -- even if they can only make a few and sell at a loss (as highest FPS in their best card is what defines the brand). So, I expect Vega to perform measurably slower (but not visibly slower) than what Nvidia answers with. But, I imagine the AMD Vega will have other advantages -- like lower cost and better performance in some situations.

In 2018 (??) AMD has an all new design approach coming out called Navi (mentioned by SkateZilla). It's a way to put multiple chips together on one card -- and they act as one chip (not like Crossfire). That approach should be capable of humongous speeds in a very cost effective card (smaller individual chips are much cheaper to make) -- with single card performance advantages. We'll see.

Based on the rumors, I'm leaning towards Vega for myself (this Fall) and RX 480 (in July) for my wife (she does not need the power -- but she could use a new card -- and it will be fun to test). Then, when Navi arrives, I'd probably buy one and "retire" the Vega. Meantime, my two HD7970 still play my games visibly smoothly on "ultra" graphics settings (0 AA).

In the AMD presentation, Crosfired RX 480 out performed single Nvidia 1080 in Ashes of the Singularity (a DX12 title).

Some have questioned "how could that be"? Skatezilla and I gave some thoughts earlier in this thread. I thought it might be the graphics API.

Others are asking the same question in on-line articles -- because the AMD and Nvidia images looked slightly different. AMD has responded with the game settings for both cards. The settings seem identical. They used the AotS provided "in game" benchmark that the AotS developers themselves put in to compare systems -- which seems "on the up and up".

However, AotS uses "procedural" rendering. That is, it takes into account what it is running on and the game situation and then modifies what it shows you. So, in that sense, no two systems will have perfectly identical in-game images.

Fudzilla tries to explain it:




Fudzilla Article

My Summary: In brief, partly it is the Graphics API. It has been rumored elsewhere that AMD does a good job using DX12 and Vulcan because unique hardware support has been built into the AMD design for a couple years now. However, its only now that these APIs are being used in games.

My concern with the 1080/480 comparison was the % utilization.

Sure, you are getting similar FPS with the 480s in Crossfire, but their utilization was about half.

They tried to spin it as "you still have room for performance", but I would have had preferred a higher utilization, and much better FPS.

Unless both cards FPSs were capped, this actually does not sound that good to me. I am not a fan of XFire (prefer single powerful card), and that would had made me consider it seriously for the first time.

But I will definitively jump on a 480X, or a Vega based card when they come out.

I might get one RX480 to hold me over for a year, if not longer

w/ 3rd Party AIB Cooling overclock it a little, 8GB Variant for sure.

Right now between VR and fighting w/ my 7970s and having to use a 7930(7870XT) to have a working HDMI port.
(my Lightnings dont have an HDMI Port).

It gets in the way.

if i can get a cheap $250 stop gap w/ 1 HDMI 3 DPs and enough power to render more than decent FPS than 2 7970s in XFire.

in my experience only 2 Programs ever ran XFire at 1 100%/100% Utilization, that would be Furmark and at Times Battlefield 3.

outside of that games were always like 75/75, which means 150% 7970, which is pretty much where the RX480 Sits.

I just cant afford to wait till this winter for the Vega GPUs, I need something ASAP.

AS I Said, the last 10 seconds of that demo, the nVidia side clearly had a more defined shadow on the ground and more brown paths than the ATI Side, but I also noted that I didnt know if that was because of how the AI had Damaged/Destroyed/Deformed the Terrain, etc.

Other than that obviously glaring difference, the 3d Object/Texture detail was the same, as well as the shader effects.

then again, now that you mention it, AMD has had a definitive Edge in DX12 w/ ASYNC.


A fun side fact,
DX7->11 was developed w/ Intel and nVidia's Assistance.
DX12/Vulkan was developed w/ Intel and AMD's Assistance.

I see it similarly.

I'd really like a 480X with roughly 2800 shaders (if they come with that many). An RX 480X like that would probably be a single card performing about as well as my CrossFired HD7970s. For a pricetag in the $300 range, it would be a "no brainer". Maybe Vega will be called RX 490X

I wouldnt be surprised if there was a RX-480X above the RX-480 for $300ish w/ 40-44 Compute Units.

the RX-480 at $199 was a Strategic Launch to gain massive attention