Hardware & Technical News on AMD Radeon R9 480 - Maybe

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
Apparently the AMD Rx 480 will offer performance in the 390/390X range for $199. (http://wccftech.com/amd-radeon-rx-480-polaris-10-launch/)

$199.

Two in XFire for $398....

Not stunning performance - however the performance/$ seems to be better than the GTX 1080 (from what little we know at the moment - especially as AMD have a slightly dubious past when it comes to releaseing benchmarks....).

Verg interesting....
 
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Price per fps... AMD wins there. But in terms of just fps, AMD is left in the dust.
Why people would buy a brand new graphics card that performs like a 3 y old 970, for 200 bucks is beyond me...
I get it that most, including me, will never pay 600 bucks for a GPU. But to pay $200 for a card that barely handles newly published games is just stupid imo. Stop thinking short terms.

Wait for Vega.
 
Price per fps... AMD wins there. But in terms of just fps, AMD is left in the dust.
Why people would buy a brand new graphics card that performs like a 3 y old 970, for 200 bucks is beyond me...
I get it that most, including me, will never pay 600 bucks for a GPU. But to pay $200 for a card that barely handles newly published games is just stupid imo. Stop thinking short terms.

Wait for Vega.

There is also an affective reason, like Amiga vs Atari in a time (or PC vs Mac)

:D
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
Or just ONE 1070 for $380 with little to no effort in terms of performance and no issues with Crossfire or SLI setups..... No brainer imo.

Depends on the benchmark results.

I haven't seen any prices for the 1070 but the non-founder 1080 seems to be settling at a pre-order price of c.£610 - that's over three times the (expected admittedly) price of the Rx 480 at $200 / £160.

It'll be interesting to see street prices for the 1070.
 
Nvidia should lower its prices. To sell many, many more cards

They will sell anyway. When people begin to understand they can run games at 4k at +50 fps they will buy the 1080 regardless of price. Some folk even buy the Vive for 800 bucks. Some people even buy new iPhones for $900.....
 
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Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
They will sell anyway. When people begin to understand they can run games at 4k at +50 fps they will buy the 1080 regardless of price. Some folk even buy the Vive for 800 bucks. Some people even buy new iPhones for $900.....

Indeed - and what proportion of the PC owning community owns a 2560x1440 monitor, much less a 3840x2160 monitor? Steam stats would indicate that very few are.
 
Indeed - and what proportion of the PC owning community owns a 2560x1440 monitor, much less a 3840x2160 monitor? Steam stats would indicate that very few are.

Dynamic Super Resolution, or DSR for short. ED needs it to minimise the aliasing.
But yes you're right, most players have a 24" 1080p monitor at home.

Edit:
// Rant
Everyone wants better graphics. Some aren't willing to pay for it (heck I'd never buy a 1080!). That's the difference.
Look at the current-gen consoles... Uncharted 4 runs beautiful at @1080 at 30 hertz. And thanks to a very effective Temporal AA it looks very crisp. You think XBOne would run it as smooth and beautiful as the PS4? No? Why? Because of the weaker hardware ofc. Downgrading is an ever present phenomenon due to optimisation for the masses. If people get better graphics cards, developers can start increasing graphical qualities to new heights.
// End of rant
 
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The key point from our perspective is that this renewed competition will hopefully drive down prices for BOTH brands. That is a good thing.
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
There seem to be rumours that AMD is likely to get contracts for next-gen console APUs - hopefully Zen / Polaris based....
 
Yes it is really necessary. Monopoly is dangerous

Agreed. :)

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

There seem to be rumours that AMD is likely to get contracts for next-gen console APUs - hopefully Zen / Polaris based....

Yeah with Polaris they've lowered the watts requirements so no wonder Sony and MS are eager to work with AMD again. I was hoping though that one of the next gen consoles would use Nvidia just for the sake of competition. :)
 
Price per fps... AMD wins there. But in terms of just fps, AMD is left in the dust.
Why people would buy a brand new graphics card that performs like a 3 y old 970, for 200 bucks is beyond me...
I get it that most, including me, will never pay 600 bucks for a GPU. But to pay $200 for a card that barely handles newly published games is just stupid imo. Stop thinking short terms.

Wait for Vega.

Numerous factors.

That card should be able to play all games now and for the next few years at high or ultra resolutions at 1080p or even 1440p.
It therefore represents excellent value for money for the majority of the gaming market who haven't got unlimited budgets and don't play at 4k or in VR

Many people are running old "obsolete" pcs that can play games but don't warrant a £500 graphics card. I for example have an i7 920, and game at 1680 by 1050.
With Direct x12/Vulkan and the lack of future driver support for my existing Radeon 5870, its time to upgrade. The radeon represents a big leap in performance for relatively little cost.
Oh and it also fits in my case comfortably. Something the uber cards would not do.

Doesn't use much power either so that means system builders can build lower cost gaming pcs, as they can get a smaller power supply for the card to run on and fit it in smaller cases.

Buying uber cards generally means having everything top line eg massive high spec power supply, enthusiast class motherboards. High performance memory, Newest overclocked cpus, expensive cases, expensive cooling, 4k monitor. Anything less and you are gimping the performance of these cards. Hence a £500 card really means spend £2000, otherwise your wasting your money and should get something cheaper.
 
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