AMD Radeon RX 480 Video Card Review @ [H]

thesmokingman said:
Yea, it's not going to make a huge difference but it would be enough so ppl won't have to whine about a $200-240 card while comparing it to a $400-$700 card. Clearly it is no 1070 or 1080 so it is a fail, am I right?
Click to expand...

:) on the contrary. Price/performance it is a good product. But same power usage at 40% less performance isnt. As a happy owner of a 290x i can tell you that power isnt an issue to me. Still, power usage on the 480 is bad.
 
ArdWar said:
You should read the disclaimer guys.



"We still didn't know the variation on RX480 overclockability. Based on 4 GPU we have (2 from AMD and 2 from PowerColor), only ONE GPU can run at 1.4 GHz. Others only manage in the range of 1.33-1.35 GHz."
Click to expand...
That's what binning is for. That is why there are OC, SC, and SSC versions of nVidia cards as well. ASUS already said they are going to have cards in the 1.4 to 1.6 range, but expect to pay a premium for them.
 
Chris_B said:
Seems pretty meh overall, how is this a (according to Raja) "disruptive product" exactly? The only thing disruptive about it seems to be trying to stop your case hovering off the desk when you crank the fan up to overclock some, presumably trying to stop your ears bleeding in the process is another disruption. I'll be very interested in seeing what spin Raja try's to put on this in the pc per podcast later today. All the pre-release hype seemed to point this at 980 levels and its far below that, to be expected for the price but i think the hype train swept a lot of people away.
Click to expand...
That's typical of AMD in recent years. The hype train from them reaches epic proportions but then, when real world testing is done, at best it's "meh" and not even close to the levels they claim. I object to spending a single cent on AMD until they stop with the blatant lies and benchmark manipulations. Don't get me wrong, for $200 this is a great product. But it's not the product that it was hyped to be by AMD themselves, and that's the problem.
 
I believe they delivered, where else can you get a card that runs new games at 1080p with all the bells and whistles turned on, fand be in the green for VR, all for $200? Most budget gamers are going to jump at this card.
 
Hornet said:
I agree that as a mid range card, the 480 is doing fine for it's price.
But beyond mid range desktop gaming, it doesn't paint a very nice picture of AMD's current development ability

As we progress with each new architecture, they need to make significant improvements in terms of efficiency, otherwise eventually you'll hit a wall. We've seen this many times in the past. Intel, nVidia, had all encounter issues forcing them to change their approach towards power efficiency. And they are now very good when it comes to power efficiency. This has allow both companies to perform well in other segment such as mobile computing and enterprise. You cannot avoid the topic of power efficiency here.

AMD however, seem to be still struggling. They will never be able to compete well in other segment if they do not do well in this aspect.
Click to expand...

It's interesting you mention Intel and NV on mobile, because it's the race to squeeze more performance out of less or the same power that they've been focusing on. Maxwell 1 in particular was created after NV switched to a 'mobile-first' strategy. Intel has been focusing on making their products more efficient so they can stick them in even smaller devices to combat ARM's tide.

AMD hasn't quite done this yet, so perhaps time for a paradigm shift?

I was initially going to recommend the RX480 (I rarely recommend AMD) to friends with tight budgets who wanted great 1080p performance at low power, but seeing how the product played out, and that the 1060's announcement is soon, I'll probably have them wait for a bit and see how the pricing plays out.

Great review, though. The new format takes some getting used to, but I think it'll sink in eventually.
 
Taldren said:
That's what binning is for. That is why there are OC, SC, and SSC versions of nVidia cards as well. ASUS already said they are going to have cards in the 1.4 to 1.6 range, but expect to pay a premium for them.
Click to expand...
Only highest end AIB versions of GPUs are actually binned, didn't you know?

> ASUS already said they are going to have cards in the 1.4 to 1.6 range

Quote? 1.4 to 1.6 range are Kyle's words and ASUS announced it's custom board. That's it.
 
I've seen a few references to people talking about buying 2X and using CF to get "1080-like" performance. Sorry guys, but I can't help but laugh. I just went from CF 290X's, a card that overall performs relatively similarly to the 480 apparently, to a single 1080. I'm getting 2x the FPS in Witcher 3 at the same settings, 2-3x performance at same settings in The Division, 2x performance in Overwatch... and I'm sure the list would go on if I had had the time to test more games. 3Dmark scores only went up 10%, but in-game performance is so much better its ridiculous. CrossFire is awful! Its a complete joke! Games with a profile often run like crap, games without a profile run like a single card, so most of the time you'd probably be better off buying the 1070 and calling it a day. For my $460 thats what I'd do.
 
Last edited:
Ieldra said:
huh ?
Click to expand...
Official reference memory speed due to sourcing issues was lowered last minute to 7Gbps with partners having the option to use 8Gbps memory if they want and sounds like all 4GB units from AMD will have the slower memory.

Of course all review boards used the faster speed.
 
ren008 said:
Official reference memory speed due to sourcing issues was lowered last minute to 7Gbps with partners having the option to use 8Gbps memory if they want and sounds like all 4GB units from AMD will have the slower memory.

Of course all review boards used the faster speed.
Click to expand...
So, despite making an obvious 970 joke, Kyle was actually providing accurate information? Wow, this card is sure dank as hell.
 
Not sure if this link was posted yet, but Gamer Nexus has done a tear down and will be adding better cooling to the 480.

i think this card will benefit from a better cooling solution. I know it is a $250 card, but that heatsink looks to be garbage.

 
  • Like
Reactions: muxr
like this
Activate: AMD said:
I've seen a few references to people talking about buying 2X and using CF to get "1080-like" performance. Sorry guys, but I can't help but laugh. I just went from CF 290X's, a card that overall performs relatively similarly to the 480 apparently, to a single 1080. I'm getting 2x the FPS in Witcher 3 at the same settings, 2-3x performance at same settings in The Division, 2x performance in Overwatch... and I'm sure the list would go on if I had had the time to test more games. 3Dmark scores only went up 10%, but in-game performance is so much better its ridiculous. Even CrossFire is awful! Its a complete joke! Games with a profile often run like crap, games without a profile run like a single card, so most of the time you'd probably be better off buying the 1070 and calling it a day. For my $460 thats what I'd do.
Click to expand...

I would certainly hope so. Completely maxed out, a GTX 1080 should be around 60-65 fps in Witcher 3 @ 1440p. The 1070 is around 50-53 at the same settings and a 480 should be around 30-35 (which is where my 390 sits right now). Surprise. A $600+ card performs twice as well as a $230 card. Color me shocked.
 
Araxie said:
no, is not false in their own [H] test, but it was made in a open test bench at 22C room temp.. =) would you figure how could behave in a typical "mainstream" case.. I mean most of the people that are targeted this card probably utilize a cheap 20-30$ case with who know what kind of bad airflow.. and, of course not every card behave the same.. Tom's review had the card at the same room temp with sub 1200mhz as low as 1150, same with the PCPer sample, techpowerup sample did a bit better averaging 1239 but still dropping down to 1151mhz, so yes these clocks are in had of professionals would you mind to think how they can behave in "mainstream" hands?

at the end [H] sample seems to be the best performer both on stock clocks and maximum overclock out there.. let's wait for the final overclocking reviews..

EDIT: oh and yes, I also blame how the clock vary so wildly with pascal.. but we are talking here about pretty different market segments, the first one for those who don't see brand and like to cheap out those that doesn't care to mess with afterburner and so on.. the later it's for the high-end segment those that would love to juice every possible percent of performance with a card that easily and reliably can do 2ghz overclock.. kinda different of a card that can't overclock at all, right?. PCPer finding on this was even better as they say that overclocked the frametimes was worse on the RX 480 showing a gameplay less smoth and the performance gain was null but increased power consumption in 33% up to 200W =) hell yes great card that is that RX 480.
Click to expand...
That should tell folks reference cards you should not touch those clocks ;). As for the AIB versions that maybe a different story.

Also lets get some math straight here with perf/w Pascal/Polaris using tech report as a reference.

  • At 1080p, the data has 1.74perf/w ratio between that GP104 and Polaris 10 (Rx 480)
  • So if the GP106 (1060)maintains that ratio what will be the power of the new 1060 for the same performance?
    • Word wise - the performance per watt of the GP104 in the 1080 is the same as 1.8 times the performance per watt on the P10 in the RX 480
    • Math equation keeping same ratio for the 1060
      • Perf1060/Power1060 = 1.8(Perf480/Power480)
      • With algebra you get
        • Power1060 = 150w/1.74 = 83.3w
  • I do not think the 1060 will be that low in power, different card, different GPU. It is conceivable at 100w but I think will be higher around 120w. Why? To match the performance of the 480 it may just have to be clocked way higher.
Perf/watt how AMD uses it is virtually worthless. AMD does not tell what data as in games/productivity software is used for the data nor even what hardware it is being compared to. Perf/watt only really matters when you have a specific application like hash marks, or rendering time. To start grouping a whole bunch of data together can get very confusing and misleading. since it probably will not represent anything that you would use. For example.

  • RX 480 DX 12 performance Hitman from HardOCP review
  • 53.7fps/44.4fps = 1.21Perf/w comparing RX 480 to the 970 since both are about 150w cards each. If the power was different you would have to factor in the power as well
  • Now compare RX 480 again to the 970 but with Witcher 3
  • this time the 970 is ahead 47.2fps/45.8fps = 1.04 Perf/w comparing the 970 and 480. It was not like Hitman results. It does not tell you much of anything at all other then for a given application.

If the above was confusing - well it is - and basically BS when AMD throws that out there with Perf/w. What I think is most important is how HardOCP measures your real experience with the product. Yeah we could see the 1060 have 1.74 times the perf/w over the RX 480 but the RX 480 could still be faster in every game at the same time (just consuming a hell a lot more power then the 1060). In other words Perf/w is not a great predictor of overall performance of a video card. Read good reviews like HardOCP and then pick the best one for you.
 
Gotta say, I'm thinking AMD screwed themselves again here. The mismanagement of the power delivery is going to haunt this card, even if they do sort it our with a bios update. This was their chance to at least take a shot at dispelling the power hog persona they have, so that e-machine people could consider their cards.

That was the real victory of the 970. People just tinkering with their PCs for the first time only had to know how to remove a card (or maybe even just find the lond emtpy slot that a different color than the others) and plug in the new one. Find those couple empty molex connectors and slap on the adapter...presto-changeo a gaming PC (sorta). No removing the PSU, unhooking all the drives from the old unit and the mobo, replugging everything, possibly removing heatsinks because you couldn't reach the CPU fan plug. It made the emachine possibly relevant.

Now...I don't know. All people are going to remember is that their "friend" told them the card was going to burn our their PC if they used it. AMD ***NEEDED*** to be clean coming out of the gate on this one. I don't know how they'll recover from this if the issue is still live whenever the 1060 hard launches.
 
Not a bad review. Although I would really like to see some more game benchmarks...like DOOM of course, and GTA 5, and Metro, and maybe even Tomb Raider or Ashes of Singularity.
 
jbc029 said:
I would certainly hope so. Completely maxed out, a GTX 1080 should be around 60-65 fps in Witcher 3 @ 1440p. The 1070 is around 50-53 at the same settings and a 480 should be around 30-35 (which is where my 390 sits right now). Surprise. A $600+ card performs twice as well as a $230 card. Color me shocked.
Click to expand...

Ha, no you misread my post and missed the point. It performed twice as well as *two* $500 cards from a couple years ago, cards that are now being roughly matched by a $230 card from today. I'm talking about people who think they can spend $460 on 2 RX480's and get $600 worth of performance for some kind of bargain. They are in for a rude awakening.
 
razor1 said:
hey Digi long time no see, how are ya?
Click to expand...
Really good, thanks! Had open heart surgery at the end of December last year and I'm just about all recovered from it and feeling great! (Got a quadruple bypass)

Other than that it's been family stuff, but I'm trying to get back up to speed and into the hardware scene again. Couldn't be having more fun. :)

I'm really not sure about this PCIe thing, but I ain't panicking over it yet. I'm looking forward to checking one out for myself to see what the what is.
 
So in a nutshell we have a great $200ish card that can come close to competing with a 390/980 in DX12. Toss dx11 games at it though and AMD still has the same problems they have always had with DX11 and can only compete with a 970. Until DX12 is the defacto API, AMD is going to continue to struggle.

It is rather interesting though that the 480 is competing with only 'half' the ROPS! Why oh why didn't they release a card with the full 64 ROPS! How much more would this have cost them to manufacture? With the full 64 ROPS we possibly would have had a competitor to the 1070 and they could have just released a separate card targeting it around the $300-$350 price range.
 
Drep said:
So in a nutshell we have a great $200ish card that can come close to competing with a 390/980 in DX12. Toss dx11 games at it though and AMD still has the same problems they have always had with DX11 and can only compete with a 970. Until DX12 is the defacto API, AMD is going to continue to struggle.

It is rather interesting though that the 480 is competing with only 'half' the ROPS! Why oh why didn't they release a card with the full 64 ROPS! How much more would this have cost them to manufacture? With the full 64 ROPS we possibly would have had a competitor to the 1070 and they could have just released a separate card targeting it around the $300-$350 price range.
Click to expand...
There is an opinion that this card is actually memory bottlenecked, just like Tonga/Fiji to some extent.

I didn't see anyone run it through B3D suite though, did anyone?
 
Napoleon said:

Interesting
Click to expand...


Thanks for the link. I'd say that looks to be about what I would have expected. Again, multi-GPU shows just how inconsistent it is. Great here, not so great there to doesn't even work or worse than a single card. Buy the fastest single card you can still applies here.
 
It's a damn shame AMD tagetted the GTX 10x0s when hyping this card.

If they had simply kept their hype to the applicable market segment this card now completely owns (ignoring the GTX 1060 for the moment), people wouldn't have gotten the impression that this thing was supposed to go up against cards x3 its price.

Now, I know they explicitly said "x2 RX480s > 1 GTX 1080", but people are stupid and don't listen. All they heard was "RX 480 comparable performance to the GTX 1080!!."

Perhaps this is why we saw Vega getting mentioned...

Damnit AMD. You won't beat NVidia with this type of marketing.
 
atp1916 said:
It's a damn shame AMD tagetted the GTX 10x0s when hyping this card.

If they had simply kept their hype to the applicable market segment this card now completely owns (ignoring the GTX 1060 for the moment), people wouldn't have gotten the impression that this thing was supposed to go up against cards x3 its price.

Perhaps this is why we saw Vega getting mentioned...
Click to expand...


To be fair, they were pretty clear their 480 was no competitor witness their two 480s matching a 1080 marketing. By that we can obviously deduce one 480 is half or less of a 1080.
 
^^^^ You caught me mid-edit, but yeah - people are stupid cause they'll see that marketing angle and read it as "1 RX 480 ~= 1 GTX 1080" !!

By not hammering on their real market segment target, the GTX 960 (and perhaps even the 970), they completely missed an opportunity to shape just how good this card is against its real opponents.

Then again, i think people just really really want to see AMD reinvent the high end....
 
I am going to wait for the 1060 review but given my budget and how often I actually get to play games the 480 or the 1060 are likely going to be replacing my 670. I don't see me replacing my monitors any time soon so anything much beyond these is just going to be overkill for my older box.
 
atp1916 said:
^^^^ You caught me mid-edit, but yeah - people are stupid cause they'll see that marketing angle and read it as "1 RX 480 ~= 1 GTX 1080" !!

By not hammering on their real market segment target, the GTX 960 (and perhaps even the 970), they completely missed an opportunity to shape just how good this card is against its real opponents.

Then again, i think people just really really want to see AMD reinvent the high end....
Click to expand...


AMD doesn't really ever plan and adjust for worst case scenarios it seems. I agree, you can't have the possibility of users misconstruing your message no matter what.
 
cptnjarhead said:
I believe they delivered, where else can you get a card that runs new games at 1080p with all the bells and whistles turned on, fand be in the green for VR, all for $200? Most budget gamers are going to jump at this card.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but AMD failed by being AMD.

If they were nVidia, this would be a huge win (notice people already saying the unreleased unannounced 1060 will be such a better card than the 480). nVidia releases a $700 card that performs marginally better than their previous $600 card: "OMGWTFBBQ NV IS THE BEST"

AMD releases a $200 card that outperforms cards that were priced $100 more: "Meh. This is a disappointment. AMD is still struggling."

Oh well. People's opinions don't affect the performance of the card. If I was still on my old 6950s, I'd pick this up in a heartbeat. However, I already have a 970. I'll wait for Vega.
 
thesmokingman said:
To be fair, they were pretty clear their 480 was no competitor witness their two 480s matching a 1080 marketing. By that we can obviously deduce one 480 is half or less of a 1080.
Click to expand...
No, that marketing wasn't clear either, because they made a big deal out of how the 480s were only 50% utilized. It's all smoke and mirrors, man.
 
Dang... notice the rx 490!!!!!!

amd_product_listing.png
 
schizo said:
No, that marketing wasn't clear either, because they made a big deal out of how the 480s were only 50% utilized. It's all smoke and mirrors, man.
Click to expand...


It wasn't clear because ppl didn't know wtf they were goin on about. Regardless they explained what was what so I don't understand the argument. Did you really expect the $200 to compare to a $700 1080? Were you angry you were duped by them evil red guys?

AMD explains image quality in AOTS Radeon RX 480 CF vs GTX 1080 demonstration | VideoCardz.com
 
ebduncan said:
the RX480 is nothing special.

it beats its competitors in price and performance at its price point. However what it doesn't do is match Nvidia in efficiency the RX-480 is kinda power hungry compared to the 1080/1070 and surely the 1060 when it comes out.
Click to expand...

Yup this is only going to sell to those AMD devotees who are still holding out for the new "7850" or whatever midrange AMD card they already have. They'll rush in their orders to be sure to get it before the 1060 makes it a pointless product.

The rest of us are going to wait for the 1060, same or better performance with better power and heat/noise numbers.
 
Will Vega be 1080 level?

If it is, it will leave a huge gap in their products stack.

Not to mention Pascal Titan is coming sooner or later.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top