AMD Announces The Radeon RX 480 Starting At Just $199

variant said:
The leaked slide from the press event in Macau puts it at 5.5 TFlops. The reveal at Computex only says 5+ TFlops.
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Even so, Thats another use of the NDA: To help make changing things last-minute a bit more stealthy.
 
Well alot or people are bitching about the 150w power, but they forget to realize is that its board+gpu power, max draw of 150. So AMD can clock it the way the want and still not break the 150 barrier. They can't go above 150w since it only has 1 6pin connector. Tired of people not understanding this. they said 5+ Tflops and even then it will be under 150w. So makes sense to everyone? lol
 
NKD said:
Well alot or people are bitching about the 150w power, but they forget to realize is that its board+gpu power, max draw of 150. So AMD can clock it the way the want and still not break the 150 barrier. They can't go above 150w since it only has 1 6pin connector. Tired of people not understanding this. they said 5+ Tflops and even then it will be under 150w. So makes sense to everyone? lol
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Yeah, 150w is a physical limitation of the PCI-E configuration of the card. I would highly doubt the card REQUIRES all those watts to function at stock. Aslo remember that AMD TDP as always a little bit more honest than Nvidia TDP.
 
NKD said:
All the numbers are up to. did you read the slide? They didn't have exact specs for the card other than shader amount. you are looking at 150w for the top card probably 8gb with higher clocks. People really need to not just look at numbers, they said greater then 5 tflops. So doesn't look like they have settled on a number yet for the clock speeds.
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I've done enough bullet writing / PP presentations in my life to know that 'greater then x' always means just barely over whatever number they are saying.

Translation - 'greater then 5 tflops' = 5.3~ at most tflops.
 
AltTabbins said:
Interesting. If it even comes close to competing with the 1070, I'd be in the market for one. This would be the first Radeon card I have owned since my Radeon 690. I'm not tied to any brand, I tend to buy where the value is.
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The bottom-end one looks like it will be competing with all the first and second-gen Maxwell cards that are still out there on retail shelves (which aren't many) and all the resold and refurbs of both those, Kepler, and even refurb Fermi (which is where I am today). I haven't bought a new GPU since the HD5450 iSilence (which the refurb Fermi replaced), and I'd much rather go GTX 1070 (especially since 4K display pricing is actually becoming sane). Unless the Polaris performance numbers actually are decent (comparable to GTX970 - which it will be competing with), I'll stick to my current plans and targeting.
 
So which AMD card in CF matches a single 1080?
Here's something to use as reference:
RrIOFk9.jpg
 
Seems like a smart move to go after the $200 price point. The majority of people do not buy $500+ high-end cards. Most will never spend more than about $300, and $200 seems to be the sweet spot where most people buy. The 970 has been popular because at around $300, it offers most of the performance of a 980 or 980Ti for much less money.

If this can get into the same ballpark of performance as cards like the GTX 970 and 980, but at an MSRP of $200, I see them having a real winner on their hands. This could be the spiritual successor to cards like the 8800GT, Radeon 4870, and GTX 460 that so many people have been wanting. Those cards were awesome because they gave you ~90+% of the performance of the expensive high-end cards, but at ~$200.
 
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Comparing across architectures is always tricky.

Hopefully it compares well to Hawaii at its strengths (eg. Ashes, Hitman, etc. >390x) and GM204 at its strengths (eg. Witcher 3, Fallout 4, etc. >GTX 980). If it's like this I'd strongly consider getting one even though it technically isn't a huge upgrade from what I have now.

My main concern about buying a Polaris 10 implementation (and it's been this for awhile) is due to PS4 Neo. The problem is even if you play 1080p the risk is there that you do not have a graphics card faster then what gets used in the Neo as that will raise the performance bar for 1080p.
 
Well now, this is getting easy:

1070 GTX: ~9 GFLOPS
RX-480: >5 GFLOPS

That puts CF'd 480x's as roughly equal to a single 1070.

Honestly, this is strictly a price/performance play. I don't see how the 480x as a single GPU is even able to compete, and will likely get squeezed by the 1060 GTX going forward. I'm also worried about the 150W TDP, which is the same as the much more powerful 1070 GTX. This indicates the 480 isn't going to OC well at all.
 
For the gaming folks that will stay on 1080p and don't spend all their time on tech forums arguing over trivia, this will be a good deal. Buy it and get on with the gaming.

If it does what it says I'll be ordering one. Need to replace my 2GB 7870.
 
This is a great price, if the performance is there. $200 is almost to good to pass up.
Anxiously waiting for the review
 
cageymaru said:
Well personally I would spring for the $229 version as it has 8GB of VRAM.
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Ah, me too!. Didnt see that one. Still early, but im not going to spend over $300, and would really like to stay on the short side of $250. If Polaris delivers, i might be able to do that.
 
So, AMD are completely ceding the high end to Nvidia. But the card will be more than good enough for 1080p, 1440p is a minority habit, and 4K isn't yet mainstream, so why bother? I expect we'll see Nvidia release the GTX 1060 sooner rather than later to compete.
 
cageymaru said:
For the price of $229 (for the 8GB GDDR5 variant) AMD Radeon RX 480 represents the sweetest gaming spot for individuals who want to immerse themselves in VR-level gaming. Now, a new screenshot shows the GPU clock speeds of AMD Radeon RX 480, indicating that the graphics card could have great overclocking potential.

Read more: AMD Radeon RX 480 Clock Speeds Go Above The 1.2GHz Barrier – Great Overclocking Potential
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So right now a $400 video card is approximately 50% faster than the $200 variants, if the 480 can match the 390X that would make the 1070 about 40% faster at best.
Keep in mind the $400 tier (390X and 980) has already been very underwhelming this cycle, the 1070's value is actually WORSE than that.

If the 480 is 'somewhere between' the 390 and 390X, the 1070's value will basically match the 390X and 980 today.
 
Actually if this thing is clocked at 1200mhz then it is really quite impressive. Maybe those front end changes are quite a bit better.
 
TaintedSquirrel said:
So right now a $400 video card is approximately 50% faster than the $200 variants, if the 480 can match the 390X that would make the 1070 about 40% faster at best.
Keep in mind the $400 tier (390X and 980) has already been very underwhelming this cycle, the 1070's value is actually WORSE than that.

If the 480 is 'somewhere between' the 390 and 390X, the 1070's value will basically match the 390X and 980 today.
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That's the thing TaintedSquirrel, it's not going to be a clear cut win/lose. Compared to the Fury (non-X) this Polaris 10 card (is it the full die ? or is there a 2560 ALU version?) has much less compute throughput, much less bandwidth, presumably improved memory compression heuristics, improved geometry performance.

As you can tell from the MultiAdapter AotS benchmarks that leaked, Polaris 10 does way worse than a Fury, it also probably performs worse than a 390x

JustReason said:
Actually if this thing is clocked at 1200mhz then it is really quite impressive. Maybe those front end changes are quite a bit better.
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If I'm not mistaken they said they would double the geometry throughput
 
I should also say, they need to get a $300 chip out the door ASAP as it would be much more appealing against the 1070.
 
Ieldra said:
That's the thing TaintedSquirrel, it's not going to be a clear cut win/lose. Compared to the Fury (non-X) this Polaris 10 card (is it the full die ? or is there a 2560 ALU version?) has much less compute throughput, much less bandwidth, presumably improved memory compression heuristics, improved geometry performance.

As you can tell from the MultiAdapter AotS benchmarks that leaked, Polaris 10 does way worse than a Fury, it also probably performs worse than a 390x



If I'm not mistaken they said they would double the geometry throughput
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It really doesn't matter, the 1070 is what it is. The 480 could be as slow as a 390 and it would make the 1070 look like the GTX 980 by comparison.
Sure it's faster by a HUGE margin, but the value just isn't there. The 1070 should really be around $350 at the most.

The 1070 does not carry a "flagship tax", it's a ~$380 part so getting a good value still matters.
 
viscountalpha said:
This has the air of desperation. How is this profitable at all?
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AMD is certainly making SOME profit, but the margins can't be much more then $20-30. Nice chunk of change, but isn't going to change AMDs fundamentals. AMD is pretty much dependent entirely on Zen to get the cash they need to cover their debts.

Honestly, I'm growing more and more convinced the company will get broken up. I can't see where AMD is getting the $600 Million they need by 2019.
 
JustReason said:
Actually if this thing is clocked at 1200mhz then it is really quite impressive. Maybe those front end changes are quite a bit better.
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TaintedSquirrel said:
It really doesn't matter, the 1070 is what it is. The 480 could be as slow as a 390 and it would make the 1070 look like the GTX 980 by comparison.
Sure it's faster by a HUGE margin, but the value just isn't there. The 1070 should really be around $350 at the most.
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Meh, You'll see custom 1070s spanning the $350-$400 range soon enough. I know I've already bored many of you to death with this information, but GP104 is 50%+ more expensive than GM204 to produce, probably slightly more expensive than even GM200.

Do we know the transistor count on Polaris 10 ? There's no way they're getting a healthy margin on that $199 part, assuming they didn't reduce density (like nvidia did with GP104) we're looking at ~10% cost increase per xtor.

So if Polaris 10 has roughly same xtor count as Hawaii, it will be ~10% more expensive. Selling it at $199 can't be fun for the AMD accountant

Now of course you can say " Polaris 10 could be more transistor efficient than Hawaii!" but my response is, obviously, that's unlikely; because they have to increase their xtor budget to improve the front-end and implement better memory compression etc etc. On top of this, the low clocks necessitate larger, wider, designs to match small high-clocked designs.

I think it's very very possible they were banking on significantly higher clocks because 1200 mhz is just not impressive at 20nm FF
 
tbh I just needed to see the numbers for myself to figure out of this chip was worth getting excited for.
Although I see people elsewhere who seem to think the 480 is going to compete directly with the 1070 for half the price... Not sure where that came from.

Here's what a moderator of PCMR said:

"tldr: The RX 480 is somewhere roughly around a 390/1070, $200, 150W, 14nm, supports Vulkan and DirectX 12."
 
TaintedSquirrel said:
tbh I just needed to see the numbers for myself to figure out of this chip was worth getting excited for.
Although I see people elsewhere who seem to think the 480 is going to compete directly with the 1070 for half the price... Not sure where that came from.

Here's what a moderator of PCMR said:

"tldr: The RX 480 is somewhere roughly around a 390/1070, $200, 150W, 14nm, supports Vulkan and DirectX 12."
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Also, 150w is not exactly chump change in terms of power eh. Considering the 1070 consumes that much.

A lot of people are super impressed that you can buy two of these and match the 1080 (in AotS).

You could also buy a single 1070, clock it to 2ghz and have solid performance trailing a 1080 without any of the CF/mGPU scaling issues you'd get with dual 480s. It's really just a matter of perspective.
 
Well it uses a single 6-pin versus the 8-pin on the 1070, based on the specs/performance (regardless of TDP) I think it will use a lot less power than the 1070.
But AMD has been much less efficient than Nvidia recently, so who knows. Either way it doesn't matter, as long as the chip can OC properly. :p

A lot of people are super impressed that you can buy two of these and match the 1080 (in AotS).
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As I said before I don't think that's impressive since you've always been able to do that with $200 vs $600 cards.
 
For the price this will be the best option for most of the market, no matter what detractors are trying to say here, price matters a lot worldwide and in other forums you can see the positive reaction to that price point.

This is a nice way to gain back market share and mind share.
 
Revdarian said:
For the price this will be the best option for most of the market, no matter what detractors are trying to say here, price matters a lot worldwide and in other forums you can see the positive reaction to that price point.

This is a nice way to gain back market share and mind share.
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No doubt. The question is, was their original intention to gain back market and "mindshare" with higher margins maybe ?

150w is not impressive at all, and it's confusing considering the entire point of Polaris 10 was to cater to both desktop and mobile market. Who is gonna put a 150w gpu in a laptop
 
Well i think that they just saw it as a way to kill multiple birds with as little shots as possible, we know that they were getting contracts from MS and Sony, there were also the Apple talks, so if you are already going for mid-low due to the needs of your main business partners and you have little resources then this was the proper move, to ignore the high end.

Was this what i expected? not entirely, but does make sense. I used to believe that they would have something more powerful or that nvidia wasn't gonna open up a new node with the big chip first, but i was wrong on both accounts, live and learn!
 
Revdarian said:
Well i think that they just saw it as a way to kill multiple birds with as little shots as possible, we know that they were getting contracts from MS and Sony, there were also the Apple talks, so if you are already going for mid-low due to the needs of your main business partners and you have little resources then this was the proper move, to ignore the high end.

Was this what i expected? not entirely, but does make sense. I used to believe that they would have something more powerful or that nvidia wasn't gonna open up a new node with the big chip first, but i was wrong on both accounts, live and learn!
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Yeah Mercedes makes the S class which is one of the most advanced cars you can buy but they never expect to sell many of them. Their money comes from sales of the A and C class that have tech filtered down to them from previous S class models. Make is desirable but also affordable and they will come.
 
At $199, 150W max and performance around a 390 baseline, this thing is going to fly off the shelves but it won't be gamers but ethereum miners buying them all.
 
I don't think I've owned a Radeon since my X800gt...
gamerk2 said:
Well now, this is getting easy:

1070 GTX: ~9 GFLOPS
RX-480: >5 GFLOPS

That puts CF'd 480x's as roughly equal to a single 1070.

Honestly, this is strictly a price/performance play. I don't see how the 480x as a single GPU is even able to compete, and will likely get squeezed by the 1060 GTX going forward. I'm also worried about the 150W TDP, which is the same as the much more powerful 1070 GTX. This indicates the 480 isn't going to OC well at all.
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Where are you getting 9 GFLOPS? Everything I've read points to 6.5 for the GTX 1070.

The GTX 1080 has just under 9.

If anything, the 480 falls directly between a GTX 980 and GTX 980ti, which is a pretty sweet deal at a $200 price point.
 
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Revdarian said:
Well i think that they just saw it as a way to kill multiple birds with as little shots as possible, we know that they were getting contracts from MS and Sony, there were also the Apple talks, so if you are already going for mid-low due to the needs of your main business partners and you have little resources then this was the proper move, to ignore the high end.

Was this what i expected? not entirely, but does make sense. I used to believe that they would have something more powerful or that nvidia wasn't gonna open up a new node with the big chip first, but i was wrong on both accounts, live and learn!
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Not only that...

What a lot of people here do not seen to realize is AMD has just created a hardware and performance baseline across gaming consoles, PCs, and even Macs for developers to use in developing their games and applications.

Cover the whole spectrum in one shot, brilliant!
 
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