AMD Radeon RX 480 Video Card Review @ [H]

johnnysd said:
Kyle

A suggestion on reviews. I find it really frustrating reading video card reviews because they are just not very applicable to the consumer purchashing the card. Especially for a video card it is extremely unreasonable to assume that the person reading the review is building a new PC, rather it us likely he is upgrading his PC. I understand the concept if removing the bottlenecks of CPU and memory and testing them on a high end PC, but for the most part this is a more real world synthetic benchmark. A review of this card should use a midrange PC of at least one generation old, and the last two generations of video cards should be included. Showing results on an i5-3xxx or i5-4xxx and including say a 670 and 460 (sweet spots of previous generati ons) would give a much more real world and valuable benchmark on whether the purchase is worth it. It answers the question if I upgrade my current video card in the same system to the RX480 what is a real world expectation of increase in video speed
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It's certainly an interesting and novel approach, but opens up more problems than it solves, I think. In any to comparative test, there needs to be some sort of normalization. Also, what you're testing here are the video cards - not how one performs with a bottleneck.

I would say a one-off where the review shows different cards performing on different CPUs in different games might be interesting - something I think [H] did a while back - but i suspect it would be practically hard and the payoff not worthwhile. It's a fair assumption that CPUs and other bottlenecks affect performance similarly across GPUs.
 
johnnysd said:
Kyle

A suggestion on reviews. I find it really frustrating reading video card reviews because they are just not very applicable to the consumer purchashing the card. Especially for a video card it is extremely unreasonable to assume that the person reading the review is building a new PC, rather it us likely he is upgrading his PC. I understand the concept if removing the bottlenecks of CPU and memory and testing them on a high end PC, but for the most part this is a more real world synthetic benchmark. A review of this card should use a midrange PC of at least one generation old, and the last two generations of video cards should be included. Showing results on an i5-3xxx or i5-4xxx and including say a 670 and 460 (sweet spots of previous generati ons) would give a much more real world and valuable benchmark on whether the purchase is worth it. It answers the question if I upgrade my current video card in the same system to the RX480 what is a real world expectation of increase in video speed
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I get what you are saying on the CPU side of things because of the pricing of this card. The simple fact of the matter is that we are not going to start CPU limiting out video card reviews. We will just have to agree to disagree on that point. As for cards even further back than we did, we just do not have the resources to head down that rabbit hole. You should know today, if you care, how your current card stands up next to a 960, and we showed how much better the 480 is than the 960. I expect our readers to extrapolate from there. I get where you are coming from on your entire post, the fact is it is just not going to happen. You have going to have to go to other sites that run canned benchmarks and regurgitate out of date data to those "answers."

Brackle said:
When/If you guys do an overclocking article. Can you just overclock the GPU to see if you get more headroom if you leave the memory clocks alone?

Curious if the card would get closer to 1400mhz if you left the memory alone.
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Yes, we will do a lot more overclocking but with AIB partner cards.
 
tybert7 said:
the rx 480 is probably a still better buy at those prices if dx12 is factored in, but I had hoped for a bit more compared to the 970. I wanted the rx 480 to clean sweep that thing. It does trounce it in modern game engines that use dx12, but treads water against it in dx11 titles.


Still, sub 300 dollars this is the best overall game in town. I wonder what this suggests for vega? AMD does not have the luxury of going up against a terribly badly aging maxwell architecture there, and if nvidia scales just as well going to their larger chips it could mean trouble.
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If they only reach 980Ti stock performance with the 490X, we know the Ti will widen the gap when OC'd.
AMD is back to just matching Nvidia performance at budget pricing. I don't think this is the direction they should go in.
Relying on DX12 games when many AAA titles are still being built for DX11 is a losing formula for this year.

Nvidia through brute force will compete in DX12 when the 1080Ti and Titan is released. Making the 490X a lesser choice for enthusiasts once again.
AMD needs GTX 1080 performance with the DX12 boost. Now they'll have a winner but it has to be this year.
 
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xorbe said:
One thing I worry about the new format is if the max settings for one card completely stumbles on another card say due to a single option. I like the move to common settings, though I think both cards need to be considered when choosing the settings?
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We are very aware of this and are looking for those situations when we determine the best IQ settings. So to answer your question....yes, we are on it. It does none of us any good if one particular IQ setting harpoons a particular card. I suspect in the future you will see our A2A testing with an * on the chart and us discussing that this or that setting was changed from best IQ with an explanation of why. I suspect we will still do some games with and without vendor specific effects on and off as well to show any differences to readers.
 
Pfff, crazy euro zone. The card showed up in retail store. 8GB version priced at $360 in USD. We're getting screwed again.
 
PGHammer said:
The PRICE certainly paints it as the Great Red Hope ($249 @ the Egg from everybody) - which certainly raised MY eyebrows (and pretty much forced me to drop the 4GB model from personal consideration - for the straightforward reason that the 8 GB model is not enough pricier for it to be seen as *too expensive" by comparison; which I did not expect at all). Going by the performance numbers, I also have to agree with Kyle - the competition to the RX480 hasn't been built yet.
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Viewing the results at 1440p, I'm not sure if 8GB will make that much of a difference. Once you increase AA, particles etc., the GPU will start to run out of steam well before 6GB.
RAM heavy console ports like Hitman and COD will use what's available, not what is needed. I would look for a $200 version and CF them, matching a 980Ti OC which are going for $400 now as well.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong but if Nvidia's 1060 outperforms the 480 and they sell it for $250 or less AMD will have been, for all intents and purposes, rendered obsolete this generation for anyone except those that refuse to buy Nvidia.
 
grifter_66 said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but if Nvidia's 1060 outperforms the 480 and they sell it for $250 or less AMD will have been, for all intents and purposes, rendered obsolete this generation for anyone except those that refuse to buy Nvidia.
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you ain't wrong...:(
 
grifter_66 said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but if Nvidia's 1060 outperforms the 480 and they sell it for $250 or less AMD will have been, for all intents and purposes, rendered obsolete this generation for anyone except those that refuse to buy Nvidia.
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Not obsolete, just less value to buy the 480, especially if it gets 980 performance at much lower power consumption, though OEM will love that.
 
Damn it! In my haste to upgrade from my R9 285 to something faster for my PLP setup I bought a RX 480 :banghead:

The damn thing wont support my monitors inputs (hdmi + DVI-DL + hdmi). Now I have to sell the damn thing.:banghead::banghead::banghead:
 
M76 said:
Pfff, crazy euro zone. The card showed up in retail store. 8GB version priced at $360 in USD. We're getting screwed again.
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We have them in stock in the UK - a site I've used many times in the past, scan.co.uk has their cheapest one for £233.40 which is inclusive of tax, but excluding delivery (which is another £5 or so on top).

Looking at conversions (and being the fact that our currency is all over the shop right now) roughly equates to:

233.40 GBP = 313.580 USD
(1 GBP = 1.34353 USD)

It's not fun being shafted all the time for nice things!!
 
Ashcutus said:
We have them in stock in the UK - a site I've used many tmes in the past, scan.co.uk has their cheapest one for £233.40 which is inclusive of tax, but excluding delivery (which is another £5 or so on top).

Looking at conversions (and being the fact that our currency is all over the shop right now) roughly equates to:

233.40 GBP = 313.580 USD
(1 GBP = 1.34353 USD)

It's not fun being shafted all the time for nice things!!
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Brexit is one of the many reasons you can't have nice things :p
 
I really like the new review format. Looking forward to seeing it used going forward. Safe to assume you will do higher end cards at 1440p and 4K resolution?
 
Hi 1st time posting here been reading your reviews forever though and u are absolutely the best out there. i have a request though i always read 4-5 reviews with every major relase for gpus and i spotted 1 saying the card measured over 80 watts pulled SOLELY thru the pci express slot.........LOL i always thot 65 watts was max is this dangerous or bad for the longetivity of the MB and was hoping ur test could shed some light on this....did u notice the same/similar result dying to know here itd be massively appreciated an info u have on this
 
grifter_66 said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but if Nvidia's 1060 outperforms the 480 and they sell it for $250 or less AMD will have been, for all intents and purposes, rendered obsolete this generation for anyone except those that refuse to buy Nvidia.
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It won't. if 1060 performs faster than 480 you will pay more. Nvidia is not charity work, rumor is 250 for 3gb and 299 for 6gb. So +50 from last generation just like the new 1070 and 1080
 
NKD said:
It won't. if 1060 performs faster than 480 you will pay more. Nvidia is not charity work, rumor is 250 for 3gb and 299 for 6gb. So +50 from last generation just like the new 1070 and 1080
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The question then is will it perform better, because people will pay a little extra if it actually performs better. If it performs on par with a 480 then it will come down to who spends the most on marketing their products.
 
Brent_Justice said:
Looking closely at the GPUz graph there in those screenshots I can see dips in the graphing, could indicate the clock speed is not 100% consistent at that clock speed. Would need to do a clock speed over time test playing a game for 30+ minutes to find out if it can be sustained.
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Yeah it could be power limited as well.
 
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Ashcutus said:
We have them in stock in the UK - a site I've used many times in the past, scan.co.uk has their cheapest one for £233.40 which is inclusive of tax, but excluding delivery (which is another £5 or so on top).

Looking at conversions (and being the fact that our currency is all over the shop right now) roughly equates to:

233.40 GBP = 313.580 USD
(1 GBP = 1.34353 USD)

It's not fun being shafted all the time for nice things!!
Click to expand...

Novatech have the Powercolor ones in stock at £220 inc VAT. Picked one up this afternoon. If US price is $240 that is not even £10 over the USA price when you factor in VAT.
 
Brent_Justice said:
Looking closely at the GPUz graph there in those screenshots I can see dips in the graphing, could indicate the clock speed is not 100% consistent at that clock speed. Would need to do a clock speed over time test playing a game for 30+ minutes to find out if it can be sustained.
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Yea but the 3Dmark though, doing is NANO style. LOL
 
Brent_Justice said:
Looking closely at the GPUz graph there in those screenshots I can see dips in the graphing, could indicate the clock speed is not 100% consistent at that clock speed. Would need to do a clock speed over time test playing a game for 30+ minutes to find out if it can be sustained.
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and I bet You get wait to get your hands dirty with those AIB cards, lol. Overclock it until it say don't do me no more. ROFL
 
variant said:
Latest AMD response on the PCIe power draw issue.



Source
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82 watts across the motherboard bus is outside spec by 7 watts. The PCIe is 79 Watts. Another 4 Watts out of spec BEFORE OVERCLOCKING. It's even worse on torture test.

More than 1 site confirmed this. Something is fishy.

166->168 total was reported by TPU. If you take out the 4 Watts out for the Mainboard 3.3V, that's still way off spec. That's 12 Watts out of spec. This is in align with what Tom's was reporting.
 
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WorldExclusive said:
Viewing the results at 1440p, I'm not sure if 8GB will make that much of a difference. Once you increase AA, particles etc., the GPU will start to run out of steam well before 6GB.
RAM heavy console ports like Hitman and COD will use what's available, not what is needed. I would look for a $200 version and CF them, matching a 980Ti OC which are going for $400 now as well.
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Textures have basically zero performance hit and there are several games which need over 4 GB for highest textures settings even at 1080p.
 
Anything over 1080P I wouldn't touch any 4gb card with a 10 foot pole
 
NKD said:
Anything over 1080P I wouldn't touch any 4gb card with a 10 foot pole
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It will be curious to see that now that GPU are making 4-8gb standard if we will start seeing more games take advantage of that with higher resolution textures. As it it is few game really go higher than 4, but that is changing.
 
NKD said:
Anything over 1080P I wouldn't touch any 4gb card with a 10 foot pole
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The RX480 is a 1080p card for best gameplay experience.
You can run higher textures and AA with 8GB, but if your fps drops below what's playable for you (30 or 60 fps) then it's not worth the extra cost.
 
A damn solid card. If I didn't already have a 970, I'd pick one of these up. Kudos to AMD, they raised the midrange performance bar. Can't wait to see what Vega brings to the table.
 
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Just in case anyone is wondering, the power consumption issues have now confirmed by 5 independent reviewers. Latest I've been made aware of is Trotz 14LPP nicht sparsam - Radeon RX 480 im Test: Eine bessere Grafikkarte gibt es für den Preis nicht - Golem.de

Sum the load motherboard 12v and 3.3v rails and you will get total average power draw from the PCI-E slot

for comparison

RX480 86w average from PCI-E slot AMD Radeon RX 480 8GB Power Consumption Results

MSI R9 290x Lightning 36w average from PCI-E slot Power Draw: Test System And Methods - MSI R9 290X Lightning Review: The Right Way To Cool Hawaii

Sapphire R 380X Nitro 48w average from PCI-E slot AMD Radeon R9 380X Nitro Power Usage - Tom's Hardware
 
Ieldra said:
Just in case anyone is wondering, the power consumption issues have now confirmed by 5 independent reviewers. Latest I've been made aware of is Trotz 14LPP nicht sparsam - Radeon RX 480 im Test: Eine bessere Grafikkarte gibt es für den Preis nicht - Golem.de

Sum the load motherboard 12v and 3.3v rails and you will get total average power draw from the PCI-E slot
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If AMD juiced the cards for review, they are so damn screwed.
If they "screwed up the bios" They are still screwed because it invalidates any press sample reviews. Do you know how much hate from tech editors they would receive? They would never hear the end of it.

If the team in TW was a little closer to Japan, I would call for Harakiri/Suppuku to appease the gaming gods.
 
So doesn't even come close to the 980 GTX let alone the 1070 :/

Some days I feel AMD fan boys cross the line between staying in reality or outright delusional. Next time they'll talk about comparing an overclocked 480X coming close to a 980 GTX, conveniently forgetting the fact that the 980 GTX itself is an awesome overclocking. Heck one of my 980 GTX Ti's is easily doing 1500 / 8 Ghz !
 
DigitalGriffin said:
If AMD juiced the cards for review, they are so damn screwed.
If they "screwed up the bios" They are still screwed because it invalidates any press sample reviews. Do you know how much hate from tech editors they would receive? They would never hear the end of it.

If the team in TW was a little closer to Japan, I would call for Harakiri/Suppuku to appease the gaming gods.
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Pretty much every site that does extensive power consumption tests have recorded this......
 
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We are now at six independent reviews with same data lol :p AMD_Robert has not made any new statements. They are anomalies he says. Staggering coincidence eh? Six anomalous 480s, sent to six independent reviewers, presenting six similar results.

Hardware.fr confirms this too. They also have a retail version (Sapphire 480) which exhibits the same problem. They also confirms the power usage going over 150W with both a review and retail version of the card.

They added also something interesting, they removed power and temperature limits and tested the card with no OC. The card pulled almost 200W in Witcher 3.

Source: Consommation, efficacité énergétique - AMD Radeon RX 480 8 Go : 14nm et Polaris en test - HardWare.fr

Relevant parts:

Rappelons, comme expliqué dans le descriptif de la carte de référence, que la RX 480 n'est équipée que d'un seul connecteur d'alimentation 6 broches, ce qui fait qu'il tire une grosse partie de sa consommation, à peu près la moitié, parfois un peu plus, du bus PCI Express. Elle va à ce niveau bien au-delà de la spécification qui est de 5.5A. Dans Battlefield 4, nous mesurons 6.92A par défaut et 7.10A en 'Uber'. Une valeur qui monte à 7.79A dans The Witcher 3 et qui impose un stress pour lequel toutes les cartes-mères ne sont pas prévues.

"RX 480 comes with a 6 pins PCIE and most of the power drain is shared between the 6 pins and the PCI Express port (sometime more on the latter). The cards does go way over the specs which is 5.5A. In Battlefield 4, we are getting 6.92A and 7.10A with OC (called "Uber" mode in the review). Witcher 3 goes even higher with 7.79A. This stress is not expected on all motherboards."
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DigitalGriffin said:
If AMD juiced the cards for review, they are so damn screwed ...
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Don't be naive. As long as they sell a crap-ton of cards based on the initial reviews, AMD will be happy.

Imagine this hypothetical scenario: Inside AMD, circa early June 2016:
AMD has enough inside info on the upcoming GTX 1060 launch that they know they won't sell many of RX 480 cards once that hit the market. So they have a two week window to sell as many as they can. Jobs and bonuses are at stake, so what can they do ...

"Hey," some clever marketing person suggests, "howsabout if we send some juiced up cards out for review, and NDA them until the launch date. Odds are most of the fanbois will buy based on the inital splash, the subterfuge may not be detected (and won't be confirmed anyway) for a few days, and the fanbois won't read about the juicing until it's too late! Ka-ching!!! Who cares if some nerds at review sites gety irked, we've played this game before, and there's always some new site or Yutoober we can bribe to flog our crap. People hate NVidia and hate Intel, so we'll always have fans, no matter how much of a dirtball we act like!"

You don't think this kind of stuff happens? I give you: Volkswagen's "clean diesel."
 
DejaWiz said:
Approx 970 performance at around 100W TDP and more VRAM either way (3.5+0.5GB vs 4GB or 8GB)...and for a very competitive price, given today's going rates for the 970. Quite impressive, AMD. It'll be further impressing when AIBs release them with decent cooling solutions to curtail those >80C load temps.

Curious to see how a 480X, 490, and 490X will stack up against last-gen's upper tier and flagship offerings from both camps, as well as nVidia's new Pascal 1070 and 1080.
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lol... "Quite impressive, AMD."... not even close. If this came out 4-6 months ago, maybe... but the 1060 hype has already started. Anyone with a brain will wait for it at this point, and AMD is poised to lose horribly.
 
pcgeekesq said:
Don't be naive. As long as they sell a crap-ton of cards based on the initial reviews, AMD will be happy.

Imagine this hypothetical scenario: Inside AMD, circa early June 2016:
AMD has enough inside info on the upcoming GTX 1060 launch that they know they won't sell many of RX 480 cards once that hit the market. So they have a two week window to sell as many as they can. Jobs and bonuses are at stake, so what can they do ...

"Hey," some clever marketing person suggests, "howsabout if we send some juiced up cards out for review, and NDA them until the launch date. Odds are most of the fanbois will buy based on the inital splash, the subterfuge may not be detected (and won't be confirmed anyway) for a few days, and the fanbois won't read about the juicing until it's too late! Ka-ching!!! Who cares if some nerds at review sites gety irked, we've played this game before, and there's always some new site or Yutoober we can bribe to flog our crap. People hate NVidia and hate Intel, so we'll always have fans, no matter how much of a dirtball we act like!"

You don't think this kind of stuff happens? I give you: Volkswagen's "clean diesel."
Click to expand...

Turns out retail versions have same power consumption issues, so it isn't juiced review cards
 
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