"Nextgen" GPUs

[Gorath]

If it's price will be $300, I don't see anyone buying GTX 1060.

Exactly. The 1060 will have to be faster for 300$ or cheaper with that feature set.

RX480 according to tests can't "dethrone" GTX 970.

Sorry for taking this out of context. The 10 tests or so I have looked at ALL position the RX480 ahead of the 970, even if only by ~5%. Add to this more than twice the effective RAM size, newer tech, a DirectX12 advantage and a 100% up-to-date set of connectors ready for all the upcoming stuff, and you have the GTX 970 clearly beaten. But of course somebody who already owns a 970 has no reason to upgrade.

 

[Gorath]

The PCIe issue is starting to get somewhat interesting. AMD said the card passed the independent PCI-SIG testing to get the PCIe certification and Sapphire said that the Nitro RX 480 (that's a factory OCed card) won't need more than 150W to work (but will come with 8-PIN).

Also, HardOCP doesn't have the issue, his RX 480 is at 127.1W under load. Adantech seems to have similar result as well for total system.

HardTechs4You, an established German hardcore hardware test site, has detailed results for ca. 20 games. Their conclusion is that the RX480 is not a 150W card, but rather a 160-165W card, and that it breaks the 75W limit in nearly all games.

 

[lostforever]

Exactly. The 1060 will have to be faster for 300$ or cheaper with that feature set.



Sorry for taking this out of context. The 10 tests or so I have looked at ALL position the RX480 ahead of the 970, even if only by ~5%. Add to this more than twice the effective RAM size, newer tech, a DirectX12 advantage and a 100% up-to-date set of connectors ready for all the upcoming stuff, and you have the GTX 970 clearly beaten. But of course somebody who already owns a 970 has no reason to upgrade.

I don't think 970 is beaten. Worse case they are tie. How many DX 12 games we have now? Given all the power issues and stuff AMD has, most people are before off with Nvidia given are cost about the same now.

 

[Gorath]

I don't think 970 is beaten. Worse case they are tie. How many DX 12 games we have now? Given all the power issues and stuff AMD has, most people are before off with Nvidia given are cost about the same now.

Don't forget that the 970 had this RAM issue which nVidia never fixed.

 

[lostforever]

Don't forget that the 970 had this RAM issue which nVidia never fixed.

Which is less of an issue than AMD, power, heat etc.

I sold my 970 to buy the 1070 but the £400+ price tag put its out of my budget. I am thinking of buying the 970 again(!) and to me the 480 isn't in the running. nVidia has much better reliability and hassle free.

 

[joxer]

Sorry for taking this out of context. The 10 tests or so I have looked at ALL position the RX480 ahead of the 970, even if only by ~5%. Add to this more than twice the effective RAM size, newer tech, a DirectX12 advantage and a 100% up-to-date set of connectors ready for all the upcoming stuff, and you have the GTX 970 clearly beaten. But of course somebody who already owns a 970 has no reason to upgrade.

What dx12 advantage? GTX 970 already supports dx12. Upcoming stuff, you mean 5-10 dx12 games in next couple of years?

I ment what you said in the last sentence. Noone who already owns GTX970 needs to replace it with RX480.

I sold my 970 to buy the 1070 but the £400+ price tag put its out of my budget. I am thinking of buying the 970 again(!) and to me the 480 isn't in the running. nVidia has much better reliability and hassle free.

Don't. Either wait till we're sure about GTX1060 pwrformance/price or wait to see if rumored RX490 being soon is true.

 

[Kordanor]

(1) the PCIe power problem, (2) it's 5% too slow and (3) 20€ too expensive.

And (4) it apparently performs worse than the gtx 970 in VR, so calling it a VR card is a little dangerous.

If these 4 things were not the case, I probably would have bought it, even with my bad AMD experiences. But as it is now I am going to wait for 1060 results and/or 1070 price drops. Normally prices don't drop but in this case several 1070 cards aren't even available yet and I wouldn't see the price as set in stone.

 

[azarhal]

HardTechs4You, an established German hardcore hardware test site, has detailed results for ca. 20 games. Their conclusion is that the RX480 is not a 150W card, but rather a 160-165W card, and that it breaks the 75W limit in nearly all games.

Anandetch is one of the most reputed hardware review website in NA and HardOCP (well Kyle Bennett) hates AMD so he has no reason to lie about it (I read he went and bought another card to test the PCIe issue too).

edit:
Going by the PCIe spec and what people are saying on Overclock.net, the motherboard should disable device that overdraw from the bus and the power limit is software controlled.

 

[Gorath]

Anandetch is one of the most reputed hardware review website in NA and HardOCP (well Kyle Bennett) hates AMD so he has no reason to lie about it (I read he went and bought another card to test the PCIe issue too).

I know both sites and Kyle's history with AMD. HT4U crosschecked with 4(?) other sites who had the same issues before they contacted AMD about it though. That, and they have very sophisticated testing methods for this kind of stuff. So it's going to be interesting. The cat is out of the bag. The truth about this will come out sooner or later.
Just speculating, but it's entirely possible that AnandTech and HOCP got carefully chosen review samples. They're obviously more important for AMD than a German niche site, however well stablished and respected it may be.
I have no doubt whatsoever that HT4Y would update the test with a correction if their tests were to turn out faulty.

edit:
Going by the PCIe spec and what people are saying on Overclock.net, the motherboard should disable device that overdraw from the bus and the power limit is software controlled.

a) HT4U quoted the spec too. Maybe it should shut down, but it seems it doesn't always.
b) HT4U also used some software to increase the power target. I didn't really bother to understand all these technical details. They got it to draw more than 200W in the HAWX benchmark AFAIR.

 

[azarhal]

a) HT4U quoted the spec too. Maybe it should shut down, but it seems it doesn't always.
b) HT4U also used some software to increase the power target. I didn't really bother to understand all these technical details. They got it to draw more than 200W in the HAWX benchmark AFAIR.

You might want to drop the knee-jerk defensive act and start to think a bit when you read. My comment about the spec was that this problem can be resolved with a BIOS update because it is software controlled.

 

[Gorath]

I didn't mean to come over in an aggressive way, I only didn't have enough time for detailed answers.
I understood your comment in such a way that the sites you mentioned must be right because they're more well-known. Maybe that wasn't your intention.

 

[Galaad]

I like Hardware Canucks tests usually …here's a link to the page relating to temp and power in their 24 page review of the card.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...9-radeon-rx480-8gb-performance-review-22.html

Among the games and resolution they tested. The RX480 comes out 9-10% (1080p-1440p) ahead in DirectX 12 games vs the GTX980 and 27%-29% ahead of GTX970.

Mind you thats for DX12 games they tested...for DX11 titles it is only 5-10% ahead of GTX970 and a little behind GTX980.

 

[azarhal]

I didn't mean to come over in an aggressive way, I only didn't have enough time for detailed answers.
I understood your comment in such a way that the sites you mentioned must be right because they're more well-known. Maybe that wasn't your intention.

Nope, I was just pointing out that some reviewers didn't seems to have the issue.

And I think I found out why not everyone see it too. PCper did some more tests after the problem became a web-scandal and it seems that the card draws more form the PCIe the higher the resolution and/or when OCed (that one is kinda normal though). At 1080p, it spike over 75w a few time which isn't a problem (and lots of cards do that), but at 4k, it's over 75w constant.

 

[Caddy]

I like Hardware Canucks tests usually …here's a link to the page relating to temp and power in their 24 page review of the card.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...9-radeon-rx480-8gb-performance-review-22.html

Among the games and resolution they tested. The RX480 comes out 9-10% (1080p-1440p) ahead in DirectX 12 games vs the GTX980 and 27%-29% ahead of GTX970.

Mind you thats for DX12 games they tested…for DX11 titles it is only 5-10% ahead of GTX970 and a little behind GTX980.

Guru3D did some DX12 tests too, same results. This is good news.

 

[azarhal]

Gorath (or another German Watcher) might have to validate (because the article is in German and I'm reading google translation with 3rd party interpretation), but it appears that undervolting the RX 480 might be the way to go as long as you can keep it stable. Undervolting result in less power consumption (so less heat, fan noise, etc) with a small performance gain (form what I understand, that's because the max power target is higher so it can keep boost clock long).

Now the question is why AMD set those default high voltages. Seems like the PCIe overdraw could be resolved by undervolting the cards. Anyway, AMD is apparently supposed to make a public statement about that (PCIe overdraw) tomorrow.

 

[Gorath]

They tested the RX480's voltage (default; underclocked) against the power target (default; maximzed).
- Max power target leads to a 9% performance gain on average, meaning here close to zero (!) in some games and quite a lot (!) in others. The price is heat and more power consumption.
- The undervolted card @default power target is ca. 4.7% faster than the factory default. The reason is that "distance" to the power target is a bit longer, if you want, allowing the card to clock slightly higher on average. The power consumption is still the same because the card runs into the same power target.
- The undervolted card @max power target uses less juice for the same performance, or squeezes more performance out of the same W. It needs ca. 30W less than @max @default.


I don't understand what exactly "maximized power target" means, but anyway, you can find the results in most game benchmarks in this review.
I especially don't understand if they combined the RAM o/c to 4500 MHz with the max. power target.

 

[GothicGothicness]

I find it a bit strange that you compare the equivalent to a Mercedes C-Class to the equivalent of a Porsche 911. Different market segment and different price.

Yes, I might have considered buying a AMD card in the lower market segment if the performance was a bit better of the new AMD cards. But as it stands now, the 1070 is not that attractive to me, so I might as well get the 1080.

It is not that I was expecting the cheap AMD cards to be faster than the top-end Nvidia card. Also, my old computer is about to breakdown so I am not sure I'll be able to wait until the higher end AMD cards, given how their low-end performed I doubt they'll be better than the 1080 anyhow.

 

[lostforever]

Apparently 1060 will be announced on 7th of July. Does this mean 480 is already obsolete?

Good thing for me is that 970 are coming below £200 and I sold mine for about that so I will save money if I buy 970 again!

 

[azarhal]

I don't understand what exactly "maximized power target" means, but anyway, you can find the results in most game benchmarks in this review.
I especially don't understand if they combined the RAM o/c to 4500 MHz with the max. power target.

The "maximized power target" apparently means increasing the max power the card can draw in WattMan (AMD new OC tool). It's a setting. The card is power starved by design Clock throttled by design (just like the reference GTX 1070 and GTX 1080, but not for the same reasons).

 

[Kordanor]

Apparently 1060 will be announced on 7th of July. Does this mean 480 is already obsolete?

Good thing for me is that 970 are coming below £200 and I sold mine for about that so I will save money if I buy 970 again!

It seems like they aim for a performance of a 980 and a price around 300-350€.
The RX 480 costs 260€ in comparison.

So if everything goes right, it neatly fills the huge gap which is currently between Price and Performance of the RX 480 and the GTX 1070.