AMD Radeon RX 480 8GB Review

[InvalidError]

and why not just cut the wafer into small rectangles before printing? the size that gives good yield ? having better yield will cover the cost of the unused cut wafer .. because you can cut the rectangles to the size point you get almost perfect yields .. who cares about some unprinted small cut edges when everything inside will yield perfectly?

If you mean cutting dies before the circuit is assembled on the silicon, that makes absolutely no sense since it would increase the number of processing and handling steps a hundred fold.

If you meant making square silicon ingots and aligning the die pattern to fit the most dies on that, this does not work either. Do you know why wafers are circular? Because the ingots are grown from a seed and grows radially from there. If you wanted a square ingot, you'd have to carve it out of a cylindrical one.

The other reason why round wafers are used is because the silicon chip fabrication process involves high temperatures and a round wafer distributes thermal expansion stresses evenly radially across the wafer which minimizes stresses and warping. A square wafer would have uneven stresses and more uneven warping, which would make the process of aligning the wafer within nanometers between processing steps even harder than it already is with deformations that may be impossible to compensate for.

If there was a more cost-effective way to make chips, Intel, TSMC, UMC, GloFo, etc. would be all over it. Right now, the next wafer cost reduction technology is lined up to be 450mm wafers.

 

[InvalidError]

so it is the wafer itself and not printing errors when printing away from the center . ok.

Some defects are in the wafer, some defects are due to alignment errors during processing, some defects can be caused by uneven flow or concentration of metal gas or liquid solvent during metal deposition, etch, etch-resist removal and other processing steps, some defects may be due to a microscopic speck of dust or other contaminant in a processing gas or fluid landing on the die, etc. All of these and many more parameters will have an effect on the defect rate and performance of each die.

When you are working at the nanometer scale, your error margin is only a few dozen atoms in any given direction.

 

[littleleo]

So they could sell us GTX 1080 the same price of GTX 1070 if they chosen too ... without any real cost on their side .. wow !

That isn't how it works. If they sold the 1080 at the same price as 1070s, they would have to write off the 1070s since nobody would buy them and need to recover those lost sales by increasing the 1080's price by an equivalent amount. You'd still end up with a 1080 priced over $500 but now without the 1070 in-between.

Greedy AiB partners, distributors and retailers taking a 20-50% combined markup over MSRP due to limited availability in some markets don't help things either.

Woe there buckaroo your standard disty are usually single digit mark-ups, where B&M retailers are about 20%-40% mark-up. That is why Amazon is putting so many out of business. Most are having to switching to services based selling more, and are targeting local businesses selling hardware near cost. Amazon usually signs deal with manufacturers to be able to sell at equal to the lowest web price they find and are guaranteed a certain number of points for profit.

Greedy board partners? They normally sell many versions of the cards, and the majority of them are below the reference ("Founders") card prices. How does that make them greedy? If you don't like the price on one model buy another or go to a different brand all together.

 

[Samer1970]

So they could sell us GTX 1080 the same price of GTX 1070 if they chosen too ... without any real cost on their side .. wow !

That isn't how it works. If they sold the 1080 at the same price as 1070s, they would have to write off the 1070s since nobody would buy them and need to recover those lost sales by increasing the 1080's price by an equivalent amount. You'd still end up with a 1080 priced over $500 but now without the 1070 in-between.

Greedy AiB partners, distributors and retailers taking a 20-50% combined markup over MSRP due to limited availability in some markets don't help things either.

Woe there buckaroo your standard disty are usually single digit mark-ups, where B&M retailers are about 20%-40% mark-up. That is why Amazon is putting so many out of business. Most are having to switching to services based selling more, and are targeting local businesses selling hardware near cost. Amazon usually signs deal with manufacturers to be able to sell at equal to the lowest web price they find and are guaranteed a certain number of points for profit.

Greedy board partners? They normally sell many versions of the cards, and the majority of them are below the reference ("Founders") card prices. How does that make them greedy? If you don't like the price on one model buy another or go to a different brand all together.

lol , wake up , every one in the market is "greedy"

Thats why they focus on destroying the others market and steal their customers , then buy the competing product half the price including their patents .. instead of sharing the market coexisting with each others..

 

[logainofhades]

Online retailers mark prices up, quite a bit, when the stock is low. Did you forget when the 6700k was selling for more than a 5820k, like $100+ more? I remember one site trying to sell them for more than a 5930k. :lol:

 

[Samer1970]

Online retailers mark prices up, quite a bit, when the stock is low. Did you forget when the 6700k was selling for more than a 5820k, like $100+ more? I remember one site trying to sell them for more than a 5930k. :lol:

Intel should control the pricing if you ask me .. or just sell direct ... whats stopping them from selling direct ?

 

[-Fran-]

Online retailers mark prices up, quite a bit, when the stock is low. Did you forget when the 6700k was selling for more than a 5820k, like $100+ more? I remember one site trying to sell them for more than a 5930k. :lol:

Intel should control the pricing if you ask me .. or just sell direct ... whats stopping them from selling direct ?

The costs associated to deal with clients.

Cheers!

 

[InvalidError]

Intel should control the pricing if you ask me .. or just sell direct ... whats stopping them from selling direct ?

Efficiency of scale: it is far more cost-effective for Intel to sell chips by the 1000 units tray or pallet than sell and ship millions of individual chips worldwide each week. While Apple sells some phones, tablets, laptops and other devices direct online, the bulk of their sales still happen through distributors and retailers.

Doing 100% of your physical goods business with direct sales is unsustainable beyond a few thousand shipments per site per day. Beyond that, ferrying goods between the manufacturing lines, packaging lines, shipping lines, etc. becomes a bottleneck and a floor space hog. That's why practically all mass-manufactured products go through distributors and retailers instead of micro-managing end-user shipments themselves.

There is little added value to manufacturers in bypassing distributors and retailers to earn their 40-60% markups for themselves if all the infrastructure and labor required to do so increases their costs and liabilities by a similar amount.

 

[Samer1970]

Intel should control the pricing if you ask me .. or just sell direct ... whats stopping them from selling direct ?

Efficiency of scale: it is far more cost-effective for Intel to sell chips by the 1000 units tray or pallet than sell and ship millions of individual chips worldwide each week. While Apple sells some phones, tablets, laptops and other devices direct online, the bulk of their sales still happen through distributors and retailers.

Doing 100% of your physical goods business with direct sales is unsustainable beyond a few thousand shipments per site per day. Beyond that, ferrying goods between the manufacturing lines, packaging lines, shipping lines, etc. becomes a bottleneck and a floor space hog. That's why practically all mass-manufactured products go through distributors and retailers instead of micro-managing end-user shipments themselves.

There is little added value to manufacturers in bypassing distributors and retailers to earn their 40-60% markups for themselves if all the infrastructure and labor required to do so increases their costs and liabilities by a similar amount.

Dell sells Direct since day one , and they sell millions of desktops/servers worldwide for business each month ... actually Dell started the Direct selling idea and was successful at it. Apple is nothing if compared to Dell in the PC market.

 

[Samer1970]

Online retailers mark prices up, quite a bit, when the stock is low. Did you forget when the 6700k was selling for more than a 5820k, like $100+ more? I remember one site trying to sell them for more than a 5930k. :lol:

Intel should control the pricing if you ask me .. or just sell direct ... whats stopping them from selling direct ?

The costs associated to deal with clients.

Cheers!

That can be covered by selling Retail Price instead of Volume Discounts.

 

[InvalidError]

Dell sells Direct since day one , and they sell millions of desktops/servers worldwide for business each month ... actually Dell started the Direct selling idea and was successful at it. Apple is nothing if compared to Dell in the PC market.

Yes, Dell "sells direct" but the bulk of their sales are to governments, government agencies and companies who order millions of dollars worth of stuff a pop. Dell also sells through retailers such as Best Buy and a number of distributors/brokers who handle smaller orders.

Also, where PCs are concerned, what is Dell actually direct-selling? All of their parts are made by third-parties, Dell is merely reselling them as prebuilt systems. That's no more direct than ordering a PC from the corner PC shop or having Best Buy's Geek Squad build you a PC from what is available in-store.

 

[Samer1970]

Dell sells Direct since day one , and they sell millions of desktops/servers worldwide for business each month ... actually Dell started the Direct selling idea and was successful at it. Apple is nothing if compared to Dell in the PC market.

Yes, Dell "sells direct" but the bulk of their sales are to governments, government agencies and companies who order millions of dollars worth of stuff a pop. Dell also sells through retailers such as Best Buy and a number of distributors/brokers who handle smaller orders.

Also, where PCs are concerned, what is Dell actually direct-selling? All of their parts are made by third-parties, Dell is merely reselling them as prebuilt systems. That's no more direct than ordering a PC from the corner PC shop or having Best Buy's Geek Squad build you a PC from what is available in-store.

Does not matter , Dell has the capacity to take in Orders and sell their products in huge Quantities , Labeled "Dell"

I think that intel could sell their "Boxed" CPU direct without any problems , it is a very small part of their sales ...

When you sell Direct , you protect the Prices of your Products . no one can sell them 20% more ..

 

[InvalidError]

When you sell Direct , you protect the Prices of your Products . no one can sell them 20% more ..

What sane manufacturer would do that? If retailers still run out of stock while pricing your parts above 20%, a direct-selling manufacturer would be crazy not to cash in on the fact that people are willing to pay 20% or more above MSRP to get their own units, which is exactly what Nvidia is doing with the Founders' Edition: ~$100 more per unit directly to Nvidia's pockets for the privilege of zero-day availability.

It is Intel's (and any other publicly traded company or private company with investors) duty to their shareholders and investors to get the most value out of their products. If the market situation says there there is more profit to be had from increasing prices by 20% than what will be lost on volume from the price increase, prices will go up to whatever the market can bear,

 

[-Fran-]

That can be covered by selling Retail Price instead of Volume Discounts.

I didn't go into more details, because the "consumer" world has very different rules than "corporate" world in terms of selling stuff. Dealing with consumers directly puts a lot of strain in a Company and if it's not already involved in that, or it's the main focus of the company, it's very expensive to keep.

Look at IBM's case. They were the kings of PC in the 80s and 90s, but in the 2000's they started to shift the focus and in 2010-ish (IIRC) they got rid of their whole "consumer" side. Lenovo now manages/uses that part of their business.

Cheers!

 

[vertexx]

Dell and Intel are in fundamentally different businesses - there really is no comparison.

 

[littleleo]

Online retailers mark prices up, quite a bit, when the stock is low. Did you forget when the 6700k was selling for more than a 5820k, like $100+ more? I remember one site trying to sell them for more than a 5930k. :lol:

Intel should control the pricing if you ask me .. or just sell direct ... whats stopping them from selling direct ?

If it was an advantage to sell directly to the public Intel would have been doing so for years. It is too big a headache for them. They have their master disty, which in turn sell to the sub disty and regional distys, which sell to the re-sellers, and e tailors, which sell to the public. Of course very large customers or projects can go direct or to a higher supplier on the food chain then normal.

 

[Samer1970]

When you sell Direct , you protect the Prices of your Products . no one can sell them 20% more ..

What sane manufacturer would do that? If retailers still run out of stock while pricing your parts above 20%, a direct-selling manufacturer would be crazy not to cash in on the fact that people are willing to pay 20% or more above MSRP to get their own units, which is exactly what Nvidia is doing with the Founders' Edition: ~$100 more per unit directly to Nvidia's pockets for the privilege of zero-day availability.

It is Intel's (and any other publicly traded company or private company with investors) duty to their shareholders and investors to get the most value out of their products. If the market situation says there there is more profit to be had from increasing prices by 20% than what will be lost on volume from the price increase, prices will go up to whatever the market can bear,

But you miss the fact that when the retailers sell 20% Above the Retail Price , Intel gets nothing from it , They dont sell it at a Higher Volume Price to them ...

 

[littleleo]

Dell sells Direct since day one , and they sell millions of desktops/servers worldwide for business each month ... actually Dell started the Direct selling idea and was successful at it. Apple is nothing if compared to Dell in the PC market.

Yes, Dell "sells direct" but the bulk of their sales are to governments, government agencies and companies who order millions of dollars worth of stuff a pop. Dell also sells through retailers such as Best Buy and a number of distributors/brokers who handle smaller orders.

Also, where PCs are concerned, what is Dell actually direct-selling? All of their parts are made by third-parties, Dell is merely reselling them as prebuilt systems. That's no more direct than ordering a PC from the corner PC shop or having Best Buy's Geek Squad build you a PC from what is available in-store.

Does not matter , Dell has the capacity to take in Orders and sell their products in huge Quantities , Labeled "Dell"

I think that intel could sell their "Boxed" CPU direct without any problems , it is a very small part of their sales ...

When you sell Direct , you protect the Prices of your Products . no one can sell them 20% more ..

When manufacturers think about protecting their prices and their Pricing structure. They are concerned with companies selling the products below the prices they specify that is why so many are fighting with Amazon and other places all the time. They don't care if your selling higher, just if you are selling below what you should.

E.G. If I were to call a reseller and offer them a i7 Skylake for $100 and the guy buys a bunch from me. Then he get a call from his regular CPU provider and he tells him "Hey I just bought those CPUs you offered me for $200 off the price you quoted me why are you ripping me off? I'm not buying from you any more". That CPU reseller is going to call the Disty he bought from and is going to complain how his customer can buy those CPUs so much cheaper them him. If that disty isn't direct with Intel he goes up the chain and complains. And on it goes until Intel gets a call and is bitched at for this happening. Now they will be pissed and they will trace where those CPUs came from and and who dropped the price. Then they will move to cut them off from future Intel CPUs for disrupting the channel then the price is restored an once the resellers supply is gone he has to go back to paying the price dictated by the price structure Intel has setup and enforces. They don't care if you pay more, just if you pay to little because it causes lots of problems.

 

[Samer1970]

Dell sells Direct since day one , and they sell millions of desktops/servers worldwide for business each month ... actually Dell started the Direct selling idea and was successful at it. Apple is nothing if compared to Dell in the PC market.

Yes, Dell "sells direct" but the bulk of their sales are to governments, government agencies and companies who order millions of dollars worth of stuff a pop. Dell also sells through retailers such as Best Buy and a number of distributors/brokers who handle smaller orders.

Also, where PCs are concerned, what is Dell actually direct-selling? All of their parts are made by third-parties, Dell is merely reselling them as prebuilt systems. That's no more direct than ordering a PC from the corner PC shop or having Best Buy's Geek Squad build you a PC from what is available in-store.

Does not matter , Dell has the capacity to take in Orders and sell their products in huge Quantities , Labeled "Dell"

I think that intel could sell their "Boxed" CPU direct without any problems , it is a very small part of their sales ...

When you sell Direct , you protect the Prices of your Products . no one can sell them 20% more ..

When manufacturers think about protecting their prices and their Pricing structure. They are concerned with companies selling the products below the prices they specify that is why so many are fighting with Amazon and other places all the time. They don't care if your selling higher, just if you are selling below what you should.

E.G. If I were to call a reseller and offer them a i7 Skylake for $100 and the guy buys a bunch from me. Then he get a call from his regular CPU provider and he tells him "Hey I just bought those CPUs you offered me for $200 off the price you quoted me why are you ripping me off? I'm not buying from you any more". That CPU reseller is going to call the Disty he bought from and is going to complain how his customer can buy those CPUs so much cheaper them him. If that disty isn't direct with Intel he goes up the chain and complains. And on it goes until Intel gets a call and is bitched at for this happening. Now they will be pissed and they will trace where those CPUs came from and and who dropped the price. Then they will move to cut them off from future Intel CPUs for disrupting the channel then the price is restored an once the resellers supply is gone he has to go back to paying the price dictated by the price structure Intel has setup and enforces. They don't care if you pay more, just if you pay to little because it causes lots of problems.

it should be both way protected ... If retailers sell at very High price , Intel would not get any more profit , because they sell at a fixed Volume Price ... and at the same time bringing bad name to the company and angry customers .

Intel Should protect their Prices at the time of shortage and high demand , because it is the retailers who benefit from the higher prices and not Intel. .

 

[littleleo]

Dell sells Direct since day one , and they sell millions of desktops/servers worldwide for business each month ... actually Dell started the Direct selling idea and was successful at it. Apple is nothing if compared to Dell in the PC market.

Yes, Dell "sells direct" but the bulk of their sales are to governments, government agencies and companies who order millions of dollars worth of stuff a pop. Dell also sells through retailers such as Best Buy and a number of distributors/brokers who handle smaller orders.

Also, where PCs are concerned, what is Dell actually direct-selling? All of their parts are made by third-parties, Dell is merely reselling them as prebuilt systems. That's no more direct than ordering a PC from the corner PC shop or having Best Buy's Geek Squad build you a PC from what is available in-store.

Does not matter , Dell has the capacity to take in Orders and sell their products in huge Quantities , Labeled "Dell"

I think that intel could sell their "Boxed" CPU direct without any problems , it is a very small part of their sales ...

When you sell Direct , you protect the Prices of your Products . no one can sell them 20% more ..

When manufacturers think about protecting their prices and their Pricing structure. They are concerned with companies selling the products below the prices they specify that is why so many are fighting with Amazon and other places all the time. They don't care if your selling higher, just if you are selling below what you should.

E.G. If I were to call a reseller and offer them a i7 Skylake for $100 and the guy buys a bunch from me. Then he get a call from his regular CPU provider and he tells him "Hey I just bought those CPUs you offered me for $200 off the price you quoted me why are you ripping me off? I'm not buying from you any more". That CPU reseller is going to call the Disty he bought from and is going to complain how his customer can buy those CPUs so much cheaper them him. If that disty isn't direct with Intel he goes up the chain and complains. And on it goes until Intel gets a call and is bitched at for this happening. Now they will be pissed and they will trace where those CPUs came from and and who dropped the price. Then they will move to cut them off from future Intel CPUs for disrupting the channel then the price is restored an once the resellers supply is gone he has to go back to paying the price dictated by the price structure Intel has setup and enforces. They don't care if you pay more, just if you pay to little because it causes lots of problems.

it should be both way protected ... If retailers sell at very High price , Intel would not get any more profit , because they sell at a fixed Volume Price ... and at the same time bringing bad name to the company and angry customers .

Intel Should protect their Prices at time of shortage and high demand , because it is the retailers who benefit from the higher prices and not Intel. .

You are missing one very important fact if a company is quoted a high price he can shop around and check the market price, and always find someone willing to sell it to them cheaper. When they find out the their vendor has been ripping them off they will drop them and go with the new supplier.

True on shortages and new launches prices can be higher but competition keeps it relative in the market, so everyone is around the same price. Intel, AMD and the the rest combat the issue by trying to get more inventory in the channel to combat price gouging.

But lets be honest if you own a business and you have 2 CPUs to sell and there is a big shortage on this very very popular model. Are you going to sell it at the suggested price or are you going to sell it for the most you can since you only have 2 in stock and none are to be found anywhere?

 

[Samer1970]

Dell sells Direct since day one , and they sell millions of desktops/servers worldwide for business each month ... actually Dell started the Direct selling idea and was successful at it. Apple is nothing if compared to Dell in the PC market.

Yes, Dell "sells direct" but the bulk of their sales are to governments, government agencies and companies who order millions of dollars worth of stuff a pop. Dell also sells through retailers such as Best Buy and a number of distributors/brokers who handle smaller orders.

Also, where PCs are concerned, what is Dell actually direct-selling? All of their parts are made by third-parties, Dell is merely reselling them as prebuilt systems. That's no more direct than ordering a PC from the corner PC shop or having Best Buy's Geek Squad build you a PC from what is available in-store.

Does not matter , Dell has the capacity to take in Orders and sell their products in huge Quantities , Labeled "Dell"

I think that intel could sell their "Boxed" CPU direct without any problems , it is a very small part of their sales ...

When you sell Direct , you protect the Prices of your Products . no one can sell them 20% more ..

When manufacturers think about protecting their prices and their Pricing structure. They are concerned with companies selling the products below the prices they specify that is why so many are fighting with Amazon and other places all the time. They don't care if your selling higher, just if you are selling below what you should.

E.G. If I were to call a reseller and offer them a i7 Skylake for $100 and the guy buys a bunch from me. Then he get a call from his regular CPU provider and he tells him "Hey I just bought those CPUs you offered me for $200 off the price you quoted me why are you ripping me off? I'm not buying from you any more". That CPU reseller is going to call the Disty he bought from and is going to complain how his customer can buy those CPUs so much cheaper them him. If that disty isn't direct with Intel he goes up the chain and complains. And on it goes until Intel gets a call and is bitched at for this happening. Now they will be pissed and they will trace where those CPUs came from and and who dropped the price. Then they will move to cut them off from future Intel CPUs for disrupting the channel then the price is restored an once the resellers supply is gone he has to go back to paying the price dictated by the price structure Intel has setup and enforces. They don't care if you pay more, just if you pay to little because it causes lots of problems.

it should be both way protected ... If retailers sell at very High price , Intel would not get any more profit , because they sell at a fixed Volume Price ... and at the same time bringing bad name to the company and angry customers .

Intel Should protect their Prices at time of shortage and high demand , because it is the retailers who benefit from the higher prices and not Intel. .

You are missing one very important fact if a company is quoted a high price he can shop around and check the market price, and always find someone willing to sell it to them cheaper. When they find out the their vendor has been ripping them off they will drop them and go with the new supplier. It happens all the time, the phone rings and you hear"I see your a distributor for this product I've been buying, if I were to buy 50pcs from you what would my price be"? If a customer is too stupid to check prices from time to time even on old suppliers that is on them.

at time of shortages all prices go up every where ... and the only one who gets nothing from it is the manufacturer . Thats why it is stupid for Intel not to protect their retail prices .

 

[InvalidError]

at time of shortages all prices go up every where ... and the only one who gets nothing from it is the manufacturer . Thats why it is stupid for Intel not to protect their retail prices .

Intel and most other manufacturers do not care what the retail price is. The whole point of having a distribution network is not having to worry about day-to-day, market-by-market pricing. The only thing that matters to manufacturers is getting paid their bulk price.

As I wrote earlier, there is little to no benefit to manufacturers from bypassing their distributors and retailers if it increases their costs by 40-60% to cut off the distributors and retailers' 40-60% margin. All it would achieve is massively bloat the business with non-core activities and piss off the whole distribution and retail ecosystem for no benefit to end-users.

 

[vertexx]

Well, I was going to get an RX480 4GB for my oldest son's birthday - was looking at the Sapphire Nitro 4GB version for $220-230.

But, AMD can't even execute on delivering products to market (or at least their board partners can't). RX 480 was released weeks before the 1060, but Nvidia is just out executing AMD all around.

Tired of waiting, 1060's are back in stock on Newegg, so I just bought this - perfect for my son's mini-ITX rig: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487261

 

[Sakkura]

Or maybe it's just the 480 selling really well.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Yeah, yeah that's what it is! :lol: