AMD Radeon RX 480 Designed To Bring VR To The Budget-Strapped Masses

[N.Broekhuijsen]

AMD's Polaris-based Radeon RX 480 graphics card is aimed at bringing VR performance to the masses.

AMD Radeon RX 480 Designed To Bring VR To The Budget-Strapped Masses : Read more

 

[turkey3_scratch]

The only thing we don't know is... performance. We know how Crossfire performs in Ashes of Singularity, but that's it! And even then, it's the FPS that AMD gave, and surely it is exaggerated some. I am thinking that Polaris will trade blows with Pascal depending on the game. I think certain DX12 games, especially those with Async Computer, will favor Polaris by a good margin, but the rest will be favoring Nvidia perhaps a bit. I don't know, it'll be interesting to see how things turn out. I was expecting them to unveil the RX 470 also, but I guess not.

 

[kinney]

The wait between now and June 29th is not going to help AMD. That's a blunder as it gives NV plenty of time to get all the data they can through their sources and prepare their response. Whether that's lowering prices on Maxwell cards or getting a new card out.

 

[ragenalien]

After all that posturing all we get is a GPU that barely competes with the now nearly two year old GTX 980. It's a wonderful price point and all but that's not going to lower the price of the 1070 much less the 1080. It's like AMD and Nvidia had a chat and decided to only release GPU's that wouldn't compete with each other.

 

[comprodigy]

So we are forgetting the 1080 launched with DP 1.4 and HDR then? And I quote
'Not only does it have DisplayPort 1.3 support, but it is also the first card to support DisplayPort 1.4 with HDR.'

 

[rwinches]

1070 1080
Display Port 1.4 READY is not the same thing.

 

[thor220]

At $200 you could get two RX 480s or one founders edition 1070. Even if the performance isn't a huge leap it's hard to ignore the value.

 

[rush21hit]

>$200
>5,5 TFLOPS
>1x6pin
>150watts

While I know that single precision FLOPS performance does not always measure gaming performance, it's still a good indication. And I agree with Raja, VR needs to be accessible to many to bring out much more quality content and more aggressive pricing. At that level of single precision, this RX should have enough raw power to deliver.
He also said bringing $500 performance level, so..Nano level? Still a good thing nonetheless.

Now I wait on how the GTX1060 would fare.

 

[alextheblue]

It's a wonderful price point and all but that's not going to lower the price of the 1070 much less the 1080. It's like AMD and Nvidia had a chat and decided to only release GPU's that wouldn't compete with each other.

This is more in my price range anyway. A battle at the top is less useful for mainstream gamers. This will force Nvidia to drop prices on their last-gen hardware big time.

 

[cryoburner]

After all that posturing all we get is a GPU that barely competes with the now nearly two year old GTX 980. It's a wonderful price point and all but that's not going to lower the price of the 1070 much less the 1080. It's like AMD and Nvidia had a chat and decided to only release GPU's that wouldn't compete with each other.

Why does it matter that cards with comparable performance existed in the "enthusiast level" segment a year and a half ago? The GTX 980 launched for $550. For the vast majority of people, that's as good as not existing at all. Most gamers aren't willing to spend much more than around $300 on a graphics card, if even that. However impressive the performance of Nvidia's newly launched cards might be, they're not going to be something that most will seriously consider purchasing in the near future. The mid to upper-mid range tends to be relevant to a lot more people. And within the coming months, both Nvidia and AMD will likely fill in the gaps to complete their lineups.

As for whether they worked together to release their cards this way, probably not, but I'm sure both companies have insiders to get information about what the other is doing.

 

[Imz Deodex]

It is good to see PC gaming becoming cheaper, accessible and more powerful compared to buying a console. It is sad to see my GTX 960 4gb being replaced now xD

 

[DeathRabit]

RX 480 Performance a bit higher than R9 390 at 199$ looks good * second hand R9 290 can be more expensive
Anyway I will wait for custom PCB wit 8pin for more OC headroom

 

[bit_user]

No DVI?

It's funny how I've always stayed below about $250, but now VR finally has me contemplating a $500+ GPU. Perhaps AMD mistimed this new strategy, a bit?

I'm guessing Nvidia will have to aggressively lower their prices on the GTX 1070, as I suspect the small performance difference won't justify the current pricing disparity. Specs-wise, the two seem very close (256-bit GDDR5; ~5 TFLOPS; 150 W).

 

[SpAwNtoHell]

I think, by the specs that this Polaris card due to new tech and what amd says 1.7x 2.8x is going to blow off the water anything under nvidia's 1070, being slower with about 10-15% which yeah sounds great but will have to see...

 

[iam2thecrowe]

The one problem i have with AMD at the moment, is performance consistency. Comparable AMD and Nvidia gpu's perform roughly on par with the correct workload, but there are many games that nvidia steams off with the lead with products at the same price point. I know people will say to this, "oh but nvidia pays off/works with devs to make games run better on their gear", but still, I dont want to buy a gpu and have it perform poorly on one or two games i really want to play.... AMD really need more consistent performance.

 

[DbD2]

"AMD Radeon RX 480 Designed To Bring VR To The Budget-Strapped Masses"

Because those budget strapped masses can afford an $800 headset ...

 

[tridon]

They hope for a 2.8 increase in performance/watt. If that is compared to the 380 it may be as much as 80% faster in any single game. That sounds too good to be true, so I'm guessing it's not a 380 to 480 comparison. One could always hope :|

 

[InvalidError]

Because those budget strapped masses can afford an $800 headset ...

There will be more affordable ones in the future. Prices on the current models are the early adopter premium, much like Google Glasses.

If there isn't enough GPU-power in the more budget-conscious price range, there won't be a market for more budget-oriented VR kits. It isn't as if the RX-480 needed VR to be useful either, there are plenty of uses for it even if VR turns out to be a short-lived fad.

 

[Valantar]

This looks pretty great. Nails the price point, efficiency is more than good enough (good luck finding a decent PSU below 450W any way), and performance should be good. Anandtech speculates that the R9 480 should outperform the R9 390, which would make it amazing value. If the GTX 1060 is <75W as rumored, this should beat it thoroughly (although a 1060 Ti at ~100W would probably tie it or win).

Looking forward to the reviews. And come on, guys. This is the 1080 "paper launch" whining all over again. Are "paper launches" with a 1-month wait really worth complaining over? Do you have money sitting around wating to buy a new GPU the second it's announced? If yes - go do something fun while you wait. You can afford it. If not, then stop whining.

 

[DbD2]

There will be more affordable ones in the future. Prices on the current models are the early adopter premium, much like Google Glasses.

And by that time the min spec for VR will be higher then the current 480 provides, and it will have been replaced by something faster anyway.

 

[Biscuit42]

Do you have money sitting around wating to buy a new GPU the second it's announced? If yes - go do something fun while you wait. You can afford it. If not, then stop whining.

I've been eyeing a new video card for four months, but opted to wait to see what Polaris would bring to the table. I'm not disappointed and will be grabbing an early one when they're on the street. And the price point is right in my sweet spot -- I just can't justify spending more than $250 on a component that will be obsolete in two years.

 

[gggplaya]

After all that posturing all we get is a GPU that barely competes with the now nearly two year old GTX 980. It's a wonderful price point and all but that's not going to lower the price of the 1070 much less the 1080. It's like AMD and Nvidia had a chat and decided to only release GPU's that wouldn't compete with each other.

You ignore the point, the high end GPU sales($350+) isn't what most people can afford. That's more than an Xbox or PS4 by the time you buy any other PC components. Because xbone and ps4 are now x86 and game engines are all capable of cross platform developement, AMD is seeing the growing market in PC gaming. A $200 graphics card that can compete somewhere between the current geforce 970 and 980 at half the price is an amazing value. I have a geforce 970 now, which can play all the latest titles at 60+fps with max detail at 1080p. It's a smart move and will capture some marketshare away from console gaming.

 

[koss64]

No DVI?

It's funny how I've always stayed below about $250, but now VR finally has me contemplating a $500+ GPU. Perhaps AMD mistimed this new strategy, a bit?

I'm guessing Nvidia will have to aggressively lower their prices on the GTX 1070, as I suspect the small performance difference won't justify the current pricing disparity. Specs-wise, the two seem very close (256-bit GDDR5; ~5 TFLOPS; 150 W).

I agree its seems a little odd that a budget card wouldn't support dvi(still you can get an adapter for it https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-HDMI-DVI-Adapter-Cable/dp/B014I8UU2W?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0) but still at this price for that performance I can actually think about upgrading my Radeon 6670 lol.

 

[comprodigy]

1070 1080
Display Port 1.4 READY is not the same thing.

They were waiting on certification, if you look, all the AIBs now say DP1.4.

 

[chessgeek]

I just need a card that requires only one 6-pin power connector to replace my HD 7850. My power supply does not have a 6+2 or 8-pin connector. Hopefully the $199 RX 480 can give me GTX 970 like or plus performance with only one 6-pin.