AMD RX 400 series (Polaris) MegaThread! FAQ & Resources

[-Fran-]

what insight on if nvidia is trying to pull a very public joke on the world??? i can some that one up real easy. NOT A CHANCE IN HELL THE 1060 IS A JOKE AND NOT ACTUALLY BEING RELEASED.

hope that clears it up for you 😀 that and reviewers have already said they have cards in hand and most brands have started teasing cards. i very highly doubt this is some kind of global multi-brand joke.

That is precisely why I think there is a *very* little chance of it being true. It's so backhanded and cheap that it might as well be one of those "it was so obvious no one saw it coming".

If nVidia just made reference cards with some partner under NDA to distribute and just sample like 200 GPUs for the world. They are indeed not making false claims, but the reality is that the 1060 will not be "out there" for everyone. That is what Charlie started saying that actually caught my attention. It is not *illegal*. As long as it's not *illegal*, Companies will do it right away; specially when they can deny it. Tinfoil material, but ugh...

Cheers!

 

[Ags1]

The cost to develop a 1060 is very high. I don't think they would do that without actually planning on selling a few. They pushed the release forward so they may not have volume, but perhaps they hope having a product on the market will make the buyers wait for availability rather than going for the RX480.

 

[TJ Hooker]

Can someone provide a link regarding SemiAccurate and the GTX 1060? Not sure what's being referred to here.

 

[Math Geek]

it's from the old discussion thread. think it was posted this morning there. not even sure the thread is still there. may have already been deleted.

edit: quick google search and this is it http://semiaccurate.com/2016/07/06/nvidias-gp104-based-gt1060-real/

 

[Martell1977]

So it looks like AMD will need to make a 485 or 480X to go head to head with the (Supposed performance) 1060 and keep things from getting confusing in the performance tiers. It's always been pretty clear, 960 vs 380, 970 vs 390, 980 vs 390X & Fury, 980ti vs FuryX.

Now it seems we might be look at 1060 vs 485 or 480X or 490? But, with the 480 a complete Polaris 10 chip, I'd have to assume the next tier up for AMD would be a cut down Vega?

 

[Math Geek]

i noted before that for once it is nice and easy to make suggestions. got the 460, 470, 480, 1060, 1070, then 1080. all nicely in a row. can't get any easier than that right now 😀 prices steadily go up as performance does. why muddle it with random cards just to be even with another card?

i answer way more "what card can i get for $100-150" questions than "what can i buy for $500". under $250-275 will be the amd cards, over that will be the nvidia ones. easy as pie

if the 1060 performs lower than nvidia says, then it will be equal to the 480 more or less and that would be the only "which way do i go?" performance level.

 

[Sakkura]

So it looks like AMD will need to make a 485 or 480X to go head to head with the (Supposed performance) 1060 and keep things from getting confusing in the performance tiers. It's always been pretty clear, 960 vs 380, 970 vs 390, 980 vs 390X & Fury, 980ti vs FuryX.

Now it seems we might be look at 1060 vs 485 or 480X or 490? But, with the 480 a complete Polaris 10 chip, I'd have to assume the next tier up for AMD would be a cut down Vega?

Not necessarily. 380X had no direct competitor.

 

[17seconds]

So it looks like AMD will need to make a 485 or 480X to go head to head with the (Supposed performance) 1060 and keep things from getting confusing in the performance tiers. It's always been pretty clear, 960 vs 380, 970 vs 390, 980 vs 390X & Fury, 980ti vs FuryX.

Now it seems we might be look at 1060 vs 485 or 480X or 490? But, with the 480 a complete Polaris 10 chip, I'd have to assume the next tier up for AMD would be a cut down Vega?

Except where would these GPUs come from? The RX480 is the full maxed out Polaris 10 chip. No where to go but down from there until Vega arrives 1H 2017.

 

[Martell1977]

Not necessarily. 380X had no direct competitor.

True, but I don't think AMD will want to leave the 1060 unopposed. But they may not have a choice.

Except where would these GPUs come from? The RX480 is the full maxed out Polaris 10 chip. No where to go but down from there until Vega arrives 1H 2017.

Exactly, they will be in kind of a hard spot. The naming conventions and tiers we have seen the last several generations will be turned on it's head if the 1060 is as powerful as nVidia boasts. Having a 490 Vega GPU against the 1060 will be confusing. The 490 and higher are supposed to be AMD's top tier GPU's, like the 1070 and 1080 are for nVidia. Without a 485/480X, the whole system we know will be confusing, at least with the addition of this tier will will straighten out the top end as we know and expect it.

 

[17seconds]

the custom 1080 cards regularly use 250w+ depending on the model. some spike easily past 300w!! with 225w being pretty normal for the low end custom cards. so not like a 250w 480x2 would be WAY out there beyond the 1080 power usage. it's not like anyone is going to want to test it against an FE card where it might actually be pretty comparable 😛

My sources are telling me that's not the case.

Maximum: We use Furmark Stability Test at 1280x1024, 0xAA. This results in a very high no-game power-consumption reading that can typically only be reached with stress-testing applications. We report the highest single reading after a short startup period. Initial bursts during startup are not included as they are too short to be relevant.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_1080_STRIX/22.html

 

[17seconds]

i noted before that for once it is nice and easy to make suggestions. got the 460, 470, 480, 1060, 1070, then 1080. all nicely in a row. can't get any easier than that right now 😀 prices steadily go up as performance does. why muddle it with random cards just to be even with another card?

i answer way more "what card can i get for $100-150" questions than "what can i buy for $500". under $250-275 will be the amd cards, over that will be the nvidia ones. easy as pie

if the 1060 performs lower than nvidia says, then it will be equal to the 480 more or less and that would be the only "which way do i go?" performance level.

So you like to keep it simple with a basic FPS/price ratio? Do you ever discuss features of one card over the other, or any of the multiple other factors that distinguish cards from within the same price-performance tier?

 

[Rogue Leader]

^Exactly, who cares about a matching performance offering, obviously Nvidia doesn't. If AMD can come out with a vega based 490, maybe without HBM2 for $300 that kicks the 1060's ass (hits 1070 level maybe) then thats that They have a card at $200 (the 480) $250 (the 480 8gb), and $300. Then the next vegas can go from there.

Maybe they won't line up exactly, but they can catch the crowd that can "throw a few more dollars at it" Its the same crowd the 1060 is going to grab from the 480.

 

[cdrkf]

^Exactly, who cares about a matching performance offering, obviously Nvidia doesn't. If AMD can come out with a vega based 490, maybe without HBM2 for $300 that kicks the 1060's ass (hits 1070 level maybe) then thats that They have a card at $200 (the 480) $250 (the 480 8gb), and $300. Then the next vegas can go from there.

Maybe they won't line up exactly, but they can catch the crowd that can "throw a few more dollars at it" Its the same crowd the 1060 is going to grab from the 480.

Why has everyone decided the RX480 cannot tackle the 1060 all of a sudden? So the reff design of the 1060 is (theoretically) going to be 15% ahead (in NV sponsored titles with GW enabled, in DX11 mode I'll bet). We've already been hearing that partner RX480 boards will have some pretty hefty out of the factory OC on them, which will easily make up for the 15%. Yeah the 1060 will OC as well of course, but I don't necessarily think it's a case that one will end up categorically faster than the other overall. I mean as usual nVidia have kept the memory bus a bit narrow on the 'x60' card (at least it's not 128 bit this time).

Also @17 seconds- when talking features AMD offer some good features, just as nVidia do. I also don't really get your position of 'RX480 is a tough sell'? Why? It's fast and cheap, and uses modest amounts of power (yeah more than Pascal but we're at a level where it's really not an issue imo). It can be paired with an inexpensive freesync display, supports crossfire, supports AMD's superior DX12 implementation and so on. What does it actually lack? The new VR stuff in Pascal looks interested (but is so far totally unproven), you've got GamesWorks I guess, but in my experience those features tend to offer minimal gains for a big performance loss even on NV hardware- and strikes me as NV leveling the playing field due to AMD having the full collectors edition of consoles at the moment (and for the foreseeable future) meaning AMD are the initial target platform for most of the big games.

 

[-Fran-]

Well, AMD did release the 7970 to later release the 7970Ghz.

Cheers!

 

[Sakkura]

Well, AMD did release the 7970 to later release the 7970Ghz.

Cheers!

What would it be this time... gigahertz-and-a-half edition?

 

[Rogue Leader]

^Exactly, who cares about a matching performance offering, obviously Nvidia doesn't. If AMD can come out with a vega based 490, maybe without HBM2 for $300 that kicks the 1060's ass (hits 1070 level maybe) then thats that They have a card at $200 (the 480) $250 (the 480 8gb), and $300. Then the next vegas can go from there.

Maybe they won't line up exactly, but they can catch the crowd that can "throw a few more dollars at it" Its the same crowd the 1060 is going to grab from the 480.

Why has everyone decided the RX480 cannot tackle the 1060 all of a sudden? So the reff design of the 1060 is (theoretically) going to be 15% ahead (in NV sponsored titles with GW enabled, in DX11 mode I'll bet). We've already been hearing that partner RX480 boards will have some pretty hefty out of the factory OC on them, which will easily make up for the 15%. Yeah the 1060 will OC as well of course, but I don't necessarily think it's a case that one will end up categorically faster than the other overall. I mean as usual nVidia have kept the memory bus a bit narrow on the 'x60' card (at least it's not 128 bit this time).

Also @17 seconds- when talking features AMD offer some good features, just as nVidia do. I also don't really get your position of 'RX480 is a tough sell'? Why? It's fast and cheap, and uses modest amounts of power (yeah more than Pascal but we're at a level where it's really not an issue imo). It can be paired with an inexpensive freesync display, supports crossfire, supports AMD's superior DX12 implementation and so on. What does it actually lack? The new VR stuff in Pascal looks interested (but is so far totally unproven), you've got GamesWorks I guess, but in my experience those features tend to offer minimal gains for a big performance loss even on NV hardware- and strikes me as NV leveling the playing field due to AMD having the full collectors edition of consoles at the moment (and for the foreseeable future) meaning AMD are the initial target platform for most of the big games.

I wasn't (and I don't think 17 seconds was) saying that. My point was if the 1060 does somehow beat out the RX 480 on average, it doesn't mean AMD has to go tit-for-tat and pop out a "480X" or something like that. Instead of having a complicated set of 20 different cards like the past few generations, they can just release something Vega based at a price point in between that beats the 1060 handily and even reaches 1070 levels (maybe even undercutting it on price). So while their offerings won't line up one to one, who cares.

 

[salgado18]

Well, AMD did release the 7970 to later release the 7970Ghz.

Cheers!

What would it be this time... gigahertz-and-a-half edition?

RX 480 MAXX... ? 😀

I miss the Rage naming, though.

 

[Mousemonkey]

it's from the old discussion thread. think it was posted this morning there. not even sure the thread is still there. may have already been deleted.

edit: quick google search and this is it http://semiaccurate.com/2016/07/06/nvidias-gp104-based-gt1060-real/

That site is in the same league as http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/ only not as funny or accurate! :lol:

 

[Math Geek]

it's from the old discussion thread. think it was posted this morning there. not even sure the thread is still there. may have already been deleted.

edit: quick google search and this is it http://semiaccurate.com/2016/07/06/nvidias-gp104-based-gt1060-real/

That site is in the same league as http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/ only not as funny or accurate! :lol:

was not an endorsement of the site in any way. i don't watch/read tmz for the same reasons. it's all click bait trash. i only linked it since it was asked about during the discussion, to bring him up to speed on what folks were going on about.

and i'll leave the 1080 discussion to the nvidia thread.

 

[Mousemonkey]

it's from the old discussion thread. think it was posted this morning there. not even sure the thread is still there. may have already been deleted.

edit: quick google search and this is it http://semiaccurate.com/2016/07/06/nvidias-gp104-based-gt1060-real/

That site is in the same league as http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/ only not as funny or accurate! :lol:

was not an endorsement of the site in any way. i don't watch/read tmz for the same reasons. it's all click bait trash. i only linked it since it was asked about during the discussion, to bring him up to speed on what folks were going on about.

and i'll leave the 1080 discussion to the nvidia thread.

The sad thing is though that there are a couple of posters on this thread who actually believe the crap that Charlie spews!

 

[salgado18]

I hope AMD sticks to few card models, like Nvidia does.

Something like:
Fury X
Fury
RX 490
RX 480
RX 470
RX 460

Unlike the old model:
Fury X
Fury
Fury Nano
R9 390X
R9 390
R9 380X
R9 385
R9 380
R9 370X
R9 370
R9 360X
R9 360

Both go from the same low to the same high, but so many models make it look so confusing.

That said, if they do it, I don't think there's space for a Polaris card to compete with the 1060, since next step up would be Vega. Making a next tier Polaris would add more to confusion.

 

[Math Geek]

that's my whole point of why a dual 480 would be an interesting card. there is nothing else amd can use since the 480 is the top of the line for now. i am not even saying the want to compete with nvidia at the 1070 or 1080 level at all. they seem pretty happy with themselves where they are now at mainstream levels. they may not even care that they can't match the top end nvidia cards. it only really seems to matter to nvidia fans who are looking for any reason to try and trash the 480 card.

but IF amd wants to throw something out there before vega, a dual 480 would be an interesting way to do it, with all the normal sli/xfire pitfalls considered. that's all my comment was saying

 

[17seconds]

Would I wish to have a chest-beating Polaris that went along with it (Polaris 10) right now? Of course, but I don't have an engineering team that can produce four chips in one shot - Raja Koduri
http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/93932-amd-radeon-rx-480-14nm-polaris/

 

[Math Geek]

here is a second 480 xfire test. this one from gamer's nexus http://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/2507-crossfire-rx-480-benchmark-vs-1070-and-1080-power-temperatures-fps

show about the same. negative scaling in some games and great scaling in others.

 

[Ags1]

Are there any rumored or confirmed clockspeeds on the non-reference RX480s?