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

[BurgerandChips66]

The DX12/Vulkan factor is certainly worth considering when looking at an RX 480 vs the GTX 1060.
Forza Horizon 3 has just launched and this is another DX12 title that performs better on the RX 480 than on the GTX 1060.
As already mentioned, Freesync is another good reason to choose an RX 480.
DX11 performance is generally better on the GTX 1060 but it's still good on the RX 480...

 

[Rogue Leader]

The DX12/Vulkan factor is certainly worth considering when looking at an RX 480 vs the GTX 1060.
Forza Horizon 3 has just launched and this is another DX12 title that performs better on the RX 480 than on the GTX 1060.
As already mentioned, Freesync is another good reason to choose an RX 480.
DX11 performance is generally better on the GTX 1060 but it's still good on the RX 480...

This is an important point to remember in this argument. I keep seeing folks mention the GTX 1060's DX11 performance which is clearly better. But its not like you're playing a slideshow on an RX 480. It plays those games perfectly well, especially ones that use Mantle like BF 4.

 

[renz496]

well that made me curious. how did RX480 perform in BF4 using Mantle? though it seems the more recent drivers have issues if you want to run games with mantle and AMD themselves suggesting for those that having issues in mantle to play the game in DX11.

 

[Rogue Leader]

well that made me curious. how did RX480 perform in BF4 using Mantle? though it seems the more recent drivers have issues if you want to run games with mantle and AMD themselves suggesting for those that having issues in mantle to play the game in DX11.

Funny you mention. BF4 and BF Hardline both performed excellently with Mantle, easily 60 fps it seemed (I didn't measure but it was clearly well over 30). The only problem I ran into was after that update when I would start BF4 it would crash before starting after like a minute with a popup box saying some sort of Mantle error. But then I would close the error, start the game again and it would run fine. BF Hardline did not have the same issue. Neither game ever crashed while playing.

 

[Embra]

I have not played BF4, But I do get about a 11-12 fps bump and smoother play with Mantle on Dragon Age Inquisition.

 

[renz496]

I have not played BF4, But I do get about a 11-12 fps bump and smoother play with Mantle on Dragon Age Inquisition.

on the new RX?

 

[Embra]

I have not played BF4, But I do get about a 11-12 fps bump and smoother play with Mantle on Dragon Age Inquisition.

on the new RX?

No, not on the RX, but with win 10.

 

[Math Geek]

i know early on dx 12 was "going to be a few years off' before it got big adoption. but it seems like it will be sooner rather than later for a steady move to dx12 in games. MS is pushing win 10 and dx12 heavily and it seems like we will see it mainstream rather quickly. the older games getting dx 12 patches seems like a good bit of writing on the wall in that respect. seems like dx12 brings enough new stuff to the table that it is worth developers making the move sooner rather than later.

just my casual observation anyway but seems along the right lines for what is going on.

 

[renz496]

personally i just hope developer do it because the whole team agree to do make their game with DX12 in mind and not because of their publisher or sponsor ask them to use DX12. just look at Doom. they use Vulkan with their own will without anyone asking them to use it and the result speak for itself.

 

[James Mason]

Anyone check their RX 480 boxes?

 

[-Fran-]

thanks guys, I will think about it

Ok, so the monitor arrived today (should've arrived on Friday >_>) and I can say the initial impressions are very positive for 2 main reasons:

The first one is I just plugged it in and it worked hassle free. The only stupid thing AMD still hasn't put back into their new software is the option to select refresh rates for the monitors (or at least I still can't find them), so you have to do it through the old Windows Display Driver window, like in Win95, lol. Everything else was auto-set up, sort of speaking; Catalyst even told me "oh, you connected a Freesync monitor, click here to set up" (or something like that).

And the second is the colors of the TN panel from this monitor are better than my old Samsung 120Hz monitor. Way way better. My only gripe with this is that is has too many damn options. And adjusting the gamma levels is a pain in the rear. I haven't nailed a good color/gamma configuration for the desktop, but I found one for games that works great; and yeah, for some reason they are not "compatible" with each other.

As for the "upgrade" from 120Hz with no Freesync: I have to say it wasn't that much of a "smoothness" change, since 120Hz, even with tearing, it's fast enough in transitioning that you don't notice it all the time. It is more of a subtle, yet perceptible, difference in smoothness of frame delivery. I will imagine that anyone coming from a 60Hz (with or without Freesync or GSync) will see a *massive* difference just like I did with the 60->120 Hz change.

So, all in all, go read this: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/aoc-g2460pf-24-inch-144hz-freesync-monitor,4743.html

That is the monitor I got, so why say more than this when you have a lot of juicy data in there.

As for "should you take it into account for a purchase between AMD and nVidia?". Well, if you are thinking on going 120Hz, most definitely yes. If you plan on staying at 60Hz, or don't care for either tech for smoothing frame delivery, don't bother. The price difference between a GSync and a Freesync monitor and the price difference between the RX480 4GB (and even some 8GBs) with the 1060 makes it a "hidden bonus" for AMD IMO. It is not a small difference taking both into account: simple math says a USD$60 between monitors (on avg) and a USD$40 between the cards (avg as well) is USD$100 that you could put into an SSD or better cooling or more bling bling for your case.

Cheers!

PS: James, that picture looks photoshoped. Did you take it?

 

[Robert Cook]

Anyone check their RX 480 boxes?

tell me this is so, that would be most funny.

 

[Sakkura]

The DX12/Vulkan factor is certainly worth considering when looking at an RX 480 vs the GTX 1060.
Forza Horizon 3 has just launched and this is another DX12 title that performs better on the RX 480 than on the GTX 1060.
As already mentioned, Freesync is another good reason to choose an RX 480.
DX11 performance is generally better on the GTX 1060 but it's still good on the RX 480...

This is an important point to remember in this argument. I keep seeing folks mention the GTX 1060's DX11 performance which is clearly better. But its not like you're playing a slideshow on an RX 480. It plays those games perfectly well, especially ones that use Mantle like BF 4.

Being fair, that applies in the other direction as well.

Right now it seems like the 480 has a bigger average lead in DX12/Vulkan games than the 1060 has in DX11/OpenGL games, but I'm not sure that's how it'll be in the long run. Devs could eventually optimize their code paths better for Nvidia... but I don't think the 1060 will ever catch up.

 

[Rogue Leader]

The DX12/Vulkan factor is certainly worth considering when looking at an RX 480 vs the GTX 1060.
Forza Horizon 3 has just launched and this is another DX12 title that performs better on the RX 480 than on the GTX 1060.
As already mentioned, Freesync is another good reason to choose an RX 480.
DX11 performance is generally better on the GTX 1060 but it's still good on the RX 480...

This is an important point to remember in this argument. I keep seeing folks mention the GTX 1060's DX11 performance which is clearly better. But its not like you're playing a slideshow on an RX 480. It plays those games perfectly well, especially ones that use Mantle like BF 4.

Being fair, that applies in the other direction as well.

Right now it seems like the 480 has a bigger average lead in DX12/Vulkan games than the 1060 has in DX11/OpenGL games, but I'm not sure that's how it'll be in the long run. Devs could eventually optimize their code paths better for Nvidia... but I don't think the 1060 will ever catch up.

I agree, they could catch up, they could be exactly the same some day, who knows for sure.

Either way there are folks here who say the 1060 is "way faster" (more of them) than the 480, and some the other way around, when the reality is aside from a couple games they are usually within 5-10fps of one another which, especially over 60fps, is basically negligible.

 

[cdrkf]

The DX12/Vulkan factor is certainly worth considering when looking at an RX 480 vs the GTX 1060.
Forza Horizon 3 has just launched and this is another DX12 title that performs better on the RX 480 than on the GTX 1060.
As already mentioned, Freesync is another good reason to choose an RX 480.
DX11 performance is generally better on the GTX 1060 but it's still good on the RX 480...

This is an important point to remember in this argument. I keep seeing folks mention the GTX 1060's DX11 performance which is clearly better. But its not like you're playing a slideshow on an RX 480. It plays those games perfectly well, especially ones that use Mantle like BF 4.

Being fair, that applies in the other direction as well.

Right now it seems like the 480 has a bigger average lead in DX12/Vulkan games than the 1060 has in DX11/OpenGL games, but I'm not sure that's how it'll be in the long run. Devs could eventually optimize their code paths better for Nvidia... but I don't think the 1060 will ever catch up.

I agree, they could catch up, they could be exactly the same some day, who knows for sure.

Either way there are folks here who say the 1060 is "way faster" (more of them) than the 480, and some the other way around, when the reality is aside from a couple games they are usually within 5-10fps of one another which, especially over 60fps, is basically negligible.

That's very true- both offer an excellent experience at 1080p.

Personally for me, with price being similar, I rate the 480 because it is reliably showing an advantage (albeit not huge for the most part) under DX12 and Vulkan, and Freesync has a big cost benefit for the same capability as G-Sync (with Intel throwing in on Freesync I think G-Sync is going to be short lived, just like Mantle was for AMD). The RX480 also allowing crossfire is a bonus.

On the other side of things, if you want the upgrade for a current DX11 title specifically, the 1060 likely offers better value / performance. It also has some (ironically) better VR tech than the RX480 does- so if looking into a VR headset in the future is probably the one I'd pick.

Sadly though most people have to have one side 'win' and then declare anything from the other manufacturer worthless. It's a shame as the crazy fanaticism around the brands has allowed one manufacturer to gain an unhealthy grasp on the discreet market- which they are exploiting with higher prices. People should buy based on facts, however for some reason gaming hardware has become 'tribal' and so facts, logic and reasoning get thrown out of the window....

 

[renz496]

The DX12/Vulkan factor is certainly worth considering when looking at an RX 480 vs the GTX 1060.
Forza Horizon 3 has just launched and this is another DX12 title that performs better on the RX 480 than on the GTX 1060.
As already mentioned, Freesync is another good reason to choose an RX 480.
DX11 performance is generally better on the GTX 1060 but it's still good on the RX 480...

This is an important point to remember in this argument. I keep seeing folks mention the GTX 1060's DX11 performance which is clearly better. But its not like you're playing a slideshow on an RX 480. It plays those games perfectly well, especially ones that use Mantle like BF 4.

Being fair, that applies in the other direction as well.

Right now it seems like the 480 has a bigger average lead in DX12/Vulkan games than the 1060 has in DX11/OpenGL games, but I'm not sure that's how it'll be in the long run. Devs could eventually optimize their code paths better for Nvidia... but I don't think the 1060 will ever catch up.

I agree, they could catch up, they could be exactly the same some day, who knows for sure.

Either way there are folks here who say the 1060 is "way faster" (more of them) than the 480, and some the other way around, when the reality is aside from a couple games they are usually within 5-10fps of one another which, especially over 60fps, is basically negligible.

That's very true- both offer an excellent experience at 1080p.

Personally for me, with price being similar, I rate the 480 because it is reliably showing an advantage (albeit not huge for the most part) under DX12 and Vulkan, and Freesync has a big cost benefit for the same capability as G-Sync (with Intel throwing in on Freesync I think G-Sync is going to be short lived, just like Mantle was for AMD). The RX480 also allowing crossfire is a bonus.

On the other side of things, if you want the upgrade for a current DX11 title specifically, the 1060 likely offers better value / performance. It also has some (ironically) better VR tech than the RX480 does- so if looking into a VR headset in the future is probably the one I'd pick.

Sadly though most people have to have one side 'win' and then declare anything from the other manufacturer worthless. It's a shame as the crazy fanaticism around the brands has allowed one manufacturer to gain an unhealthy grasp on the discreet market- which they are exploiting with higher prices. People should buy based on facts, however for some reason gaming hardware has become 'tribal' and so facts, logic and reasoning get thrown out of the window....

most people don't even care which brand they got as long as it suits what they need. i doubt that the dominance nvidia have with the market share because of there are a lot of nvidia fanboys. the thing with AMD is some people don't even know they exist. AMD need to do something with their marketing so their product are better exposed to the people. and developer reach. one of issues with AMD is they tend only to focus on triple A stuff. Square Enix for example have been doing a lot of partnership with AMD but i was surprised to see when SE actually doing promotion with Nvidia for Final Fantasy A Realm Reborn. it seems AMD have not much interest in MMO type of game.

 

[Martell1977]

most people don't even care which brand they got as long as it suits what they need. i doubt that the dominance nvidia have with the market share because of there are a lot of nvidia fanboys. the thing with AMD is some people don't even know they exist. AMD need to do something with their marketing so their product are better exposed to the people. and developer reach. one of issues with AMD is they tend only to focus on triple A stuff. Square Enix for example have been doing a lot of partnership with AMD but i was surprised to see when SE actually doing promotion with Nvidia for Final Fantasy A Realm Reborn. it seems AMD have not much interest in MMO type of game.

I've been saying the same thing. Intel is a household name, through advertising, they made themselves one. Even the few people left that don't have a computer, know who Intel is. I see Intel commercials all the time and in the last 20 years, I think I've seen 1 AMD commercial. They didn't even advertise when they had superior products.

Most of my clients think AMD is an Intel knock-off at best or a cheap garbage brand from China. But that is if they have even heard of them in the first place. Sometimes I try to educate them, but most of the time they don't care and just want to go with the brand the know.

If AMD releases Zen and Vega with the performance they have been hinting or showing, then they really need to shout it from the hilltops!

 

[cdrkf]

most people don't even care which brand they got as long as it suits what they need. i doubt that the dominance nvidia have with the market share because of there are a lot of nvidia fanboys. the thing with AMD is some people don't even know they exist. AMD need to do something with their marketing so their product are better exposed to the people. and developer reach. one of issues with AMD is they tend only to focus on triple A stuff. Square Enix for example have been doing a lot of partnership with AMD but i was surprised to see when SE actually doing promotion with Nvidia for Final Fantasy A Realm Reborn. it seems AMD have not much interest in MMO type of game.

I've been saying the same thing. Intel is a household name, through advertising, they made themselves one. Even the few people left that don't have a computer, know who Intel is. I see Intel commercials all the time and in the last 20 years, I think I've seen 1 AMD commercial. They didn't even advertise when they had superior products.

Most of my clients think AMD is an Intel knock-off at best or a cheap garbage brand from China. But that is if they have even heard of them in the first place. Sometimes I try to educate them, but most of the time they don't care and just want to go with the brand the know.

If AMD releases Zen and Vega with the performance they have been hinting or showing, then they really need to shout it from the hilltops!

It's the same with GPUs. Also @Renz496, trust me there is a hardcore group of nVidia fans who will shout down anyone who dares recommend AMD graphics boards. You don't get that the other way around unfortunately. I think that is partly to do with the huge skew in adoption- nVidia have had some good products for sure, but AMD have kept pace with them over the last few generations (they were even ahead with the HD7000 series for a while). The reality of competitive positioning doesn't match the massive market share difference.

As an example, I was watching a Star Citizen live stream last night- someone in chat asked about what GPU to get for a new build to play the game. Several people chimed up recommending the 1060 as a good value option (no issue with that). Then one person suggests the RX480 as a good alternative. Well- at that point the chat exploded with 'DONT TOUCH AMD', 'I had AMD, Driver were broken, avoid', 'AMD Sucks Ass' and other helpful comments. All the guy did was suggest an equivalent AMD card, and I honestly think the doomsayers with 'experience' of 'terrible AMD drivers' were making it up. I've had several AMD cards recently (as well as some machine with nVidia) and both work fine.

When a simple recommendation gets hounded like that however- well you can start to see why AMD don't move many cards. I've said it before and I'll say it again- nVidia's greatest strength is their marketing- like Apple they have created a brand image of being 'best' irrespective of the facts. The attitude these days is, at best, if all things are equal buy nVidia. For AMD to get fair consideration they have to offer *more* than nVidia do for the same money- and given nVidia are good at what they do that is a big ask, and leads to a situation of nVidia being able to make massive profits, selling cheaper hardware for more money than AMD can.

 

[BurgerandChips66]

There's certainly some truth in that, imo at least.

Maybe that attitude is prevalent more in younger people, who only have the last few years to form an opinion on Nvidia and AMD/Radeon.

At my age (pretty old now!) I am totally neutral for these things. I recall a time when ATI Radeon was the best and Nvidia was the new kid on the block, playing catch up! As a result I own/owned a mix of cards and always look at all the options before parting with my hard earned $.

 

[-Fran-]

Fanbois from either camp are like cancer: they spread quickly and kill any reasonable discussion about merits for either brand. We're all better than that, so let's keep it always in perspective when addressing strong points for each. That is why we're in this place discussing about technology and not just blindly praising either brand.

That being said, liking a brand does not make you a fanboi. It might skew your view somewhat (bias), but as long as you recognize strengths on contenders backed by data (be it experience or actual benchies) it's fine. That is my take on things.

---

As a continuation for my impressions on Freesync (and by consequence, the AOC monitor itself), I can add that I have been noticing the smoothness better when tweaking settings in games. If you actually manage to get more FPS'es (lowering quality settings, basically) the effect is actually *very* noticeable when moving around. Most of my testing has been done in Guild Wars 2, which is a DX9c game (mostly) and they have been adding some more eye candy to it as of late (Sun shafts and improved MSAA among other stuff). I am yet to test in DOOM and other games that I have in my queue, haha. Also, I have had zero issues with it; as you would normally expect, that is. And about the color issues that I had... Well, i noticed through Windows Update I could download the color profile for the monitor. That fixed all of my problems. It now looks very very good. I left everything configured by the driver (from what I noticed, the monitor allows everything to be configured from the video card, which is nice; I don't know what to call that).

And the Sapphire RX480 is just performing fine. I haven't noticed any performance changes over time with the new drivers and, fortunately, no quirks either. The caveat is that I'm not playing the latest and newest, so it might be because of that

Cheers!

 

[Rogue Leader]

As an example, I was watching a Star Citizen live stream last night- someone in chat asked about what GPU to get for a new build to play the game. Several people chimed up recommending the 1060 as a good value option (no issue with that). Then one person suggests the RX480 as a good alternative. Well- at that point the chat exploded with 'DONT TOUCH AMD', 'I had AMD, Driver were broken, avoid', 'AMD Sucks Ass' and other helpful comments. All the guy did was suggest an equivalent AMD card, and I honestly think the doomsayers with 'experience' of 'terrible AMD drivers' were making it up. I've had several AMD cards recently (as well as some machine with nVidia) and both work fine.

When a simple recommendation gets hounded like that however- well you can start to see why AMD don't move many cards. I've said it before and I'll say it again- nVidia's greatest strength is their marketing- like Apple they have created a brand image of being 'best' irrespective of the facts. The attitude these days is, at best, if all things are equal buy nVidia. For AMD to get fair consideration they have to offer *more* than nVidia do for the same money- and given nVidia are good at what they do that is a big ask, and leads to a situation of nVidia being able to make massive profits, selling cheaper hardware for more money than AMD can.

This garbage happens right here on this forum. Catch the right thread where someone asks "AMD vs Nvidia" or "1060 vs 480" and the trolls come out in droves. As someone who owns both brands of cards (but primarily games on the 480) this drivers thing is hogwash. But in the same respect in some cases the 1060 is a better deal, and then I get called a Nvidia fanboy for recommending it so the AMD fans can be just as bad (little do they know if they click the "Gaming PC" link in my sig I am far from a Nvidia fanboy).

The problem is small mistakes get magnified 1000x by the media and by the average small minded folks. Take the RX 480 voltage issue. They fixed it in 3 days yet we STILL get people referencing it on the forum. AMD unfortunately over the recent years have made more of them, and the trolls grab hold and run with them. AMD also made a bad bet on designing their main processor line on multi-core workloads 5ish years ago and that basically devalued their brand as well. If you think about it if the FX processors came out today with high clocks, and high enough IPC they would be killer, they were really ahead of their time. But the technology was not developed enough and at this point is long in the tooth.

Anyway I'm getting off track here. The 480 at this point has clearly proven its performance, at this point folks need to just get over the trolls and the memes and the hyperbole out there, and thats AMD's biggest challenge.

 

[simon12]

I have a friend who for some reason will only ever buy Nvidia cards and comes out with but AMD have bad drivers and Nvidia will help me more if theres a problem, some people you just can't reason with.
There seem to be a load of new articles about saying there will be an RX490 this year based on polaris but as far as I can tell there not based on anything new.

 

[cool321]

Hi guys, one question. Do any of you have Gigabyte G1 RX470 4GB model? I got good deal to buy one so i need opinions from people who have this card. Impressions? Temperatures? I
appreciate every answer.

 

[renz496]

most people don't even care which brand they got as long as it suits what they need. i doubt that the dominance nvidia have with the market share because of there are a lot of nvidia fanboys. the thing with AMD is some people don't even know they exist. AMD need to do something with their marketing so their product are better exposed to the people. and developer reach. one of issues with AMD is they tend only to focus on triple A stuff. Square Enix for example have been doing a lot of partnership with AMD but i was surprised to see when SE actually doing promotion with Nvidia for Final Fantasy A Realm Reborn. it seems AMD have not much interest in MMO type of game.

I've been saying the same thing. Intel is a household name, through advertising, they made themselves one. Even the few people left that don't have a computer, know who Intel is. I see Intel commercials all the time and in the last 20 years, I think I've seen 1 AMD commercial. They didn't even advertise when they had superior products.

Most of my clients think AMD is an Intel knock-off at best or a cheap garbage brand from China. But that is if they have even heard of them in the first place. Sometimes I try to educate them, but most of the time they don't care and just want to go with the brand the know.

If AMD releases Zen and Vega with the performance they have been hinting or showing, then they really need to shout it from the hilltops!

It's the same with GPUs. Also @Renz496, trust me there is a hardcore group of nVidia fans who will shout down anyone who dares recommend AMD graphics boards. You don't get that the other way around unfortunately. I think that is partly to do with the huge skew in adoption- nVidia have had some good products for sure, but AMD have kept pace with them over the last few generations (they were even ahead with the HD7000 series for a while). The reality of competitive positioning doesn't match the massive market share difference.

As an example, I was watching a Star Citizen live stream last night- someone in chat asked about what GPU to get for a new build to play the game. Several people chimed up recommending the 1060 as a good value option (no issue with that). Then one person suggests the RX480 as a good alternative. Well- at that point the chat exploded with 'DONT TOUCH AMD', 'I had AMD, Driver were broken, avoid', 'AMD Sucks Ass' and other helpful comments. All the guy did was suggest an equivalent AMD card, and I honestly think the doomsayers with 'experience' of 'terrible AMD drivers' were making it up. I've had several AMD cards recently (as well as some machine with nVidia) and both work fine.

When a simple recommendation gets hounded like that however- well you can start to see why AMD don't move many cards. I've said it before and I'll say it again- nVidia's greatest strength is their marketing- like Apple they have created a brand image of being 'best' irrespective of the facts. The attitude these days is, at best, if all things are equal buy nVidia. For AMD to get fair consideration they have to offer *more* than nVidia do for the same money- and given nVidia are good at what they do that is a big ask, and leads to a situation of nVidia being able to make massive profits, selling cheaper hardware for more money than AMD can.

it goes both way actually. for example just go to you tube video that comparing nvidia and amd cards in games and performance. you will see how the hardcore fans sling each other in the comment section. just because in your session you see no AMD hardcore boys retaliating then most other forum or discussion also like that. go look how it goes on anandtech forum. mod sometimes have to temporarily lock some of the thread to do some cleaning because AMD vs Nvidia war derail from the main topic. and recently mod put some thread into sticky to make an example which kind of thread you should not make. and it only happen on Videocard/graphic card section. if you want to have more fun go to Wccftech

 

[renz496]

I have a friend who for some reason will only ever buy Nvidia cards and comes out with but AMD have bad drivers and Nvidia will help me more if theres a problem, some people you just can't reason with.
There seem to be a load of new articles about saying there will be an RX490 this year based on polaris but as far as I can tell there not based on anything new.

if they are polaris based then they must be a new chip. RX480 already use the highest configuration possible on polaris 10. but so far AMD did not hinting anything new other than polaris 10/11 and only talk about Vega.