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

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Errr... that guy needs to check the date on his sources. That WTFBBQTech article is from 3 months ago.
 


Whatever it is its says its polaris
 
I got an RX470 and I'm now forced to run it using PCI-E 2.0 x4(?). How much of a performance decrease I'm going to get. My mobo is Asus p8z77-v lx2 and the website says the other slot is "1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x4 mode, black)" but it seems like it's running at x4.
 
PCIe 2.0 x4 could cost you some performance, hard to say exactly how much though.

The second slot on that board is the same physical size as an x16 slot, but it can only run PCIe 2.0 x4. That's what "x4 mode" means in the parenthesis.
 
PCIe 2.0 is 500MB/s per lane, so you are running at 2GB/s with 4x.

The amount of relative performance drop vs. PCIe 2.0 x 16 (or whatever) depends on the graphics card, motherboard/CPU and the game in question, but this thread gives some idea...

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2151351/nvidia-gtx-780-running-pcie-speed.html

As you can see, it's not a 'huge' drop in performance. But if you really need that extra fps in your games to get a smooth frame-rate experience then you'd notice it ofc.
 
Oh, I totally forgot to give an update, and a curious at that, about the RX480 4GB and my shiny new AOC-somethin'-somethin' 144Hz monitor.

There's a game called "Payday 2". It has it's own graphical engine (in-house one) as far as I know and it has the most annoying yet weird bug I've seen in my life. When using the Fullscreen option, at native resolution (1080p) with 144Hz+Freesync all bells and whistles enabled, the Monitor has horribad flicking... I can't even explain it properly... It's like there's a scale 9 earthquake happening in the game and it doesn't stop. The way to make it stop is go Windowed mode, lower the resolution or swapping to HDMI@120Hz (losing Freesync). It was reported to AMD, but it hasn't been fixed yet. I haven't seen any other reports for other brands nor Freesync monitors showing this issue. It's like... Ultra particular to my set-up, lol.

I can still play the game using the second best/highest resolution at fullscreen though, but it's so weird I don't even.

Cheers!
 


I think they are trying to fill the area between the 460 and 470 which is pretty big. making money and market share are probably in equal weight.
 
This cyber monday and xmas season in general will be an absolute dream for anyone whos been holding out for the best prices on low and mid-range (aka mainstream) gfx cards. With the 1050s, 1060s, 460/70/80s all duking it out, gonna be some great price wars...assuming nv can get the 1050s cranked out (in quantity) in time. Wish my old card woulda hung in there a few more months...oh well, sht happens.

Will be interesting to see if AMD tosses out a '465' to fill the gap..
 


Since the 460 is a fully enabled Polaris 11 chip, the only option they would have is a further cut down Polaris 10. I don't think they would do that unless there are a lot of partially defective chips that could be used for it and disabling good sections wouldn't be cost effective.
 


seeing how successful 750ti are i doubt how nvidia did not want to address the market. and nvidia for all intent and purpose wants all the sales go to them if possible. they always disrupt AMD in any way they can and while at the same time try to enjoy the premium market for themselves. just look what $330 970 did to AMD 290s. because of that AMD forced to lower their 290s from $400-$450 to match 970 pricing. and yet nvidia still leisurely selling 980 for $550. and then they ninja AMD Fury X with $650 980Ti.
 


AFAIK 460 is not fully enable polaris 11. that's why i wonder why AMD did not counter 1050ti with fully enable polaris 11 and drop 470 price instead.
 


You are correct that the desktop 460 is a cut down Polaris 11 (it has 14 cu's out of 16- so 896 sp's out of a possible 1024). The full die's are rumoured to be going into Laptops primarily (and also Apple).

I think the issue is that a fully enabled Polaris 11 is essentially just an old HD 7850 clocked a bit higher (ok with a few improvements on board as well). Still whilst that card *is* a bit faster than the basic 460, it isn't much and wouldn't be enough to surpass the 1050ti which is a somewhat larger gpu. A fully unlcoked Polaris 11 would undoubtedly best the standard 1050 however teh gap between the 1050 and 1050ti looks fairly big, more than the speed up you'd gain from 2 CU's I think.

To put some numbers to it, the 1050ti is 40% faster than the 460 in DX11 (according to nVidia anyways), whilst a theoretical 465 based on the full Polaris 11 with the extra 2 cu at the same clocks would be 15% faster- i.e. still a ways behind (even if we factor in them bumping the clocks a fraction it's still probably only going to be a 20% boost).

That said, a cut down Polaris 11 (there's a version for the Chinese market which HD 7950 specs) would fill the gap nicely and be faster (although I guess cutting Polaris 11 that much might not be a very efficient use of die's and would likely use more power).
 

I think a zen apu would be better for that end of the market, the igp would be just need to be sort of close if the cpu was around i5 level, lets face it the igp would be technically 'free' vs the 1050 if the cpu portion was up to scratch vs intel.

 


doubt that even the fastest APU based on Zen the gpu portion can touch 1050/RX460 performance.
 
The possibility of a (further) cut down 470 to make a '465' begs the question...were/are Polaris yields crappy enuff to make it economically 'doable'?

Also wonder if they have something up their sleeve with this upcoming Polaris refresh or whatever...
 
Polaris in the news:

AMD and Alibaba Corp. joint venture
http://www.amd.com/en-us/press-releases/Pages/amd-collaborates-with-2016oct14.aspx?ref=il

- An Alibaba Corp. virtual reality (VR) experience demo powered by AMD Radeon™ VR Ready Premium graphics featuring AMD’s powerful, energy efficient POLARIS graphics architecture.

- Alibaba servers using Radeon FirePro™ S7150 x2 GPU featuring AMD Multi-user GPU (MxGPU) hardware-based server virtualization technology. The solution features the industry’s only hardware-virtualized GPU technology.
 


It's not that unusual to cut a chip by more than that. I mean look at the 1070.
 


You're right, I could have sworn it was the full chip, but after looking over the review again, it is a partial chip, 14/16 CU's. That might be enough to close the gap with the the 1050. And since the 1050ti isn't much better than the 1050, an OC'd, fully enabled 460 could probably catch the 1050ti at stock.

It seems nVidia was so concerned with getting in the 75w power envelope that they left adding the 6-pin to board partners and it will be healthy competition for the 470 at that point. From the review, gimping the 1050ti's power as they did makes having it look almost pointless as the 470 trounces it.

I don't know how many 460's AMD sold, but they need to do something to ill in the gap between the 460 and 470 or else they will have to concede a large part of the mid-low end to nVidia. Though it is worth noting that AMD did say they were adjusting pricing on the 470 and 460.

Right now, from what I see, AMD has wins with the 480 4gb and 470.
 


It could be polaris, but there is really no solid evidence, it could be Vega just a smaller chip. that card still might never show up, or the fact that it is so late would suggest it is vega based, but frankly that is all speculation.
 


Okay thanks 😀.
 
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