The GPU predicament, starring; a confused dude and a RX 480

[That one Afrodude]

Hello people on Toms hardware,


I am really "confused", the rx 480 power issue is now "fixed" but people say it can still exceed the pci-e power draw by playing heavy games. Now, my new motherboard is quite cheap (MSI H81m-P33) and has a pci-e 2.0x16 slot, will this be considered a mobo where it can cause damage or not.

Also, on "compatibility mode" it will perform less but won't exeed the limit of power, wil this be less then a GTX 960 4GB and for what it matters an EVGA ssc.(and will it still exceed the pci-e power draw with heavy games).

And no, the aftermarket cards will exceed my budget by waaay too much and are all for the 8GB edition. my emty build has been dusting away for weeks without a GPU and i want to goddamn game XD, so fast is best.

Well thanks in advance for reading trough this story and answering it.

Edit : this is all for buying a 4GB model if you are confused and im buying in the Netherlands so everything +20 euro(also they change 200 dollar into 200 euro).

Final answer: i am an idiot and do have the money for a aftermarket rx 480 or a reference GTX 1060. if i can keep my patience i'll buy a reference 1060 .

THANKS ALL FOR THE ANSWERS

 

[nonewsgoodnews]

I haven't seen any accounts about the rx 480 actually damaging anything. Just stories saying that it could. I personally would not worry about it too much. On the other hand Nvidia just announced the 1060 today which may be worth waiting for. (yeah its $50 more but... gtx 980 levels of performance supposedly)

 

[madmatt30]

Even in 'compatibility mode' the 480 will completely blitz a 960 , & there Is no need to actually do that anyway.

 

[geofelt]

I would not worry.
AMD has a driver fix for the issue.
No card today is meaningfully hampered by pcie 2.0 vs. 3.0. No worries there.


Graphics cards sell competitively on a price/performance curve.
Buy the strongest card you can with your budget.
The main caveat is that you have a psu sufficient to run the card.
Modern R9-480 and GTX1060/70 cards are more efficient and need less power.
Here is a chart for your options:
http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page362.htm

I would have no problem buying a 4gb vram card.

VRAM has become a marketing issue.
My understanding is that vram is more of a performance issue than a functional issue.
A game needs to have most of the data in vram that it uses most of the time.
Somewhat like real ram.
If a game needs something not in vram, it needs to get it across the pcie boundary
hopefully from real ram and hopefully not from a hard drive.
It is not informative to know to what level the available vram is filled.
Possibly much of what is there is not needed.
What is not known is the rate of vram exchange.
Vram is managed by the Graphics card driver, and by the game. There may be differences in effectiveness between amd and nvidia cards.
And differences between games.
Here is an older performance test comparing 2gb with 4gb vram.
http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Video-Card-Performance-2GB-vs-4GB-Memory-154/
Spoiler... not a significant difference.
A more current set of tests shows the same results:
http://www.techspot.com/review/1114-vram-comparison-test/page5.html

And... no game maker wants to limit their market by
requiring huge amounts of vram. The vram you see will be appropriate to the particular card.

 

[10tacle]

I haven't seen any accounts about the rx 480 actually damaging anything. Just stories saying that it could.

There are forums out there with people stating the 480 killed their motherboard. Whether or not they are all valid is debatable. AMD fans are saying it's Nvidia trolls, and it appears some are. However, on the AMD forums, long time members and AMD owners have claimed this has happened to them. As almost always, the truth lay somewhere in the middle. And AMD has already fixed the issue.

 

[neblogai]

As far as I understood- the standard is mostly about powering the card throught PCI-e pins. These are not as good as wires from PSU, and amperage has to be limited so they do not get too hot. The standard was set more than 10 years ago for delivering power this way through 4 pins. Soon cards started to use 5 pins for power delivery, reducing the the load on pins further- but nobody bothered to increase the total consumption allowed in the PCI-e standard. And also all electrical standards are made extra safe. So basically, it is fine to run RX480 at 74-75W, as per load with new drivers.
As for compatibility mode- tests show it keeps performance within 99% of normal mode, while using less power. The same results can be reached by reducing voltage by hand- but I guess compatibility mode is a quick way to do it, and it keeps performance at the same level.
As per price: I am myself in the market for Polaris10 card, but I think I will prefer well made RX470 to reference RX480 (as long as it keeps the same 32rops). RX470 in my view is a much better balanced GPU, and with good cooler it should still be cheaper, and be quite, OC well, and offer very similar speed, especially with antialiasing enabled.

 

[That one Afrodude]

I would not worry.
AMD has a driver fix for the issue.
No card today is meaningfully hampered by pcie 2.0 vs. 3.0. No worries there.


Graphics cards sell competitively on a price/performance curve.
Buy the strongest card you can with your budget.
The main caveat is that you have a psu sufficient to run the card.
Modern R9-480 and GTX1060/70 cards are more efficient and need less power.
Here is a chart for your options:
http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page362.htm

I would have no problem buying a 4gb vram card.

VRAM has become a marketing issue.
My understanding is that vram is more of a performance issue than a functional issue.
A game needs to have most of the data in vram that it uses most of the time.
Somewhat like real ram.
If a game needs something not in vram, it needs to get it across the pcie boundary
hopefully from real ram and hopefully not from a hard drive.
It is not informative to know to what level the available vram is filled.
Possibly much of what is there is not needed.
What is not known is the rate of vram exchange.
Vram is managed by the Graphics card driver, and by the game. There may be differences in effectiveness between amd and nvidia cards.
And differences between games.
Here is an older performance test comparing 2gb with 4gb vram.
http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Video-Card-Performance-2GB-vs-4GB-Memory-154/
Spoiler... not a significant difference.
A more current set of tests shows the same results:
http://www.techspot.com/review/1114-vram-comparison-test/page5.html

And... no game maker wants to limit their market by
requiring huge amounts of vram. The vram you see will be appropriate to the particular card.

ah thanks, i also heard that with some BIOS voodoo (or code) you can unlock the remaining 4 gigs of the card (if true that would be hilarious).