The AMD Radeon RX 480 Preview: Polaris Makes Its Mainstream Mark
by Ryan Smith on June 29, 2016 9:00 AM ESTGaming Performance
So with the basics of the architecture and core configuration behind us, let’s dive into some numbers.
Overall, AMD is pitching the RX 480 as a card suitable for 1440p gaming as well as 1080p gaming and VR gaming. In the case of 1080p the card is clearly powerful enough, as even Crysis 3 at its highest quality setting is flirting with 60fps. However when it comes to 1440p, the RX 480 feels like it’s coming up a bit short; other than DiRT Rally, performance is a bit low for the 60fps PC gamer. Traditionally cards in the $199-$249 mainstream range have been 1080p gaming cards, and in the long run I think this is where RX 480 will settle at as well.
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AntDX316 - Thursday, June 30, 2016 - link
NVidia was talking about releasing the 1080 GTX for laptop instead of 1080M because they were scared AMD was going to come out big.The hope for massive gains are a lower expected price point is gone and the money milking will continue.
sonicmerlin - Friday, July 1, 2016 - link
AMD has again ceded the entire laptop market to Nvidia thanks to these horribly inefficient cards.medi03 - Thursday, June 30, 2016 - link
Comparing it to different tier card of current gen is childish or plain stupid, if coming from grown up.Performance is right on track.
Power consumption is disappointing, although not a problem for this tier.
I'm curios what it is caused by, could well be Samsung 14nm vs Glofo 16nm. I recall Apple's chips from Samsung were consuming more power than from TSMC, despite that one would expect it to be other way round.
cocochanel - Thursday, June 30, 2016 - link
In what world do you live ? Here in Canada, the Nvidia GTX 1080 sells for over 900 dollars Canadian !! The GTX 1070 is over 600 dollars. An RX480 with 8 Gigs of RAM it's about 300 dollars.I'll get one for Christmas and that leaves me plenty of change to buy an Oculus Rift set. How is that such a F-up ?
The stupidity on your behalf is astounding.
cocochanel - Thursday, June 30, 2016 - link
RX480 + Oculus Rift Set = GTX1080. Pricewise. That's a good F-up for me. Christmas is looking good.steamerSama - Thursday, June 30, 2016 - link
Many people have this twisted expectation. That a 200$ card will outperform something twice its cost is ridiculous. AMD has made a blunder, yes, by not releasing their flagship 490 first and come up with economy class 480. But other than that, if you were expecting a better performance than this, you were perhaps being sucked in by the hypeloguerto - Wednesday, June 29, 2016 - link
Let's see how all of this nice stuff transforms into performance ...rtho782 - Wednesday, June 29, 2016 - link
I think at this point I'd be more shocked had you posted a full review ;)So we're now waiting on GTX 960, GTX 1080/70, and RX 480....
justaviking - Wednesday, June 29, 2016 - link
We now have TWO QUESTIONS to ask every time a new GPU comes out:1) Can it play Crysis?
2) Where is the full GTX 1080 review?
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, June 29, 2016 - link
"2) Where is the full GTX 1080 review?"The full RX 480 review will be in a few days. The full GTX 1080 review will be a couple of days after that. RX 480 would have been a full review today, but I managed to slice myself with the RX 480 on Tuesday and needed to resolve that first...