Anybody try the RX 480? Opinions?

[oboe]

Sounds like it can top the GTX970, for less $$.   (All sold out on Newegg, but prices range around $199 - $249)

GPUBOSS.com doesn't have it benchmarked yet.   I think I read its less power hungry than the R9 series.   I have an R9 280X that's a couple years old and the RX is in my personal sweet spot price for video cards. 

[Chalenge]

See Dolby's thread on a PSU that is out of spec. The RX 480 is currently out of spec on the PCIe bus AND the six pin PSU connection. PSUs are usually tolerant of this to some degree, but probably (certainly) AMD can expect problems as power requirements change in actual use. I would wait on further refinements to the base card design.

[Pudgie]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10477/amd-posts-radeon-1671-drivers-fixes-power-consumption-issues

This AMD driver came out today (Crimson 16.7.1) w\ fixes for this power issue that has been tested to essentially make this issue a largely moot point for the early run of these vid cards.

I would hope that any later runs of the AMD RX 480 series reference vid cards are corrected at the hardware level.

Most AIB's are already rectifying this issue by either installing a single 8-pin external power connector or installing 2 6-pin power connectors to eliminate this.

If I were you and wanted a RX 480 now I would consider to get an AIB model (Sapphire, XFX, MSI, PowerColor, Asus, etc)....may be a few dollars more than the AMD reference model but will have better power and cooling performance.

Hope this helps.

 

[Chalenge]

Glad to hear they could approach it at the driver level. I think that AMD is really helping to keep Nvidia on the ball and I did not want to see them take the hit I saw coming if they couldn't fix this.

[oboe]

Thanks guys.  Unfortunate news for AMD.  I don't need anything yet, but same as Chalenge appreciate nVidia having some competition. 

Will be following the RX 480 and interested to see its benchmark results.

[Easyscor]

I was using the Beta Crimson driver against an HD 6850 card and the "new" driver update happened yesterday with my consent.
I can't say for sure if it fixed anything good or bad, but the Crimson (unsupported Beta) update dialog window-flash went away and they do support their chips if you enable the update notifications. I still declined their "game" enticements(?) until someone can tell me why I would benefit from including them.

I've had good experience with AMD and like Chalenge, I hope they succeed, and keep helping to push the technology.

Edit: Don't go with XFX if you can help it! Be VERY careful to check every spec on every card you consider. There is a reason some of the cards are a little cheaper then the norm. My 6850 card from XFX came DOWN clocked compared to other manufactures. My fault for not doing a search but I was in a hurry at the time and the price looked good. Other mfg's offered better cards for nearly the same price. Too late to help by the time I realized it.

[Pudgie]

I was using the Beta Crimson driver against an HD 6850 card and the "new" driver update happened yesterday with my consent.
I can't say for sure if it fixed anything good or bad, but the Crimson (unsupported Beta) update dialog window-flash went away and they do support their chips if you enable the update notifications. I still declined their "game" enticements(?) until someone can tell me why I would benefit from including them.

I've had good experience with AMD and like Chalenge, I hope they succeed, and keep helping to push the technology.

Edit: Don't go with XFX if you can help it! Be VERY careful to check every spec on every card you consider. There is a reason some of the cards are a little cheaper then the norm. My 6850 card from XFX came DOWN clocked compared to other manufactures. My fault for not doing a search but I was in a hurry at the time and the price looked good. Other mfg's offered better cards for nearly the same price. Too late to help by the time I realized it.

Hi Easyscor,

Curious here as to what you're referring to when you typed concerning the "game enticements"?

I'm assuming you're referring to the software add-ons in the Crimson driver install or are you referring to the game choices in Radeon Settings................?

From what I've read of several reviews on the AMD RX 480 I like the review on the Sapphire AIB non-reference version......shows to outperform the R9 Nano when OC'd and the cooler looks good on it as well.

 

 

[Condor]

I see Nvidia has announced the GTX 1060. From the little I have found it appears it may outperform the RX 480, GTX 970, and GTX 980 for a price of around $250. No SLI bridge connectors but I suspect many of us aren't interested in SLI. It probably won't handle 4K but I suspect most of us aren't going there either. I wonder if this may be the best answer for many of us for AH3 who want most of the eye candy but don't need it all. It may even let us run with shadows as well. In DX9 my Radeon 6950 gives me frame rates of over 60 with everything enabled but shadows and with the environmental slider at none. I'm happy with that.  I realize with a lot of action those FPS will drop but any of the above mentioned cards are a lot faster than the 6950. It will be interesting to see how this comes out. I for one, am probably going to wait until AH3 goes live.

[Chalenge]

Max resolution for the 1060 is listed at 7680x4320@60Hz, so yes 4k is possible. It may not perform superbly in AH3 at that resolution, but I suspect it would do so very, very well. The 6GB memory limitation would hold it back somewhat, but the 980 is already limited to 4GB so it is better there, too.

The 1060 sounds great to me, especially considering the price.

[Skuzzy]

We have a 980Ti with 6GB of video RAM.  Just saying.

[Mar]

I see Nvidia has announced the GTX 1060.

wantwantwantwantwant

[Condor]

See Dolby's thread on a PSU that is out of spec. The RX 480 is currently out of spec on the PCIe bus AND the six pin PSU connection. PSUs are usually tolerant of this to some degree, but probably (certainly) AMD can expect problems as power requirements change in actual use. I would wait on further refinements to the base card design.

1060 is also PCIe AND has a 6 pin connection. It also appears to require less power than the RX 480. So is this a problem and why? What spec are you referring to? Not challenging your statement. Just trying to understand.

[Chalenge]

We have a 980Ti with 6GB of video RAM.  Just saying.

Oops, forgot. Sorry about that mistake. My thought was upon the GTX 980s that I typically use.

1060 is also PCIe AND has a 6 pin connection. It also appears to require less power than the RX 480. So is this a problem and why? What spec are you referring to? Not challenging your statement. Just trying to understand.

The RX 480 as released will draw more power from the PCIe than the PCIe standard specified as a maximum. The same for the six pin connector. AMD released a driver update yesterday that corrects the situation. A power supply's ability to provide clean power relies on devices remaining within a limited specification, outside of that spec the power supply could quickly develop issues that are harmful to your device(s). I can foresee situations in which a pc with such a device might appear to 'randomly' crash/reboot/bluescreen as the power draw exceeds the limits of the spec, but very real damage might occur also. Not a good scenario. A great PSU might more-or-less gracefully handle the situation and allow the OS to correct, but most of the plug-and-play systems out there would be the furthest thing from graceful.

With all of the problems I have already seen out of W10 I would not depend on it to handle anything like this, if it is even designed to do so.

[Condor]

I did some reading so let's see if I got this right. A 16pin PCIe card can draw a max of 75W and a 6 pin connector supplies a max of 75W for a total of 150W. Correct?  Testing of the RX 480, which is rated at 150W actually draws more (I read 168W) and may draw 90W or more from the motherboard and could damage some systems. I understand there is a software fix.

The 1060 is rated at 120W so this should not be an issue but I guess we need to wait for testing. Seems like an 8 pin connector for insurance would make sense but I guess that would cost more.

Thanks for the explanation.

[Easyscor]

Hi Easyscor,

Curious here as to what you're referring to when you typed concerning the "game enticements"?

I'm assuming you're referring to the software add-ons in the Crimson driver install or are you referring to the game choices in Radeon Settings................?

From what I've read of several reviews on the AMD RX 480 I like the review on the Sapphire AIB non-reference version......shows to outperform the R9 Nano when OC'd and the cooler looks good on it as well.

 

 

The discussion is here:
http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,379951.msg5061095.html#msg5061095

Bizman echoed my thoughts. Probably advertising for 3rd party games and likely resource hogs. I didn't install the "Gaming Evolved" App yet still ended up with Raptor applications running on my machine. I uninstalled them first thing. Raptor was games advertising iirc.