No, they say the price is "terrific" they say the performance is "excellent" at 1080p, and "most games will run seriously well at 1440p".

Of course the region makes a difference, this card costs over 40% more here than there based on the pound from last week, the pound we all got paid in.

Here it is for $200 in Newegg as AMD promised http://m.newegg.com/Product/index?itemnumber=N82E16814202222

This is not a high end card. It was never supposed to be. It sells for $200. It is called the 480. That means it replaces the 380. The 490 is coming.

I think its best to wait and see what the 1060 is like, what the RX 480 is like with updated drivers and what further price cuts the 970 has to clear old stock, maybe this time next month we will have a better idea on all that price performance wise.

That's your fault for buying into the hype, though, isn't it?

I'm disappointed with the 480 as well, but that's entirely irrelevant to whether or not it's worth buying or recommending. The only thing that matters is how it performs at its price, compared with how everything else on the market performs at its price.

It's basically 970 performance. The 4GB 480 at £180 offers broadly better DX12 support over the 970, but the 970 (also £180 with rebate) offers usable SteamOS and Linux, as well as (as far as we know) better performance on a lower end CPU. I'd probably still lean to the 970 there.

But if the 8GB 480 hits £200, and you've got a good CPU, and you really don't care about SteamOS and Linux, then I think it's worth the extra £20 for double the VRAM. That and the DX12 support might keep it competitive for an extra year or so, potentially postponing an upgrade. (It's been £213 so far... I'm not sure which way I'd go at that price! :stuck_out_tongue:)

So forget your preconceptions. When buying or recommending, judge it on what it is, not what you thought it might be based on speculations from Old Man Ferrari. It's an adequate card that does compete with other cards on the market.

(Also, unless I'm missing something, it's not "hot"? It's ~4-5 degrees warmer than the 970..? That ties in with using 5-10W more - hardly offensive, is it?)

I rate this deal 3.5/4 :wink:

I think most games from September onwards will be DX12 compatible. It's more than likely that the game will be programmed in such a way that it detects the graphics card in the system and selects the appropriate DX version to match the capabilities of the card. They may well offer an option in the menu to 'play in DX12' mode in the settings, or they may well offer a different .exe which launches in DX12 as opposed to DX11. Then you may also find that some games launch in DX11 but by tweaking the launch parameters you could overwrite the default and get the game to launch in DX12. Until the games come out it will only be info provided by the developers that will guide us. But then you have games like Doom 2016 which look and play brilliantly and there's no DX in sight!

so much hate on this thread.....

With regards to the comments about higher end cards running "hot", my GTX1070 gaming x card sits at 69 degrees under full load (with factory overclock). Further overclocking with mine reaches 2055MHz and it creeps to 74 degrees. So, yes 5 degrees heat is a big difference if you are looking at overclocking/care about fan noise

Percentage of games? About 0.001%? By AAA I guess he means the big studio releases. Next version of Battlefield, Call of Duty that sort of thing.
The 480 is an interesting card but never buy hardware for what it can do tomorrow. There are only a handful of DX12 games so far and they show that AMD hardware has a performance advantage versus DX11. Of course the other side of the coin is, if you have a card that underperforms in DX12, change the render path to DX11, or DX9 which won't go away in the lifetime of any of the current gen cards.
At this stage DX12 is basically hype. All the advanced features require full adoption from developers and no matter what anyone wants that is going to take time.

I don't own a graphics card so trying to get some unbiased info which is something you don't appear able to provide.

Anyone know what percentage of games are DX12?
Stanlenin seems to suggest that it's the AAA games that are more likely to be AAA.
Are they the expensive ones?

Thanks for your reply, I'll consider the next tier up, cheers.

At 1080p, the 970 and the 480 both are good purchases.

As for 1440, I wouldn't recommend either card. Both of them are just a bit too slow to fully support all the games at 2k.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/RX_480/9.html

As you can see in this review... The 480 can only hit 45fps in BF4 at 1440, while the 970 doesn't fair too much better at 52 fps.

In FO4, the 480 pulls 70.3 fps, while the 970 pulls 65.7.

If you are only considering those two games, in my opinion, the 970 makes more sense.

But to be honest, take a look at Witcher 3. Neither card can truly handle that game (37.7 for 480, 37.8 for 970). That FPS is just too stutter prone.

If you are stuck at this price point, then that's that... But if you can spring it, go for the 1070. It will guarantee you 1440p performance. The difference will set you back almost double the card though.

Check out the rest of the review on the 480, it's good to keep up with info.

Again rubbish.Back to your hovel now.

Fully agree with you, DX12 means nothing at this point yet, ill take few more years till we get any benefits of it, and by that time both card manufacturers will have some kind of support for it. For now its more like marketing just to attract more consumers, same as 8gb vram what they stamped on 480

Looking to upgrade soon and this is always a minefield, average joe gamer here with modest requirements, no 4K, just a decent performing card for 1080p max settings in games like FO4 and Battlefield, but with possibly 1440 monitor soon (undecided).

Would you esteemed gents recommend the 970 over the RX480 given the requirements above?

The 970, the 390, the 390x, and the 290x. These cards all match the performance for around $200. The 780ti does as well.

yes, the 970 *RELEASED* at $329. It's currently selling for (UK) £180. That's better than the lowest price of a 4gb 480.

The 480 does NOT offer full DX12 support. That's simply a lie perpetuated by people without the understanding of what "Full DX12 Support" actually is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feature_levels_in_Direct3D#Direct3D_12

In fact, the only thing anywhere close to a full feature level support is the Skylake HD processor chip.

Where is the Conservative Rasterization? Rasterizer-ordered views? Minimum 10 bit FPP? Tier 3 Resource Heap support? 64KB standard swizzle? Cross-adapter row-major textures?

What about Tier 3 tiled resources?

Guess what, nobody supports all of DX12 features.

AMD GCN 4 has 8 full supports, 2 partials, and 4 unsupported DX12 features.
NVIDIA Pascal has 5 full supports, 4 partials, and 5 unsupported DX12 features.

Who knows what the best ones are? I know you don't. I know I don't. But what we do know is that neither Pascal nor GCN4 get even CLOSE to fully supporting DX12. And who knows how important those 3 tiers of conservative rasterization are...

AMD were trying to insinuate that Async Compute was super important, yet at any point, NVIDIA could have grilled them over Rasterization... But chose not to. Just think about that.

Sorry to disappoint Nvidia drivers a really rubbish and hold back the good hardware.

There are plans for a 490 in q4 2016, but maybe the people claiming that are the same people that claimed the 480 would have 980 performance.


People who didn't know what they were talking about hyped it.


Idle use is not great, but in-game use is. Cost per performance it beats pretty much all cards you might put it up against.


It's just released, that's pretty common.

Amd seems to have nailed price performance with this card.

Please show me another card that matches the performance of an RX 480 for $200. It blows them all out of the water. This is a brand new card with full DX12 support and other new features such as asynchronous computing. Not an aging 970 with memory performance issues.

The 970 was released at $329!

For someone making a new build this card offers great performance at a great price. The £180 4gb is great right now. Prices of these will drop a bit in the UK and then you will be able to get R9 390 performance, beating out the 970 in some titles, using less power than other AMD cards, for around £200 with 8gb VRAM and better future support as already mentioned.

Well, did they ever fix Quantum Break on GTX 970 crashing the driver all the time? Does R9 390 still have +50% fps?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK2BUeYqLVI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMVW9weEUh0

I mean, I have shown you links to purchase the RX 480 in real life for $199.99 and you say it isn't available, yet you are telling me that the GTX 1070 is a £300-350 card when they are only being sold in the £390 - £450 range, so I think we are done here.

Please, just go and buy a 1070 for '£300' and then you will be happy. The £200 RX 480 isn't doing it for you, that's fine.

I think you are setting yourself up for disappointment again with the 1060, as you did with the RX 480. How powerful are you expecting this '£200' 1060 to be?

Looking at the benchmarks the 480 is sometimes around the 970 level and sometimes the 980. As this is a reference card I will wait until the custom boards arrive before judging things like OC, power and temperature, seeing as the competitor cards in the benchmarks are all non-ref too.

Rubbish.

Anyone who has a 970 might as well stick with it till the 1070 comes down in price after Founders Editions run out. From the reviews I have read, I can't see enough for me to make a switch from my 970 to the 480. If you were in the market for an upgrade from, say a mid range 960 (for example) then I might be tempted with the 480. Also I reckon a 1070 only truly benefits from a 4K monitor, it would be a fairly pointless upgrade if you were sticking with a 1080 monitor. Also I have always preferred the driver support and PhysX from an Nvidia. I haven't chosen ATI since the good old days of the 980 :smiley:

What aren't you getting? 970 will suck in every new DX12 game. Most AAA new games are DX12 and will increasingly be so. Who cares about the old games? Maybe play some crysis 3 from 2013 and say 970 is better? You people are gonna bs in the name of bs.

Or get the 4gb and wait for a hacked bios to unlock the other 4gb...

Yes, and Guru3D measured 83C, so I'm not disputing the figure.

Five entire degrees hotter than their load 970.

Are you claiming the 970 is a "pretty hot" card as well? Five degrees difference is just barely above margin of error! :laughing:

I've always thought of the 970 as a reasonably cool card, so a +5C on that is hardly cause for concern. Although I'm now curious - what card are you running in your system that makes ~80C at load look pretty hot? A GTX 950? :confused: You're in for a shock if you ever get a higher-end card, then!


I fail to see the "problem". At £180, the 970 is decent competition for the 480. Can't go wrong either way. How is that a "problem"?

Or do you think it's remotely possible that the 970 will see MSRP drop to £150 in order to clearly overtake the 480? Perhaps.... but I don't see that happening, myself!


Wait... a few comments ago, you were wailing and moaning about how wrong your predictions for the 480 were, and how disappointed you are because of it. What figures and specifications are you using to make that 1060 prediction of yours? :smile:

AMD cannot simply wave a magic wand and drop the price of the 390/390Xs BoM. That's not how manufacturing works, at all. The 390 and 390X are big, expensive hunks of metal to make - even more so than the 970, I'm sure.

http://www.newegg.com/global/uk/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127833&cm_re=gtx_970-_-14-127-833-_-Product
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MSI-GeForce-GTX-970-GAMING-Twin-Frozr-5-Graphics-Card-4GB-LN59869-/152149588903?hash=item236cd27ba7:g:jHMAAOSwkl5XdMul

Pretty standard. Not really a deal considering GTX 9XX range will continue to drop as the 10XX range becomes more the norm.

I have this card and I'm impressed with it. I'm able to run Witcher 3 at 60+ FPS in 1080p ultra settings with Hairworks off.

​also dont forget there are two types of rx 480 memory clocks one with 7000mhz and other with 8000mhz all reviewer used 8000mhz so in case you bought the 7000mhz version you will loose another 3-7fps based on game.

Several sources have reported that maxwell production was stopped some time ago, so even if nvidia wanted to sell 970s (which by the way have a 398mm die, so they are definitely not cheap to fab) at a loss to undercut the 480 (which they don't have to since they have like 70% of the market) it would only be while stocks last, unless they resurrect maxwell in some form in the 10xx generation.
And if they don't, well good luck with it, go have a look how a 780/ti bought around in the early days of Maxwell have held value and performance tier a couple of years down the line, then compare it to hawaii.

Also not to forget this card does not have a full 4gb of the faster type of video memory it has a mix of slow thrown in there to

Nvidia had a terrible record in recent times with their drivers.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/RX_480/28.html

84C at load with no OC? That's pretty hot man.

The card does compete with other $200 dollar options. But it doesn't blow them out of the water.

The 970 is stiff competition, the 390 is stiff competition, the 290x, the 390x are as well.

The problem is, NVIDIA can compete with the 480 just by cutting the cost of the 970.

Who knows what the 1060 will bring, it probably will simply be better than the 480 (depending on price).

It's not just a disappointment, it didn't hit the mark of 'killer value card'. It just joined the competition, which includes their own cards.

So guess what, AMD will probably be keeping their 390/390x lineup more expensive because they don't want to compete with the 480... Unless they are having production issues.

I Looooove Nvidia (Shield TV is an AMAZING console....Android on console gives me 1980's Nintendo feelings:) but the RX 480 being a DX 12 card and proving dominance over the GTX 970 in DX12 games has made me look at the RX 480 OR the GTX 1060.

It's only a disappointment because of the hype train people made for it.

​Seems a fair price, I sold my 970 for £170 on eBay a week ago.

That's your fault for buying into the hype, though, isn't it?

I'm disappointed with the 480 as well, but that's entirely irrelevant to whether or not it's worth buying or recommending. The only thing that matters is how it performs at its price, compared with how everything else on the market performs at its price.

It's basically 970 performance. The 4GB 480 at £180 offers broadly better DX12 support over the 970, but the 970 (also £180 with rebate) offers usable SteamOS and Linux, as well as (as far as we know) better performance on a lower end CPU. I'd probably still lean to the 970 there.

But if the 8GB 480 hits £200, and you've got a good CPU, and you really don't care about SteamOS and Linux, then I think it's worth the extra £20 for double the VRAM. That and the DX12 support might keep it competitive for an extra year or so, potentially postponing an upgrade. (It's been £213 so far... I'm not sure which way I'd go at that price! :stuck_out_tongue:)

So forget your preconceptions. When buying or recommending, judge it on what it is, not what you thought it might be based on speculations from Old Man Ferrari. It's an adequate card that does compete with other cards on the market.

(Also, unless I'm missing something, it's not "hot"? It's ~4-5 degrees warmer than the 970..? That ties in with using 5-10W more - hardly offensive, is it?)

I rate this deal 3.5/4 :wink:

Agreed, if we bear in mind that the pound is roughly 7-10% weaker than when pricing was originally announced, it's plausible that this could play a part in pricing. (Of course, not knowing how each distributor's pricing model works, it's also plausible that they could have paid for these at last month's FX rate)

There is no apparent plans for a 490. The Vega is the next card out.

The 1060 fits in the 200-250 range, not much more. The 1070 fits in the 300-350 range and is only above that because it's early.

You can 'live in the real world' and also understand just how hyped this card was.

It failed in every perceivable way. OC? No. Power Draw? No. Cost? It's running 220 quid, let alone dollars.

Availability? Seems to be out of stock all over.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the 1060 even more expensive here, such as £280+, given the current economic climate.

Yes the £260+ mark is just my opinion. I think this will be a GTX 980 rivalling card, based on the fact that the 1070 beats the 980ti. The 1050 will compete with the RX 480.

The AMD hype train did not pull me in. I never expected top of the range performance, it is a $200 36 CU card. I live in the real world. It performs as expected. The pricing in the UK is unfortunate but that is the way things are with the now weak pound and generally high taxes.

This is NOT the flagship card. As I said, you are confused. This is the lower midrange card, the 'R9 480' if you will. Just because it was released first does not make it the flagship. Their flagship cards remain as the Fury line. The 390x is also more powerful and is named accordingly. If they called this card the RX 490 then you could have your tantrum rightfully. This is a price/performance king, as promised. The hype came from Reddit and other silly sources like WCCFTech or some of AMDs cherry picked benchmarks.

Your standards are extremely low then.

If beating the 390 was all you expected out of a card that will be the flagship of AMD for almost a year, I have to say, I think the AMD hype train pulled you in.

Not even 2 weeks ago we were hearing tales of Fury/Fury x performance. Today we hear tales of barely beating the 390.

I don't get how you think NVIDIA won't directly compete with the 480 using the 1060. You say things like "It will be 260" but where are you getting that information? I don't think you have a source, just a random guess!

If the 1060 'handily beats the 970' it will also 'handily beat the 480' as the 480 barely beats the 970.

So, unless you mistaken, the 1060 would be the card to look out for at the 200-250 quid range, right?

(The 480 is 219 for 4GB and 239 for 8GB right now).

Out of interest what percentage of current games support DX12? 10% 5% 1%..
The 480 has an eye on the future but for the vast majority of current games the 970 over-clocks to a point where it beats an over-clocked 480 nicely in DX11 and is about 12% down in DX12 judging by the Guru3D review; ~19% difference at stock speeds.
Still, even though the 970 seems the better value and performer today and the reference 480 is pants, going forward when non-reference 480 cards arrive and driver updates for the new GPU and more DX12 games arrive the 480 will pull away.
But as it’s a good card for the future might as well wait a week or so for the GTX 1060 to see how it compares.

User ignored haha

In modern games - in every way. 480 is 25% faster in DX12 games. While 970 is totally handicapped by architecture (lame dx12 support) and 3.5 ram. For low res DX11 970 is quite good. BUt who cares, it sucks at modern games!!!

Not every way, it does over-clock well unlike seemingly the 480.

480 is clearly a better choice for any money. 970 is old tech not future proof, it is really a handicapped card in every way possible. 140 or below could be good for it.

Also from what I've seen it beats the R9 390, and that impresses me given that it is a 32 CU card. The 390 is a 40 CU card and the 390x a 44 CU card.
Like I said, those expecting 390x/980 performance were living in a dream world. This card performs admirably considering it slots in the low mid range cards like that 380 of last year.

Maybe you are just confused because AMD is launching their mid range and budget cards first rather than the high end like usual.

No, they say the price is "terrific" they say the performance is "excellent" at 1080p, and "most games will run seriously well at 1440p".

Of course the region makes a difference, this card costs over 40% more here than there based on the pound from last week, the pound we all got paid in.

Here it is for $200 in Newegg as AMD promised http://m.newegg.com/Product/index?itemnumber=N82E16814202222

This is not a high end card. It was never supposed to be. It sells for $200. It is called the 480. That means it replaces the 380. The 490 is coming.

OCUK still have 4GB RX 480s for £189.99 with free shipping.

Tbh at this price I'd just buy a 480 but it looks like none are left for £212.

​its a better model

A friend of mine has a gtx950 - I have offered him my Asus gtx strix 970 for £150 - thinking he will get about £50 for the gtx950 on ebay. I think that's a fair deal, the cards a year old and I just want some cash towards a 1070. Does that seem fair to you guys?

I think the 480 is pants. All the benchmarks I have seen have it +/- 5 fps with the 970 - and that's the 8gig version.

You say "amazing" they say "like".

There is a difference in superlatives. Honestly, I don't see where they make a difference based on region.

The card doesn't beat a 3 generation old card (the 290x) or the last gen mid range card (390).

And yes, I absolutely expected it to beat both of those cards and even compete/beat the 390x.

Also, the card is being priced above 199 all over, so that was a hype price.

I also have 2 x GTX 660 in 2 systems i am hoping to replace shortly, 3 plus years and have proved very reliable if nothing special,will also wait a few weeks to see if prices change.

Solid opinion, I'm in the middle of a rebuild so going to sit on the fence for a few weeks and see how things pan out, Intel graphics will get me by in the meantime - unless I happen to get a very cheap 970 via eBay.[/quote]

Yeah Ive been waiting to replace the GTX 660 in my Alienware X51 so I can get into VR but another few weeks wont hurt.

The 480 is only a dissapointment if you happen to have bought a decent graphics card in the past 3 years :stuck_out_tongue:

It is positive. The review says the performance is amazing given the price - in the States.

Really, the only way people can be disappointed with this card in America is if they were believing all the hype about greater than gtx 980 performance, own an R9 390 or higher and were waiting for this card to launch. That is their own fault.

The card offers great performance for the money, and the price/performance game is where AMD has been for a while now. Both in GPUs and CPUs.

Even in the UK, this is a good price for it's performance. The R9 390 was a £270+ card. Cards will be more expensive for the foreseeable future. The GTX 1060 will likely retail here at £260 and beat the 970 handily. The 480 will remain unchallenged in the sub £200 bracket when these 970s sell out. Just my opinion anyway.

I think its best to wait and see what the 1060 is like, what the RX 480 is like with updated drivers and what further price cuts the 970 has to clear old stock, maybe this time next month we will have a better idea on all that price performance wise.

I was expecting to order the RX 480 today but it is nowhere to be seen on launch day, strange to say the least,I might go back to looking at that MSI 970 for 209 notes as it seems reading posts today people are feeling cheated about the hype on the 480 and no confirmation on its price as well.

Glad you put that, I've been reading a few reviews today, and I would say it's far from disappointing. Considering the price, it's not bad at all......

Already read the guru review, if you think that is a positive review, then eh?

like the Radeon RX 480, I really do. But considering it is so very close to the 390 series I do foresee a problem. Anyone that is already in that performance bracket will simply skip this product and wait for Vega (AMD's future replacement for the 390 series). But it works both ways, anyone looking for an affordable upgrade to a WQHD capable graphics card coming from say a 280/380...

great price, I have msi twin frozr which was about £290, these cards are are incredibly effecient compared to previous gens, and mine doesnt even use its fans unless im gaming. The amds released were repacked old gen cards.

From the reviews at the normal places they are saying this is the best for the price range; the 970's that they are testing against are all the super clocked / over clocked versions and for the most part the 480 is at stock levels and within spitting distance, so for me unless the 970 drops to the £150 mark its better to get the 480 for the nextgen support it brings.

How do you mean? Every review I've seen has been a disappointment.

Coming in fighting the 970, losing to the 390/290x and the price points are very similar...

It's hot, it's not efficient, I don't see anyone 'loving' it so far.

Got any reviews to say otherwise?

Disappointing in the UK. They are loving the 480 in the States.

Now overpriced.

It's really hard to recommend the 480 right now, after such massive disappointments and over hype.

The reference card can't overclock at all (1350s on reviews, not even 100 mhz), it's hot (75c stock) and noisy (40 dba+).

Unless the AIBs completely turn the page, it's looking like a bit of a stinker.

The 1060 is being announced for July 7th, it may be a competitor. Either way, today was a disappointing AMD day.

Slightly higher clocks out of the box, and three years' warranty instead of two. (If memory serves, EVGA coolers didn't quite properly fit their 970 cards on launch, but that might have been fixed..?)

I'm surprised to be saying this, but from the benchmarks so far, the 480 hasn't exactly beaten the 970. And Guru3D have the 480 using nearly 10% more power than the 970, too. So for £180, that two-year-old EVGA 970 is still, unbelievably, a decent competitor for the 4GB 480. :confused:

I'm not sure which shocked me more - that, or the Brexit result!

But if you're not interested in SteamOS or Linux, and have a decent CPU, I'd still suggest the 8GB 480 (as soon as it hits £200).

EVGA tend to be thought of as a higher-end card manufacturer. In this case 3 years warranty vs the Zotec's 2 year warranty shows they have better belief in their cards.

Slightly faster clock speed on the GPU, so it should have marginally better performance.

Better in what way?

Slightly better and cheaper HERE after £20 claim/ cashback.

Still a lovely card and lovely stable drivers make this a great alternative.Easy overclocking to boot.