Wednesday, June 1st 2016

AMD Radeon RX 480 "Polaris" Launched at $199

by
btarunr
 Discuss (104 Comments)
AMD made a bold move in launching its first "Polaris" architecture based performance-segment GPU, the Radeon RX 480 at a starting price of US $199. The company claims that it will perform on-par with $500 graphics cards from the previous generation, directly hinting at performance being on par with the Radeon R9 Fury and R9 Nano. Although it's not in the league of the GTX 1070 or the GTX 1080, this level of performance at $199 could certainly disrupt things for NVIDIA, as it presents an attractive option for people still gaming on 1440p and 1080p resolutions (the overwhelming majority). The R9 Fury can handle any game at 1440p.

The Radeon RX 480 is based on the 14 nm "Ellesmere" silicon, fabbed by GlobalFoundries. It's publicly known that GloFlo has a 14 nm fab in Malta (upstate New York), USA. The RX 480 is based on AMD's 4th generation Graphics CoreNext architecture, codenamed "Polaris." It features 2,304 stream processors, spread across 36 compute units (CUs). Its single-precision floating point performance is rated by AMD to be "greater than 5 TFLOP/s." The chip features a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, with memory clocked at 8 Gbps, yielding memory bandwidth of 256 GB/s. There will be two variants of this card, 4 GB and 8 GB. It's the 4 GB variant that starts at $199, the 8 GB variant is expected to be priced at $229. AMD confirmed that the GPU will support DisplayPort 1.4 although it's certified up to DisplayPort 1.3. The typical board power is rated at 150W. The card could be available from 29th June.

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104 Comments on AMD Radeon RX 480 "Polaris" Launched at $199

#26
Assimilator
btarunrOh snap single 6-pin. GET HYPE.
All that tells me is that it can't OC for s**t, which would gel well with the rumours that the 14nm process has massive leakage issues at higher speeds. OTOH, if RX 480 can deliver GTX 970 or better performance for $200, overclocking probably doesn't matter too much.

However, given AMD's record of blatantly lying about its cards' performance before their actual release, I won't be holding my breath.
Posted on Reply
#27
dj-electric
Why people think that 6PIN only means no overclocking capabilities?!

HD 6850 had 6PIN and was a phenomenal OCer, and so was HD 7850.
Going a bit over 6PIN power spec is not improbable.
Posted on Reply
#28
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
HTCIf it's to be launched on June 29th, then it's not launched now, unless it's launched twice ...

As far as i know, when a card is launched, there are reviews from (selected) tech sites, even if it's a paper launch and there's no real availability to the public. This is not the case with polaris, hence why i consider it's an announcement instead of a launch.
That 29th could be review NDA and market availability. Launch was now.

GTX 1080 AND GTX 1070 were launched on May 7th, but reviews were allowed to be posted only on May 17th, and GTX 1080 availability was only after May 27 and GTX 1070 only after June 10.

RX 480 is Launched. 1st June 2016 is the launch day that will appear in GPU-Z for this chip.
Posted on Reply
#29
Xzibit
HTCIf it's to be launched on June 29th, then it's not launched now, unless it's launched twice ...

As far as i know, when a card is launched, there are reviews from (selected) tech sites, even if it's a paper launch and there's no real availability to the public. This is not the case with polaris, hence why i consider it's an announcement instead of a launch.
Thats why I mentioned Nvidia and there timing. Nvidia launched GTX 1080 & 1070 at Nvidia Editors Day on May 6. Both AMD and Nvidia use launch for what should be announcements but anyone can see there are none available when they say launch. They use availability for what some like to think of as a launch.
Posted on Reply
#30
medi01
Dj-ElectriCWhy people think that 6PIN only means no overclocking capabilities?!
Well, 1070 is 8 pin, max 225w.
6 pin is max 150w.

Conslusions... No idea.
Both cards are claimed to be 150w TDP, lol.
Assimilatorif RX 480 can deliver GTX 970 or better performance
If we trust this leak, it's between 980 and Fury.
(separate article confirms 480 is C7)

videocardz.com/60253/amd-radeon-r9-480-3dmark11-benchmarks

Although I still keep my fingers crossed.
Posted on Reply
#31
Chaitanya
punaniThat price ..

Same here, even if 8GB version costs 30$ more I would definitely consider it.
Posted on Reply
#32
Frick
Fishfaced Nincompoop
If the performance is as promised and if they have managed to build up a big enough stock by the 29th... Good times ahead.
Posted on Reply
#33
mroofie
ChaitanyaSame here, even if 8GB version costs 30$ more I would definitely consider it.
230 seems like it or maybe 250 :confused:

Edit : 230 it is :pimp:
Posted on Reply
#34
laszlo
don't care if is close/under fury or 980 as perf.; price is more than ok ,power only 150w :eek: (don't need another psu) - is my next upgrade :toast:
Posted on Reply
#35
Naito
Full Polaris 10 has shader count of 2560?
Posted on Reply
#36
TheGuruStud
Another GloFo loser chip. Great. I bet even with beefy VRMs and full power control, it STILL won't clock.

Dump the APUs on GloFo to fill the contract and nothing more. It seems that Sammy is the only one that can save them.
Posted on Reply
#37
Caring1
bencrutzwhat??? only one??? we need moar :banghead:
This is the reference card only.
Wait for partner boards to come out.
Posted on Reply
#38
arbiter
Prima.VeraWhen can we expect some reviews please?
XzibitPolaris was just announced, NDA embargo lifts June 29th. Raja did mention availability.
GTX 1080 was announced, 2 weeks later reviewed, 2 week after that released, 2 days after 1080 released 1070 was reviewed. 1070 wont be released until June 10th.
Um no, pascal was announced the on the 7th, NDA was up 17th, on sale was week and a half later on the 27th. between the anounce and on sale was less then 3 weeks. AMD has a 1 month NDA on their's which seems like they just wanted to try to throw water on the fire left behind by the pascal Bomb.
Posted on Reply
#39
G33k2Fr34k
TheGuruStudAnother GloFo loser chip. Great. I bet even with beefy VRMs and full power control, it STILL won't clock.

Dump the APUs on GloFo to fill the contract and nothing more. It seems that Sammy is the only one that can save them.
It's cheaper for them to manufacture chips at Glofo. Saves them a lot of money. Why is it a looser chip? The chip most definitely consumes less than 150 Watts and performance wise it's Fury (non X) level. At $199 price point, this is the new mainstream king.
Posted on Reply
#40
Absolution
btarunrAMD implies that it's as fast as R9 Fury, which is faster than GTX 980. NVIDIA can't beat RX 480 without giving the GTX 1060 too many SMs, thereby cannibalizing the GTX 1070.

This SKU is disruptive af.
By that disruption they sure did shake up their own product line too, albiet the prev gen, which i guess is acceptable than disrupting nvidias current gen.

Also, if this is true (that its similar to a Nano or Air Fury in performance), I better get rid of my Nano fast lol.

But I dont get why AMD quoted a number of >5 teraflops? The Nano is 8 teraflops. How could it reach that? Does teraflops mean anything in this context?
Posted on Reply
#41
Absolution
AssimilatorAll that tells me is that it can't OC for s**t, which would gel well with the rumours that the 14nm process has massive leakage issues at higher speeds.
I thought the finfet process in essence was supposed to reduce the problem of leakages by quite a margin?
Posted on Reply
#42
G33k2Fr34k
AbsolutionBy that disruption they sure did shake up their own product line too, albiet the prev gen, which i guess is acceptable than disrupting nvidias current gen.

Also, if this is true (that its similar to a Nano or Air Fury in performance), I better get rid of my Nano fast lol.

But I dont get why AMD quoted a number of >5 teraflops? The Nano is 8 teraflops. How could it reach that? Does teraflops mean anything in this context?
Not sure... but it is a powerful card. It's probably slightly faster than the R9 nano and closer to the R9 Fury. I think they showed it running Doom at 1440P on Ultra and it was getting ~80fps, which is R9 Fury performance.
Posted on Reply
#43
bug
AbsolutionI thought the finfet process in essence was supposed to reduce the problem of leakages by quite a margin?
Sadly, no. The lower the process, the more the leakage bites you.
Posted on Reply
#45
Absolution
bugSadly, no. The lower the process, the more the leakage bites you.
Actually yes lol. Lower means lesser leakage. Finfet reduces leakage by a large margin, multiple sources indicate that and was also mentioned in the Anandtech article:

Across the entire performance curve the 14nm process offers a continuum of better switching speeds and/or lower leakage compared to Intel’s 22nm process
And AMD will be using both 14nm and 16nm tech for their Polaris chips too. So it cant be leakage:
The group has confirmed that they will be utilizing both traditional partner TSMC’s 16nm process and AMD fab spin-off (and Samsung licensee) GlobalFoundries’ 14nm process, making this the first time that AMD’s graphics group has used more than a single fab.
I think they will tune the card according to the markets competition (aka the 1060), hence the reason why clock speed and teraflops numbers are not released. They want to scare nvidia through the AoTS slide by showing how much more the chip can perform.
Posted on Reply
#46
Sir Alex Ice
AMD clearly has no employees telling their bosses "you've done goofed" when it is clearly the case. GTX970 level of performance, at a reasonable price - for the moment, but with the power draw of the GTX1070?
Posted on Reply
#47
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
Added 8GB price. So $199 for 4GB and $229 for 8GB. Both very nice prices.
Posted on Reply
#48
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
AbsolutionBut I dont get why AMD quoted a number of >5 teraflops? The Nano is 8 teraflops. How could it reach that? Does teraflops mean anything in this context?
1266 x 2304 x 2 (iop/MADD) = 5.84 TFLOP/s. The rest is probably made for with big improvements to the frontend/memory management, etc.
Posted on Reply
#49
mroofie
btarunrAdded 8GB price. So $199 for 4GB and $229 for 8GB. Both very nice prices.
so its official :toast:
Posted on Reply
#50
SonicZap
Sounds very nice if true. I hope those performance numbers are real and not just marketing speech.

The thing I'm mostly concerned about is the 150W TDP. It's not that high, but the far more powerful GTX 1070 also has the same TDP. If RX 480 has equal power draw to the GTX 1070, it'll mean that Nvidia's Pascal architechture is still much more power efficient than the next-gen GCN. Which'll likely mean that Vega vs high-end Pascal will be like Hawaii vs GK110 again (AMD having high power draw => heat issues and noisy coolers).
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