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AMD RX 480 Offers Best-in-Class Performance For $199/$239
Reader Vigile writes: It's been a terribly long news cycle, but today is finally the day reviews and sales start of the new AMD Radeon RX 480 graphics card based on the company's latest Polaris architecture and built on 14nm FinFET process technology. With a starting price tag of $199 for the 4GB model and $239 for the 8GB, the RX 480 has some interesting performance characteristics. Compared to the GeForce GTX 970, currently selling for around $280, the RX 480 performs +/- 5-10% in DX11 games but PC Perspective found that the RX 480 was as much as 40% faster in DX12 titles like Gears of War, Hitman and Rise of the Tomb Raider. Compared to previous AMD products, the RX 480 is as fast as a Radeon R9 390 but uses just 150 watts compared to 275 watts for the previous generation. Chances are that NVIDIA will have a competing product based on Pascal available sometime in July, so AMD's advantage may be short-lived; but in the meantime, the Radeon RX 480 is clearly the best GPU for $200.AnandTech has more details.
So a tech site posts an article with a review about a new piece of tech and it's an ad? As a gamer I find it personally quite interesting to see that AMD has managed to top my current card for significantly less money.
People, reviews about tech products on a tech centered site != ads. If they post an 'article' about budweiser beating out coors in a taste test on this site, that's an ad.
It goes toe to toe with the GTX970 for $199/239, with the lesser card already having 0.5GB more memory in practice. If the GTX1060 pricing rumors of $249/299 for the 3/6GB version are true, they'll enjoy a substantial time alone at the $200 price point and that $50 difference really matters. They'll move a lot of "boring" value cards, it's maybe not exciting for enthusiasts that want to see them push the envelope, but this looks like the best business move AMD has done in a long time.
I don't think their technology quite competes with Pascal but the leap from their last generation to this is huge, it's around Maxwell 2 class efficiency. Still it's in the realm of performance where I think nVidia will cash in on their advantage rather than try for the killing blow by reducing prices.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The only way you'd need to replace the card in 1-2 years is if you're pushing out 4k. More like 4-5 for 1080p As 66+% of people running games on Steam are still at 1080p with one or two monitors, with the vast majority of the rest being below that that it is a perfect price point to sell a shitload of cards.
- Conveniently forgetting to mention that the competing product is already obsolete (the GTX 1070 launched three weeks ago).
- Carefully selecting price points that let them pretend there's no elephant in the room: that AMD lacks a proper response to the 1070 and 1080.
At $379/$449 it's a big step up in price from the $329 the GTX 970 launched at and way, way beyond the $199/$239 that AMD is charging. The GTX 970 now retails for ~$250 so in one sentence you lambast them for comparing to the closest competitor in price and then in the next sentence you complain about not comparing to a card that you yourself admit belongs in a completely different league? You're trolling for team green, comparing this card to the 1070 would be ridiculous. And if you wonder why they don't give hints or spoilers about the GTX 1060, it's because they're under NDA and that's exactly the sort of thing that's supposed to prevent. Until the NDA lifts it doesn't just have unknown price and performance, officially it doesn't exist. It's a review of the RX 480, not all the cards AMD chose not to make. Those who consider buying this card doesn't give a rat's ass about whether AMD has a 1070/1080 competitor or not, it's off-topic.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The 1070 costs ~$200 more an by your logic it's also obsolete because you could buy a 1080 instead (never mind you'll need to spend another ~$200 on top of that) which had launched prior to the 1070. Also, the 1080 launched at the end of May so I don't know where you're getting 2 months from.
Your comment is almost equally as misinformed so should we assume that it's an Nvidia ad?