The reviews are in and the consensus seems to be that the new AMD cards are underwhelming. They seem equivalent to the last generation mid grade Nvidia enthusiast 970's. They are cheaper than a 970 and they use less power. Nice if you are building a system on a budget but not stunning. Seems like there might be a lot more action from AMD and Nvidia in the near future. Hopefully the AMD offerings will get a bit juicer.
People are idiots. Fanboys are morons. And the jack-holes on Reddit and OCForums are the kings of the shitpile. From the very first announcement of these cards, AMD told EVERYONE that these were a mid-range card with a bit of overclock-ability. One of the first non-PR flackey talking points was that the RX480 8GB card was more in the 980 performance range, but at 1/3 the price. The goal of the 480 series is to grab the 85% of the normal person market, and sometime later to put out a high-end card. EDIT: I'm one of the morons hyping the hype train. Looked at the OP and noticed I said that a single card was 1080 level, meant to say TWO cards are 1080 level performance, at less power and 2/3 the price. So I'm a part of the failure to manage expectations. I hang my head in shame. This article from the launch PR has a great pull quote on this: The whole point is to lower the cost of entry to VR and PC gaming. The announce press conference stressed "mid-range" graphics at the best price/performance (performance per watt in the announcement) on the market. The hype trains got wound up, way up, and I think that there were too many people expecting a $700 card's performance for $200. The benchmarks look about what I was expecting. Two cards together will push out about the performance of a GTX1080, but at 2/3 the price. One card is about twice the output of my SLI system that I have not upgraded in three years, and was looking to try out Crossfire versus SLI. As soon as the cards are in stock on Newegg, I am going to pull the trigger and get two of them.“The Radeon™ RX series efficiency is driven by major architectural improvements and the industry’s first 14nm FinFET process technology for discrete GPUs, and could mark an important inflection point in the growth of virtual reality,” said Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst, Moor Insights & Strategy. “By lowering the cost of ownership and increasing the VR TAM, Radeon RX Series has the potential to propel VR-ready systems into retail in higher volumes, drive new levels of VR content investment, and even drive down the cost of VR headsets.” via AMD
They seem like nice cards if you are on a budget. I'd go one Nvidia before I'd go two AMD. Sounds like AMD has some more aggressive cards coming in a few months and Nvidia is going to announce some lower grade cards this month or next that might pull the shine of AMD's offerings.
Yea, sucks right now to have money to burn. I sort-of need a new graphics card as I am now getting dips into the 35-40FPS level on my games, but I really need to wait and see if there is going to be a price cut on the 1080. If they cut the 1080 to $500 that is the way I will go. Unless I get 100% fed up with Windows and go full Linux, then I have to go AMD due to the drivers working much better on Linux and AMD's commitment to FOOS. I still want to puck up to of the cards and at least play with them and tinker with overclocking. I have a group of friends who can always use my hand-me-downs and will pay me 1/2 what I shelled out for the cards as well. I'm giving everything a week. If by the end of next week the cards are in stock, I'll have to post a report on my findings here for you all.
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Power-Consumption-Concerns-Radeon-RX-480 A bit about the power draw. We'll know in a week or two if it's really a mother board melting problem I'm a fee weeks. Skip to the end of the article to avoid all the technical blather.
Two things. Over clocking benefits were minimal and your going to need some decent cooling to get your 1-4% improvement. sounds like the software for over cooling is better than ever. The card is pulling twice the power most motherboards are rated for under certain conditions from the motherboard (over clocking and some other times). Don't buy one until this is cleared up.