New AMD GPU

Interesting stuff!

I may become an AMD convert at this price range!!

Crikey mate! You'd not even notice the difference between that and my 390X, and I paid £330 for it. And with a reduced 150W TDP to boot.

Bargain if the rumour turns out to be true. I wonder if the 4GB is the 199 bucks? That would put it in the R380 price bracket. The 8GB perhaps priced a little higher?

My thoughts exactly mate!!
Been toying with building a new rig next year and looking at Nvidias 1000 series but now have the advantage of seeing what else AMD come out with!!

Been looking at upgrading my aging 6850 for a while, and i aint one spunk a huge amount of cash on a graphics card, looks like it might be the ticket

Gonna put my R9 380 up for sale. Hardly used it and keep meaning to get around to listing it.

Can put the cash towards a better wireless keyboard!

Watched it live at work

its kinda exciting for the price

looks like

170 for the 4GB and 200 for the 8GB

In reply to a post by epyon:

Watched it live at work

its kinda exciting for the price

looks like

170 for the 4GB and 200 for the 8GB

Cheap as chips!!

I might get rid of my GTX 970 FTW+ while it's still worth something!!

In reply to a post by epyon:

Watched it live at work

its kinda exciting for the price

looks like

170 for the 4GB and 200 for the 8GB

Dollars or Pound notes?

Very interesting! I'm itching to build a new gaming rig, hopefully it's not too much more in ££'s.

Yeah really exciting,i can hardly contain myself and have done a Whoopsie in my trousers.

I have a GTX 980 that does nothing :/

seems swapping a 970 (sell on ebay) for one of these cards is a zero cost transaction with about 25-35% performance gain.

The 1070 from nvidia is priced less favourably than the 970 was at launch. So that upgrade path is much harder to justify.

Just bear in mind tho amd cards tend to not overclock very well, the 25-35% gain is at "stock" clocks, and they suffer in dx11 and older games. So the most likely outcome for me at the moment is I keep my 970 for another year.

Edited by Chrysalis (Mon 06-Jun-16 13:36:17)

I can't interest you in a less than year old 970 with a lovely custom firmware then

On a serious note though I won't be jumping until I see some actual gaming benchmarks!!

no, ironically this is part of the reason I want to give it another year, the time I spent on my custom bios perfecting it, I feel it deserves more use.

Not to mention a good rule is to not upgrade every year and wait at least 2 generations between upgrades. The problem here is the performance boost per watts is quite good so it is tempting. Also that my 970 isnt really capable of rendering 1440p at high settings comfortably on all games (my native res is now 1440p).

Pounds

according to a chap from scan.

Edited by epyon (Tue 07-Jun-16 04:19:51)

Some AMD cards clock very well but this last gen has been lackluster

the original 290x could get nearly a 30% oc not including the reference coolers as they where junk.

It looks like the RX480 will have a clock of 1266 so i think at least 1600 will be doable according to some sources.

Snerp!!!!
Snibbit

Barp!!!

Your carer's on holiday again I see...

https://www.lambda-tek.com/Sapphire-21260-00-20G~sh/...

£237 for the 8GB

a bit higher than i had hoped

though this is preorder and prices may settle after official release

Sapphire is the likely route I would take too. I couldn't fit the Sapphire 390 Tri X in my case, so went with Gigabyte Windforce instead, but Sapphire was my first choice as they are usually involved with AMD's reference hardware.

So the 480 is now available and the reviewers are saying it will sit with an overclocked GTX970 and for around £220 that's not too shabby!!

The 480 seems to have some heat and power draw issues but I imagine aftermarket coolers will help with the heat and if they sort the power draw out it should run cooler too although AMD cards are renowned for running warm!!

Reviews.

Edited by jorkila (Wed 29-Jun-16 18:47:57)

Sounds good. I am interested in the cheaper 470, seems like it would suit my needs..

The RX 470 is aimed at those who want a smooth 1080P at 60fps experience, allowing gamers to play their favourite games in full-HD without worrying about the framerate dropping under 60fps.

(PCAdviser)

I have a nice 1080p monitor and no intention of upgrading.

Bear in mind that even the 970 can't play every game at 1080p 60fps with all the bells and whistles on mate so I wouldn't go for the 470 personally!

its left me disappointed, I was expecting with all the polaris hype for it to be an upgrade on my 970.

The 1070 prices are daylight robbery, am hoping a higher model polaris card will force some sanity.

agreed, reviewers tend to over rate cards e.g. they consider a 960 a 1080p card, when my 970 will struggle in some games at 1080p.

The 480 seems king at its price point and is a good buy for someone who currently doesnt have a card in that performance range.

Don't worry I definitely won't be expecting a card in that price range to be able to max everything out.

What processor do you guys think would be a good pair for either the 470 or 480?

a intel i5 skylake probably the 6600k if you ok paying intel prices. If you want amd, I will do some hunting for you.

Is still my view the price premium for hyperthreading chips isnt worth it.

link for it at timey's favourite store.

6600k

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel-core-i5-6600k-...

hyperthreaded 6700k variant

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel-core-i7-6700k-...

more budget based i5 £50 cheaper than the 6600k, still 4 cores but no overclocking and lower stock speeds.

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel-core-i5-6400-s...

The 6600k only makes sense if you want to overclock which is recommended as is usually at least 25% extra performance from it.

Edited by Chrysalis (Fri 01-Jul-16 00:39:21)

I still think the 4690k is a great option.

I don't trust this site to be completely unbiased, but for same manufacturer comparisons, it's not a concern and quite easy to understand.

Even better value if you do a motherboard bundle. I haven't bothered overclocking mine, it's nippy enough, but there's always that option in the future with the K versions.

the scores do seem odd vs the 6600k given sky lake has better per clock performance than haswell. I do agree haswell is still a decent chip, but of course time moves on and skylake has improved on that, especially with the chipset.

If he can find haswell chips cheaper than skylake tho then yeah I agree with you, especially if a 4690k is the same price as a 6400. But if the prices are equal or close to equal I suggest he goes with skylake.

Insomnia setting in..............Im feeling sleepy Yawnnnnnnnnnnnn......Thats it I'm gone. zzzzzzzzzzzz

If you're gonna be happy with the rx470 then the only benefit of getting Skylake (6600k socket 1151 for instance) over Haswell (4690k socket 1150) is future proofing which obviously isn't a bad thing.

The fact that both chips are similarly priced it may then boil down to your flavour of motherboard seeing as they are 2 different socket types (1150 vs 1151) although again you should be able to get a decent socket 1151 board for reasonable money.

The choice is yours!!

What spec do you currently have Trance?

Another option to keep the cost down could be to buy Nellys old 380 which would possibly suit your needs?

Point is .....Can he be trusted to despatch what he's selling and not some card from a decade ago

Honestly, who do you think I am? I can absolutely be trusted with your wife's dress.... I mean your address.... I mean.....

That was a comparison with the 6400, but I think for a 470 that would be more than adequate.

I'm still very much in the camp for spending your welly on GPU grunt before CPU. My 380 is Liquid VR enabled and runs most stuff on high settings 60fps. We have to remember 360° video is unquestionably going to be big in the next couple of years, and the VR capability of the lower 300 series card offerings, are aimed at that, rather than for gaming I suspect.

If budget is not an issue then I agree. go for the 6600k! Of course, the new AMD stuff could be an option and more complimentary to a 400 series GPU if he isn't in a hurry. And if they reflect the 400 series prices, could be tempting?

Not a bad deal here:

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel-core-i5-4690k-...

Haven't looked about so it can probably be beaten, but just as an idea.

Thanks for all the recommendations & advice guys.... should of said I was thinking sub £100 for the CPU so more than likely a AMD one, which I have used in all my desktops. Only time I've had intel has been in a laptop. If I go for PC gaming again it will be a budget build.

In reply to a post by jorkila:

What spec do you currently have Trance?

Another option to keep the cost down could be to buy Nellys old 380 which would possibly suit your needs?

Athlon 7750, 4GB ram and a radeon something... can't remember or be bothered to find detailed specs..anyway it's 7 years old and slow

Maybe keep an eye out for a 2nd hand 8320 or 8350?

My lad has an A10 7850k apu and paired with a gtx 770 can run Battlefield 4 on medium/high settings.

Could stretch to that.

So if the CPU has onboard graphics and you have a graphics card does the onboard graphics help at all ?

medium settings would do me fine.

There are amd cards that you can pair with them but it wouldn't be as good as the Rx 480 4gb.

if you a gamer the on die gpu in a cpu/gpu combo generally is only useful for conveniance e.g. when testing if bios posts and you can do that without a discreet GPU.

The deal nelly posted is pretty decent, but if your budget is really strict £100 for the cpu, then maybe this

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-fx-8320e-8-core-...

and below

haswell i3 sub £100

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel-core-i3-4170-l...

Although you can get intel i3's for sub £100, I am split tho whether a dual core intel or quad core amd is better. In legacy games generally per core performance is king, but occasionally games do get released that can take good avantage of high core counts, and future vulkan and dx12 games should both benefit from high core counts also.

Edited by Chrysalis (Sat 02-Jul-16 00:41:29)

Don't have a wife and i know your Address you don't know mine

I do though

In reply to a post by time2die:

Don't have a wife and i know your Address

So does she....

Thanks, that is the sort of amount I was thinking of spending, if I go ahead with it. At the moment I am thinking of just sticking to console gaming but who knows i always change my mind

one thing to consider is cpu performance increases are very mild currently, you buy a decent cpu now and the chances are it will last you at least 5 years minimum. The last large performance jump was the sandy bridge chips released in 2011, since then intel has been concentrating on power efficiency..

Well if you do decide to build a budget rig, this could turn out to be good advice

Don't skimp too much on the motherboard trance.

And don't dismiss the 380 too quickly either mate. It will be cheaper still and there won't be a gulf in difference; that's why I'm keeping mine. I'll stick an FX processor in with it and give it to the kids when I build my next rig.

I'm currently looking out for an fx chip and suitable board for my lad.

I'm cutrrently looking for some nice blue ram. Wanted Hoer X blue in 2133Mhz but they only do 1866 it seems.

Two sticks of 8

yeah I didnt post on this issue because I do agree its been overhyped but at the same time card vendors are been too aggressive on their power claims even having inadequate psu cable connectivity to try and enforce that claim, these amd cards should be using 2 pci-e power cables not one, and the third party vendors do indeed have two not one. Some nvidia cards have the same issue such as the 750 ti and gtx 960.

The advice on a cheap motherboard is good, but I would also advise do not buy reference gpu models, get an after market card. This includes nvidia's overhyped founders edition cards, they are basically just reference cards, avoid them. A 480 from someone like asus has 2 external pci-e power connectors so it wont over draw from the motherboard pci-e slot.

Will look into it, I would probably be more than happy with a 380. cheers.

Watching this (not for Timey) from around the 53min mark the guy is showing how the rx480 has been strangely setup to use some power from the pci-e slot for both the memory and core which from what I gather is completely unheard of and explains the issues currently being had with these cards drawing too much power from the pci-e.

Edited by jorkila (Mon 04-Jul-16 14:59:15)

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.zzzzzzzzzzzzz.....Snores.........Insomnia setting in and result.....Cured

It's only an issue with old mobo hardware apparently?

I've got one

its running fine on my old mobo from 2011 with a 2500k

i think its a none issue tbh

since 1000's have been sold which only 2 people have reported this issue ?

You got the 4 or 8gb version matey?

I ask because I've seen somewhere that some 4gb cards actually have 8gb but is locked via the bios!

Edited by jorkila (Tue 05-Jul-16 20:27:00)

Well pcper have done an investigation now, they claim the 960 gtx is actually nowhere near the same issue.

There is also reports of broken motherboards by some people (low end boards).

The issue I see it is AMD tried to pull a fast one on the power draw claims by under supplying the external power from psu, if the card is not overclocked and not overly stressed e.g. 1080p tomb raider then it goes slightly over power draw spec which is dodgy, if the card is overclocked and especially if stressed heavily then things go a bit crazy. pcper have promised now to run some tests on low end boards to see if the boards die. High end boards are ok because they over engineered, they like allow more power through the traces than the spec requires expecting spikes from users overclocking cards and so forth. So I have changed my view a bit now.

It probably will be fine on aftermarket cards as they will have 8 pin instead of 6 pin or a 2nd 6 pin and adjusted bios to reduce the pci-e slot power draw. The drivers that amd says will fix this I expect will undervolt the cards and cap clock speeds.

Edited by Chrysalis (Tue 05-Jul-16 23:13:40)

In reply to a post by epyon:

I've got one

its running fine on my old mobo from 2011 with a 2500k

i think its a none issue tbh

since 1000's have been sold which only 2 people have reported this issue ?

I agree.

As with everything, ten or twenty YouTube commentators get hold of it and it becomes big news. In reality it could be a very tiny percentage of cards that end up having an issue.

Conversely of course, it could indeed be inherent to "the design".

It's far too early to tell properly.

Well this is interesting, undervolting the card makes it more stable allowing a very slight performance boost!

yep that will happen when the card is bottlenecking at power limits.

Yes i've just flashed mine to 8GB

though it seems random, Some have 4GB and some have 4GB flashed on a 8GB card

I bought a RX480 4GB for £213 to upgrade from my old HD6950.

EDIT: There is some rumours of the RX470 flashing to a 480 as they're not lazer cut dies.

Edited by epyon (Thu 07-Jul-16 21:26:49)

part 1 of test on cheap board.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiPtzcqIZ4E

no part 2 yet.

Nice i'll sub to check it out

but i've not had problems (yet)

I think no issues will be found, if it went the other way he would have released fast for the drama.