Quote:AMD has had a recent history of following with rebrands every other year, which is disappointing, though these do make business sense. They're just not what we, as enthusiasts, like to see. This approach, however, goes on to confirm a little of what we already knew about Vega, and takes after AMD's approach with the Fiji GPUs - rebrand the lower and mainstream end of the GPU spectrum, whilst introducing a new, high-end design. As we know, Vega is an enthusiast-aimed GPU, and so a RX 500 series being introduced in April does pave the way for AMD to have a complete graphics line-up for 2017, starting from the bottom up - remember that AMD's own announcements put the launch of Vega strictly before the end of June. A RX 500 series also makes sense in regards to branding, since AMD has branded their RX Vega-based cards as simply "Radeon RX Vega", opting for a name distinction between its mainstream and enthusiast-class cards, much like the company has done before with their Fury branding.

(03-15-2017, 10:22 AM)SteelCrysis Wrote: RX 500s reportedly will launch on April 18: https://www.techpowerup.com/231500/amds-rx-500-series-reportedly-delayed

Quote:As to the higher clocks, these apparently are only responsible for bridging the gap between the RX 480's reference and custom boards. The RX 580 will reportedly carry a 1340 MHz clock (74 MHz more than the reference RX 480), with the RX 570 carrying a much less significant 38 MHz increase over its RX 470 counterpart. The Radeon RX 560 will apparently make do with a clock speed of 1287 MHz.

These clock improvements only go so far as to allow AMD to claim a measure of increased performance comparing to their previous-generation, same architecture, one-year-old graphics cards. Vega is the only product from the company which will have some semblance of originality. A shame AMD didn't adopt some of Vega's refinements to its mainstream graphics cards.

Quote:The reference-design boards of the two were pictured, and aren't strictly "rebadged" RX 480 and RX 470. The two feature higher clocks, and are supported by a redesigned VRM. The RX 570 draws power from a single 6-pin PCIe power connector, while the RX 580 draws it from a single 8-pin connector.

The core-configurations of the RX 580 and RX 570 aren't different from their predecessors - the RX 580 still features 2,304 stream processors, and the RX 570 features 2,048, but clock speeds are increased across the board. The RX 580 ticks at about 1340 MHz (vs. 1266 MHz of the RX 480), with its memory speed unchanged at 8.00 GHz (GDDR5-effective), while the RX 570 is clocked at 1244 MHz (vs. 1206 MHz of the RX 470), with its memory clock slightly increased to 7.00 GHz. The two cards also seem to do away with the DVI port. According to VideoCardz, the two cards could launch on the 18th of April, 2017.

(03-31-2017, 09:05 PM)SteelCrysis Wrote: https://www.techpowerup.com/231994/amd-polaris-based-radeon-rx-570-and-rx-580-pictured

Quote:The reference-design boards of the two were pictured, and aren't strictly "rebadged" RX 480 and RX 470. The two feature higher clocks, and are supported by a redesigned VRM. The RX 570 draws power from a single 6-pin PCIe power connector, while the RX 580 draws it from a single 8-pin connector.

The core-configurations of the RX 580 and RX 570 aren't different from their predecessors - the RX 580 still features 2,304 stream processors, and the RX 570 features 2,048, but clock speeds are increased across the board. The RX 580 ticks at about 1340 MHz (vs. 1266 MHz of the RX 480), with its memory speed unchanged at 8.00 GHz (GDDR5-effective), while the RX 570 is clocked at 1244 MHz (vs. 1206 MHz of the RX 470), with its memory clock slightly increased to 7.00 GHz. The two cards also seem to do away with the DVI port. According to VideoCardz, the two cards could launch on the 18th of April, 2017.

(04-04-2017, 07:00 AM)ocre Wrote: Do away with the DVI port?  What?  

Do you guys remember how long budget/entry level cards carried the 15pin VGA port?  They used to have several output options, the widest variety was on the entry level cards.


It was great because most people buying cards like that are better served if they could plug it in and it just work.  They arent the people who want to buy a new monitor or adapters.

For the longest time, these cards had just about every output type.

What is going on with AMD?  Is this a cost cutting choice?  really?

Is it anything to do with gsync?  Boycotting DVI?

What do you guys think?

Quote:A leak of what appears to be AMD's presentation on the Radeon RX 500 series has brought confirmation on specifications and details of the new line-up - which includes the RX 580, RX 570, the (until now) missing RX 560, and the RX 550. It would seem AMD has now opted for a new, dual-fan reference design, instead of their usual single-fan, blower-style coolers.

(04-04-2017, 08:46 AM)RolloTheGreat Wrote: Is it anything to do with gsync?  Boycotting DVI?

What do you guys think?

(04-17-2017, 08:07 AM)ocre Wrote: So, is amd trying to sway people to buy new monitors...could it be in hopes they will adopt to freesync.  But I am not sure what freesync monitors are out there.

Quote:There are two major problems with flashing an RX 480 to behave like an RX 580. First and foremost, anyone with a six-pin PCI Express RX 480 is begging for trouble. AMD’s first RX 480 reference cards had a problem with drawing too much power over the PCI Express slot and not enough via the auxiliary power connectors. AMD was able to resolve this issue within days with an updated driver, but pushing the card to higher clock speeds could easily make the problem reappear. The first sign of a problem could easily be a dead monitor and the delicious scent of eau de burning PCB. This problem shouldn’t affect custom board designs from AIB vendors, but the first wave of RX 480s were based on AMD’s own reference board. If you’ve got an RX 480 with a single six-pin PCI Express connector, I wouldn’t even try this particular “tweak.”

The second problem with driving the RX 480 as hard as the RX 580 is the mammoth increase in power consumption and associated temperature increase. Our review showed the RX 580 drawing 77W more power than the RX 480 under identical test conditions, and while this gap will vary depending on board quality, cooler capability, and the RX 580’s clock speed, every review of AMD’s second-generation Polaris found the RX 580 drew significantly more power than its predecessor.While the Gigabyte RX 580 Aorus OC we reviewed is an excellent card with minimal noise and a rock-solid clock speed of 1425MHz, it’s also clearly designed for a much higher TDP than many RX 480 boards.

Most reviewers and enthusiasts tend to pay attention to GPU core temperatures above any other thermal measurement, but VRM temperatures matter a great deal as well. When Tom’s Hardware wrote an RX 480 roundup they compared GPU and VRM temperatures on a number of cards and found significant variation between them. Worse, the individual test results for GPU and VRM temperatures don’t necessarily correlate well with each other. GPUs like the Sapphire RX 480 Nitro+ keep the GPU temperature below 80C, but the VRM temperatures hit 97C.

In situations like this, pushing the VRMs even higher is nuts. They may be rated to handle it, but the PCB they’re mounted to probably isn’t, and hot spot formation could be a huge problem depending on the make and model of your GPU.

Finally, there’s the fact that depending on which BIOS you flash, you’re only getting an extra 7-12 percent performance anyway. The Gigabyte Aorus we tested had a 1425MHz clock speed, but it looks like Gigabyte pushed the envelope a little harder than anyone else. Here’s how our RX 480 (AMD reference) compared against the RX 580 in aggregate, across all games and in just DX12/Vulkan games.

When the RX 580 is, at most, 10 percent faster than the RX 480, and the risk to one’s card is substantial, I can’t recommend anyone tackle the project. A 10 percent performance gain isn’t worth spending another $220 – $260 on a new GPU.