RX 480 vs. GTX 980

[BolginNT]

Hi,

 

First of all sorry in advance for my english.

 

Im about to buy a new GPU and my budget at the moment allows me to get something in RX480 price range territory.

The thing is I can get my hands on the aforementioned GTX 980 as well, roughly about the same price.

The nVidia model in question is Inno3D HerculeZ X3 GTX980 (link) with really solid cooler on top.

 

So my question is... is it worth picking up an older Maxwell GPU that is faster than RX480 in current DX11 Games, or wait for some non-reference RX 480 that will most likely prove more future-proof with all that Vulkan and better-optimized DX12 performance?

 

Thank you very much

[Hunter-97-G]

The 980 is the better card, and you'll have overclocking headroom. If they cost the same I'd definitely go with the 980.

[manikyath]

well, do you intend to use this card more for DX11 titles, or DX12 or vulkan titles?

[Skiiwee29]

14 minutes ago, BolginNT said:

Hi,

 

First of all sorry in advance for my english.

 

Im about to buy a new GPU and my budget at the moment allows me to get something in RX480 price range territory.

The thing is I can get my hands on the aforementioned GTX 980 as well, roughly about the same price.

The nVidia model in question is Inno3D HerculeZ X3 GTX980 (link) with really solid cooler on top.

 

So my question is... is it worth picking up an older Maxwell GPU that is faster than RX480 in current DX11 Games, or wait for some non-reference RX 480 that will most likely prove more future-proof with all that Vulkan and better-optimized DX12 performance?

 

Thank you very much

The 980 out performs the 480. The 480 performs on par with 970's right now. Go with the 980. 

[Dgtal]

The 980 is going to be better at DX11 tittles, but, overtime, nVIDIA will stop giving it drivers support (that graphics card came out 2 years ago while the RX just launched, so, withing a year, I foresee the situation with Maxwell to be the same as with Kepler), not to mention its already missing Async compute. Another thing worth mentioning is the performance gains in lower level API's that the GCN architecture is experiencing, like with Vulkan in DOOM while using Async the RX 480 surpasses the GTX 980 and places itself just a ~20% lower than the GTX 1070 (Vulkan gets rid of AMD's own "bottlenecks" and boosts performance quite a bit when having closer access to the hardware without having to deal with drivers as much). A safer bet is to go with the RX 480, but wait until the non-reference models come out.

[BolginNT]

8 minutes ago, manikyath said:

well, do you intend to use this card more for DX11 titles, or DX12 or vulkan titles?

Wish I could predict the future. I have no clue how well will 980 perform with all those upcoming DX12 titles compared to RX480. Nor do I know how much is Vulkan going to be used in upcoming AAA titles.

What I think will happen is that we are going to see a slow and steady grow of RX480 performance that may beat the GTX980.

[Oakley]

24 minutes ago, Hunter-97-G said:

The 980 is the better card, and you'll have overclocking headroom. If they cost the same I'd definitely go with the 980.

This. Plus nvidia is just better. Luv you AMD fans  

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, Oakley said:

This. Plus nvidia is just better.  

please dont... just dont...

2 minutes ago, BolginNT said:

Wish I could predict the future. I have no clue how well will 980 perform with all those upcoming DX12 titles compared to RX480. Nor do I know how much is Vulkan going to be used in upcoming AAA titles.

What I think will happen is that we are going to see a slow and steady grow of RX480 performance that may beat the GTX980.

well, you dont have to look at the future.

how many games do you have now? how many of those will you still be playing compared to the new ones you'll be getting?

do you play games from devs that are likely to jump on new APIs, or rather like to stick to what they know best?

[TheDoebes]

Here's another question: How often do you buy new AAA games? Are you playing stuff like DOOM or are you still playing Civ5 & Skyrim like my friends and I? Old stuff will always be better on the 980, but the 480 will probably start winning out on Vlkn/Dx12.

 

Also, how soon will you upgrade again? if within two years, the 980 is probably better. If longer, the 480 is a much better option.

 

The third factor is cooling. Do you have a case where that 980 will be ok? Or is it something where blower-style is better?. Are you going to overclock? That 980 cooler is probably a better choice if so, with more headroom.

Edited July 18, 2016 by TheDoebes
More reasons/ typos

[BolginNT]

11 minutes ago, manikyath said:

how many of those will you still be playing compared to the new ones you'll be getting?

do you play games from devs that are likely to jump on new APIs, or rather like to stick to what they know best?

 

4 minutes ago, TheDoebes said:

Here's another question: How often do you buy new AAA games? Are you playing stuff like DOOM or are you still playing Civ5 & Skyrim like my friends and I? 

 

Also, how soon will you upgrade again? if within two years, the 980 is probably better. If longer, the 480 is a much better option.

 

The whole point of upgrading my GPU is to be able to play an upcoming AAA titles on reasonable settings. And honestly I dont plan on keeping it for more than 2 years.

[TheDoebes]

7 minutes ago, BolginNT said:

 

 

The whole point of upgrading my GPU is to be able to play an upcoming AAA titles on reasonable settings. And honestly I dont plan on keeping it for more than 2 years.

 

 

Then you'll probably want the 980. It'll give you more headroom for OC'ing too if you need it, and should play anything in the next two years at max/ or one setting down. 

 

You're comparing two different tiers of cards, so unless resale value, power/thermal constraints, or longevity, matter, the higher end card is going to win out, in this case a 980.

 

And I'm saying this as a hardcore AMD fan.

[Bellshooter]

You need analyze your use a bit more. Games you want to play, monitor resolution and refresh rate, and expected life. A NEW 980 would be a better currently. A used 980 has some of its component life life reduced, usually the mechanical aspects, fan bearings and slot interface.

Does a rx480 performance match your needs at your resolution and your games? If yes then I would get the RX480 as its drivers are improving and Vulkan api improvements are good. (Plenty of tests on Youtube)

If not then the 980 is the card for you..I have the 480 myself..

[othertomperson]

44 minutes ago, Dgtal said:

The 980 is going to be better at DX11 tittles, but, overtime, nVIDIA will stop giving it drivers support (that graphics card came out 2 years ago while the RX just launched, so, withing a year, I foresee the situation with Maxwell to be the same as with Kepler), not to mention its already missing Async compute. Another thing worth mentioning is the performance gains in lower level API's that the GCN architecture is experiencing, like with Vulkan in DOOM while using Async the RX 480 surpasses the GTX 980 and places itself just a ~20% lower than the GTX 1070 (Vulkan gets rid of AMD's own "bottlenecks" and boosts performance quite a bit when having closer access to the hardware without having to deal with drivers as much). A safer bet is to go with the RX 480, but wait until the non-reference models come out.

Async Compute benrfits huge GPUs were most of the cores are under-utilised such as the Fury X or 390X. It would be a valuable asset for the 1080Ti possibly, but not particularly important for this tier of card.

 

AMD's habit of rebranding massive old flagships is why they benefit so much from this, and why it wasn't worth Nvidia implementing.

[BolginNT]

5 minutes ago, Bellshooter said:

You need analyze your use a bit more. Games you want to play, monitor resolution and refresh rate, and expected life. A NEW 980 would be a better currently. A used 980 has some of its component life life reduced, usually the mechanical aspects, fan bearings and slot interface.

I still use 1920x1200, 24" display and I definitely wont upgrade to 1440p or god forbid 4k monitor because that would just fry both RX480 and GTX980 GPUs. My idea is to be able to run most of the upcoming AAA games on high/Max setings on at least 50plus fps.

 

[Bellshooter]

At 1080p resolution you should get 60+ frames in all titles (Whitcher can drop to 50+) average frames, just check out the RX280 on youtube and you will see.

I picked up a cheap blower style card on release day, and it plays 1080p games like a trooper.

 to replace an ageing 270x card.

[Stiliyan]

If you don't want to overclock the card, get the rx 480. I think that in two years time the gap in DX 11 games will be very small and enough DX12 games and patches will be released so that RX 480 will overtake the GTX 980 overall. In that case you will get better performance and more money when you sell the card to buy a new one. 
I remember when R9 290 came out that GTX 780 was on par with it, but today it is a whole different story. 
I was astonished by the perf/watt ratio of the cards, wonderful work by NVIDIA. But now it seems to me that they were pure gaming cards, while AMD'S GCN was very underutilized delivering similar performance and therefore consuming much more. Now newer APIs provide opportunity to squeeze more performance from that cards.

[Vode]

GTX 980 is better in DX11 now

 

RX 480 is better in Vulkan, DX12 and probably will pull ahead with new drivers in the future

 

They both have a similar TDP and power draw

[BolginNT]

Well the issue solved itself... with non-reference GTX 1060s released, well stocked and priced better than RX480s (at least in my country)... there really is NO point in buying either of aforementioned GPUs.  

[xAcid9]

5 minutes ago, BolginNT said:

Well the issue solved itself... with non-reference GTX 1060s released, well stocked and priced better than RX480s (at least in my country)... there really is NO point in buying either of aforementioned GPUs.  

980 is better than 1060 imo, if the price is similar i'll go with that instead.