RX 480 more future proof than 1060?

[CostcoSamples]

This guy makes some really interesting points:

 

https://youtu.be/lXijkS_qIzA

 

He shows that the RX 480 gained up to 43% more performance using Vulkan API, while the Nvidia cards see only 1% to 3% increase.  Some of the increase is thanks to A-Sync compute built into AMD's design, but that is only a part of the story.  As he shows, the well known problem of high CPU overhead that has plagued AMD's GCN design is still present in Polaris 10.  The huge innovation built into Vulkan is it's flexibility for developers to access GPU resources more directly, which, if implemented properly, allows for massive performance boosts compared to DX 11.  Thus we see that the problem of high CPU overhead on Polaris 10 can be completely side-stepped.

 

If I understand this correctly, Nvidia's CUDA design is more optimized right from the start (it does not have the high cpu overhead problem), so Pascal GPUs do not enjoy the same performance boost from Vulkan.

 

So, it seems AMD's investment in Mantle (which was the precursor to DX12 and Vulkan) is starting to pay off.  Vulkan is getting wide adoption in the industry because of it's cross platform flexibility, which should prove highly valuable for AMD in the coming months and years.

 

[xAcid9]

Depend if AMD able to push game devs to optimize for their card or gpu architecture. With GCN on current consoles and DX12/Vulkan will do just that i think it will.

[c00face]

1 minute ago, CostcoSamples said:

This guy makes some really interesting points:

 

<iframe width="854" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lXijkS_qIzA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

He shows that the RX 480 gained up to 43% more performance using Vulkan API, while the Nvidia cards see only 1% to 3% increase.  Some of the increase is thanks to A-Sync compute built into AMD's design, but that is only a part of the story.  As he shows, the well known problem of high CPU overhead that has plagued AMD's GCN design is still present in Polaris 10.  The huge innovation built into Vulkan is it's flexibility for developers to access GPU resources more directly, which, if implemented properly, allows for massive performance boosts compared to DX 11.  Thus we see that the problem of high CPU overhead on Polaris 10 can be completely side-stepped.

 

If I understand this correctly, Nvidia's CUDA design is more optimized right from the start (it does not have the high cpu overhead problem), so Pascal GPUs do not enjoy the same performance boost from Vulkan.

 

So, it seems AMD's investment in Mantle (which was the precursor to DX12 and Vulkan) is starting to pay off.  Vulkan is getting wide adoption in the industry because of it's cross platform flexibility, which should prove highly valuable for AMD in the coming months and years.

 

Been saying this for a while. Most people overlook the very fact that most developers use Gameworks libraries, and AMD will always have a performance hit. Now that the tide has turned, it's AMD that will see a great performance increase which I am excited to see.

[JWolfCrafter]

AMD's cards will be more future proof, in some cases. It does better in most DX12 titles, it also does better in VR. If you're into DX12 games and VR, it's totally for you. And DX12 and VR might become common among gamers, but then again that may take a long time.

[Funtron5000]

No way to be sure, but this should have started a while ago with consoles using AMD parts. DX12 was supposed to be Microsoft's Ace against Sony. But, they haven't been using it, it seems.

[david cassar]

Depends if nvidia implement asynchronous compute in their future drivers (which they probably will at some time). 

[CostcoSamples]

Just now, JWolfCrafter said:

AMD's cards will be more future proof, in some cases. It does better in most DX12 titles, it also does better in VR. If you're into DX12 games and VR, it's totally for you. And DX12 and VR might become common among gamers, but then again that may take a long time.

True, and the 1060 is faster on a wide range of DX11 games people are playing today.  But AMD cards almost always get faster over time, for the simple fact that there is a lot of room for optimization on their design.  Even ignoring Vulkan, they still get faster.  Look at how crappy the launch day benchmarks were for the Fury/X and 390/x.  They sucked.  Run the same benchmarks a few months later and suddenly they didn't look so bad.  

 

So I think for someone buying a $250 GPU today, it comes down to a question of whether you buy a 1060 today because you can bank on it's performance to stay about the same as it is on day one (unless Nvidia nerfs it with gameworks), or do you buy the 480 because you think it will get faster over time, plus it will dominate Vulkan and DX12 titles.

[Sauron]

There's no such thing as future proof and by the time vulkan is widespread the 480 and 1060 will both be obsolete.

[Tom Hanks]

The term future proof is stupid, it has more Vram, and the 1060 and 480 are literally neck & neck in DX12... it's not future proof, no hardware is.

[Tom Hanks]

Just now, Sauron said:

There's no such thing as future proof and by the time vulkan is widespread the 480 and 1060 will both be obsolete.

LOL you ninja.

[CostcoSamples]

3 minutes ago, Sauron said:

There's no such thing as future proof and by the time vulkan is widespread the 480 and 1060 will both be obsolete.

 

1 minute ago, Tom Hanks said:

The term future proof is stupid, it has more Vram, and the 1060 and 480 are literally neck & neck in DX12... it's not future proof, no hardware is.

Thank you geniuses for pointing out the obvious.  Everybody who has ever owned a computer knows the term future proof does not literally mean future "proof".  So thanks for your completely useless posts.

 

What we are trying to predict is which card is most likely to have the longest usable lifespan.  

[Tom Hanks]

Just now, CostcoSamples said:

 

Thank you geniuses for pointing out the obvious.  Everybody who has ever owned a computer knows the term future proof does not literally mean future "proof".  So thanks for your completely useless posts.

 

What we are trying to predict is which card is most likely to have the longest usable lifespan.  

 

 

"RX 480 more future proof than 1060?"

 

https://cdn.meme.am/instances/61058223.jpg

 

[Sauron]

7 minutes ago, CostcoSamples said:

 

Thank you geniuses for pointing out the obvious.  Everybody who has ever owned a computer knows the term future proof does not literally mean future "proof".  So thanks for your completely useless posts.

 

What we are trying to predict is which card is most likely to have the longest usable lifespan.  

Do they? Because I have seen way too many of these threads where people will tell people to waste their money on stuff they don't need because they are "more future proof" based on an estimate of lifetime that might as well be made up, because they are never accurate. If you know future proof is not a thing then don't use that term, because people will read this and spread misinformation.

[ForsakenLive]

I don't really see how much future proof a GPU can be.

Both support the latest APIs (DX12 and Vulkan), both will be patched and improved through drivers until the next GPU release. We won't see a new API until several years probably.

Let's compare with the GTX 760 (taking aside the DX12/Vulkan thing), this GPU was released over 3 years ago (June 2013) and it's still doing what it's intended for, running games at 1080p at high settings. When it launched it wasn't intended as a "Ultra settings" GPU, and it still isn't. However games released today can still be run with this GPU at 1080p high settings at 60fps. Performance of this card is very close to the GTX 660ti (August 2012).

AMD's counterpart to this GPU would be the HD 7950, which had its paper launch on Dicember 2011 together with the 7970. These very same GPUs were later rebranded to R9 280/R9 280X, which existed simultaneously as "latest gen products" at the GTX 760 time.

Then the only thing we had was DX11 and even 3 years (could even say over 4) these GPUs are still fine for 1080p games, the latest and greatest AAA titles might need their settings on medium, but are still perfectly playable and look good enough.

 

So if you want a RX 480/ GTX 1060 for 1080p, these cards will probably last over 3 years without any issues (heck I'd say even 5+). At 1440p (which they can run pretty fine at high settings) we might see people turning down settings to medium by 2018 and beyond.

 

TL;DR: These GPUs will last pretty much like all GPUs up to this day lasted. Once Vulkan/DX12 is the mainstream platform nobody will care about the RX 480 or GTX 1060, they will still work as they are meant to. VR and 4K are different stories, Even the GTX 1080 GPU isn't fully ready for them.

[Humbug]

15 minutes ago, ForsakenLive said:

 

TL;DR: These GPUs will last pretty much like all GPUs up to this day lasted. Once Vulkan/DX12 is the mainstream platform nobody will care about the RX 480 or GTX 1060, they will still work as they are meant to.

thing is Vulkan and dx12 are not some future tech anymore. They are here today in a number of AAA games people are playing, with more to come this year alone... It is mainstream.

[ForsakenLive]

1 minute ago, Humbug said:

thing is Vulkan and dx12 are not some future tech anymore. They are here today in a number of AAA games people are playing, with more to come this year alone... It is mainstream.

There are like 6 games that fully support DX12 and 4 games that support vulkan. Which aren't even on the top played game list. Next year we will probably see these lists getting larger, but still most gamers will be still be playing DX11 only titles.

Today we have DX11 exclusive games, which don't support DX9, once we get to see DX12-only/Vulkan-only games, you can tell the old API is retiring, that is the time I meant when I talked about the relevance of today's GPUs.

Also, there is still some time until we see developers really taking advantage of the new API, as well as AMD and Nvidia making drivers suiting them. Currently all DX12/Vulkan games run very similar to the DX11 mode.

Basically, these new APIs are great but aren't still relevant. Personally I'd prefer Vulkan to rise above all, as there is strong dependence to Microsoft with DX12.

[App4that]

No one can say which card will receive the best support over the next year, it is impossible to know. Which is why these topics pop up. If you can't win today, hope for tomorrow.

[Humbug]

9 minutes ago, ForsakenLive said:

There are like 6 games that fully support DX12 and 4 games that support vulkan. Which aren't even on the top played game list. Next year we will probably see these lists getting larger, but still most gamers will be still be playing DX11 only titles.

 

this year itself list is getting larger

I wasn't referring to dx11 disappearing. All I meant was that the Vulkan/dx12 performance is absolutely relevant for today's buyers. It's something that you would be foolish to ignore considering the AAA games that are already out and many of the near future AAA games like deus ex md, battlefield 1, mass effect andromeda. I agree that dx11 is still relevant and the majority today. But we are at a point now where the performance of both generations of graphics APIs has to be considered when making a GPU buying decision.

[YongKang]

Not really. It all depends on what game you play the most and look at which gpu gives you the most performance for it and it's cheap.

You don't buy a gpu because you're a fanboy. You get what's giving you the most bang for your buck.

[ForsakenLive]

4 minutes ago, Humbug said:

this year itself list is getting larger

I wasn't referring to dx11 disappearing. All I meant was that the Vulkan/dx12 performance is absolutely relevant for today's buyers. It's something that you would be foolish to ignore considering the AAA games that are already out and many of the near future AAA games like deus ex md, battlefield 1, mass effect andromeda. I agree that dx11 is still relevant and the majority today. But we are at a point now where the performance of both generations of graphics APIs has to be considered when making a GPU buying decision.

by no means I'm saying these APIs aren't important, and I'm not saying that anyone should buy a DX11 GPU anymore. My main statement was that the RX480 and GTX 1060 (as well as current gen GPUs) do supports the APIs and they are not inheritable more future proof between each other, yeah the RX480 seems to scale a bit better than the GTX 1060, but does that tell us much?

The first DX11 Nvidia GPUs were the 400 series, while AMD had the HD5000 series. AMD's offering launched first by a couple of months and with prices a bit less steep, perfomance was very similar in DX11 titles, with even AMD surpassing Nvidia a little in some.

However Nvidia did lot of work with their drivers on the GTX 480 (as well as other 400 series Nvidia GPUs), which ended with the GTX 480 crushing AMD on game benchmarks, specially those that featured DX11. Many say "2010 wasn't the year for DX11 for nvidia", and while on initial benchmarks they were right a couple of times, these series were proven to really deliver at DX11. the 400 series GPUs, specially the GTX 480 caused Nvidia to take the market lead away from AMD.

You can find this info on Anandtech legacy benchmarks (mind you I'm talking about the expensive variant of the HD5870 that had 2GB when comparing to the 480). LTT also had Luke do a recent video about the GTX 480, which is still crushing games to this day. AMD moved to the Caiman series on 2011 which managed to catch up a bit, but they weren't really truly up to par again until the HD7000 vs GTX600 series.

 

What I'm basically saying is that initial new API performance doesn't really tell us much, midrange 2010 GPUs kept the same difference on their DX performance gap, and the GTX 480 ended up destroying everything at DX11. I don't expect the RX480 to suddenly become the mid range king, I think the 1060 will still be pulling ahead by a bit, which makes sense considering it's more expensive.

[CostcoSamples]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

Do they? Because I have seen way too many of these threads where people will tell people to waste their money on stuff they don't need because they are "more future proof" based on an estimate of lifetime that might as well be made up, because they are never accurate. If you know future proof is not a thing then don't use that term, because people will read this and spread misinformation.

Nobody can predict the future, but we all make an educated guess in ever day decisions, especially when buying computer parts.  I presented a discussion, supported it with test results, and proposed a conclusion.  Then you come along and tell me its stupid to try predict the future because predictions are never accurate.  If you are against such discussions you should probably just delete your LTT account and go do something else with your life.  At least half of all posts on this forum are on the topic of what to buy.  How do you know Nvidia or AMD or any other tech company won't have some calamity and go bankrupt or get out of the industry?  Nobody knows, but we make educated guesses.  

 

People like the term "future proof" because it conveys the desire to make a wise purchase that will last the longest compared to all other alternatives.  If you don't like it, feel free to not use it.  But you aren't adding to the discussion in any meaningful way.

 

If you aren't going to delete your LTT account, perhaps you'd like to provide counter arguments as to why the RX 480 is not more future proof than the 1060?

[demonaii]

AMD are indeed more futureproof than Nvidias. There are some examples that show older AMD cards outperforming the Nvidia cards. The 200 series is a good example

[refinedskillz]

If you wanna futureproof just grab another of the same card as soon as you need to.

[Sauron]

7 minutes ago, CostcoSamples said:

Nobody can predict the future, but we all make an educated guess in ever day decisions, especially when buying computer parts.  I presented a discussion, supported it with test results, and proposed a conclusion.  Then you come along and tell me its stupid to try predict the future because predictions are never accurate.  If you are against such discussions you should probably just delete your LTT account and go do something else with your life.  At least half of all posts on this forum are on the topic of what to buy.  How do you know Nvidia or AMD or any other tech company won't have some calamity and go bankrupt or get out of the industry?  Nobody knows, but we make educated guesses.  

 

People like the term "future proof" because it conveys the desire to make a wise purchase that will last the longest compared to all other alternatives.  If you don't like it, feel free to not use it.  But you aren't adding to the discussion in any meaningful way.

 

If you aren't going to delete your LTT account, perhaps you'd like to provide counter arguments as to why the RX 480 is not more future proof than the 1060?

No, we do not make "educated guesses", we look at the numbers. We KNOW which card will perform better in which game. When someone asks what is best for them the last thing you should do is give them speculation and guesswork. The term "future proof" has a very precise meaning, you can't make a statement and then claim it does not mean what the english language says it means. My addition to the discussion is to not make purchase decision based on "maybe"s.

 

I don't have any counterarguments because there is no argument to be had. Neither card is future proof in any way, nor is likely to "last" any longer than the other. All you can conclude from the data you showed is that the rx 480 performs better in current games that support vulkan. Nothing else. We don't even know if vulkan will ever be mainstream.

[Sauron]

17 minutes ago, demonaii said:

AMD are indeed more futureproof than Nvidias. There are some examples that show older AMD cards outperforming the Nvidia cards. The 200 series is a good example

The 200 series also has nothing to do with polaris and pascal