A Long Time Ago: AMD's Polaris Architecture and its Impact on the Market

It was a wild time back in June 2016 when AMD dropped the RX 480, codenamed Polaris. The flagship model from the 400 series was marketed as a game-changer, evoking revolution in the minds of enthusiasts. Although it quickly fell behind Nvidia's 1060, the 400 series performed admirably for its price. However, this was only the beginning of AMD's journey to reclaim its position in the market.

After 10 months of reloading, AMD is finally ready to fire again with a new line of GPUs that promise to deliver more power and efficiency. The new cards are built on top of the same Polaris architecture used for the RX 400 series, but with some key enhancements. For those waiting for AMD's highly anticipated Vega GPUs, this news might be disappointing. However, for those who were waiting for a more mature 14 nanometer FinFET process and tighter voltage and frequency regulation, this is good news.

AMD's new line of GPUs will feature better power efficiency and higher clock speeds than the previous Polaris cards. This means that users can expect to see improved performance without sacrificing too much in terms of power consumption. The RX 570 and 580 are expected to be popular choices among consumers, with the top-tier 8GB version receiving more emphasis from AMD's partners. However, it's worth noting that the pricing is likely to remain competitive with the RX 480.

In addition to the new GPUs, AMD has also announced some other exciting developments in its slide deck. The company has mentioned both the RX 550 and RX 560, which are expected to be released soon. The RX 550 is a brand-new silicon that promises to outperform an integrated GPU at $80. Meanwhile, the RX 560 is a more affordable option with a price drop of $10 compared to its predecessor.

One of the most interesting features of AMD's new GPUs is the Radeon Chill technology. This configurable frame rate limiter aims to improve thermals and power draw when enabled. Users can specify a minimum and maximum frame rate, and Radeon Chill will keep their game running within that window. This means that users can enjoy lower noise levels and more consistent performance without adding any input lag.

E-Sports Titles and Performance

AMD has also made some big announcements about its support for e-sport titles. The company claims to have improved its support for popular games, including those designed specifically for ultra-high frame rates. This means that users can expect to see lower noise levels and more consistent performance without adding any input lag.

In terms of performance, AMD's new GPUs are expected to deliver significant improvements over the previous Polaris cards. The company has tested its new GPUs on both Intel and Ryzen CPUs, as well as equivalent last-gen cards from Nvidia. According to the results, the new GPUs have delivered a measurable but not earth-shattering performance bump compared to the RX 400 series.

The Utterly Uninteresting Differences

One of the most surprising announcements from AMD is that there are no major differences in performance between the cards across different CPU platforms. This has led to some conspiracy theories about Nvidia's drivers, which seem to have been greatly exaggerated. In reality, the performance differences are relatively minor and can be attributed to other factors such as driver optimization.

Conclusion

In conclusion, AMD's new line of GPUs promises to deliver improved power efficiency and higher clock speeds than its previous Polaris cards. While the Vega GPU lineup is still a ways off, the RX 570 and 580 are expected to be popular choices among consumers. With Radeon Chill technology and improved support for e-sport titles, users can expect to see lower noise levels and more consistent performance without adding any input lag.

However, it's worth noting that AMD has not achieved significant improvements in power consumption compared to the previous Polaris cards. This might be a disappointment for those who were expecting major reductions in power draw. Nevertheless, the new GPUs still offer improved performance at competitive prices, making them an attractive option for mid-range buyers who didn't upgrade last summer.

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"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enA long time ago in a fabrication plant.FAR FAR Away well actually it wasn'tthat far away and it was in June of 2016that AMD Drop(x3) the RX 480.Codename Polaris in a wild marketingcampaign evoking revolution and for a goodreason the 400 series performed reallywell for the price. Although the flagship480 was quickly overshadowed by Nvidia's1060.Haha the dangers of shooting first.But after 10 months of reloading AMD isfinally ready to fire again with theonly question being, what's in theChamber Firepower or FIRE POOR!Come on.It's okay.maybe it's not funny but it's silly solet's get this out of the way this isstill Polaris the same architecture AMDuse for their RX 400 series if you werewaiting for AMD's highly anticipatedVega GPUs then you'll be disappointed.BUT if you were waiting for Polarisenhanced with a more mature 14 nanometerFinFET process and tighter voltage andfrequency regulation translating intobetter power efficiency and higher clockspeeds then you and all the other holdoutswith R9 285 or R9 380s should be amped as hellRight about now.Well hold on a second here, Linus.Is this just a shinier480Why is this even worth a video andwhere is VEGA?!?Great question.RX 570 and 580 then presumably due to slumpingRX480 4GB sales AMD' these partners will beputting more emphasis on the top tier8GB version this time around though thatwon't have much of an impact on you theconsumer and pricing looks to be wellbasically the same with RX 570 coming inten dollars cheaper on average than the480 edit replaces in other news AMD'sslide deck also had prominent mentionsof both the RX 550 AND RX 560.the former but of which is brand new silicon.But we don't have those yet so all we can sayfor now is that apparently the RX 550 isbetter than an integrated GPU at 80$And I would sure as hell hope soand the 560 is a 460 but with a tendollar price drop andsince enthusiasts were running aroundunlocking extra compute units with biostricks AMD went ahead and enabled thoseright out of the factory and I guessthere's some software news as well as ofthe RX 500 series launch AMD's radeondriver for every card from 7000 seriesonward includes what they're callingRadeon chill a configurable framelimiter that improves thermals and powerdraw when enabled you can specify aminimum and maximum frame rate andradeon chill will keep your game runningwithin that window eSports titles forinstance are designed to be easy to runand for that reason they're notoriousfor ultra high frame rates that go waybeyond what a typical or even veryhigh-end monitor would be able todisplay so what this translates to forusers is lower noise and more consistentperformance without adding any input lagand in some cases they claim evenimproving it pretty cool right.*Laughs*Yeah call me when it's in a notebook you guys alsoa bigger supported games list would beswell so to AMD's credit the big eSportstitles are mostly covered here alrightBen Linus enough stalling tell us howthey are X 580 and 570 perform you guysare so demanding sometimes you know okayso we tested our shiny new cards on bothour Intel test bench and our Ryzen AMDtest bench along with equivalent lastgen cards from both AMD and NVIDIA nowsince AMD doesn't have reference boardsfor the 500 series they actually sent usfactory overclocked cards to test soshout-out to asus nvidia who provided uswith some factory overclocked cards forthe greenside to level the playing fieldsomewhat before you ask by the way wedid try overclocking these cards furtherbut neither of them achieved a coreoverclock of more than 50 megahertz overwhat they already shipped with so thenas we can see in our performancetesting obvious things are indeedobvious in fact we've got a measurableif not earth shattering performance bumpover the RX 400 series DirectX12 andVulkan both show us a wider improvementthan DirectX11 thanks to those APIsmore efficient rendering pipelines thatfavor AMD's GCN architecture althoughagain the difference isn't that massiveand also of note here is the utterlyuninteresting differences in performancebetween the cards across Intel and AMDCPU platform so.sorry conspiracytheorists but the rumors of NVIDIA'sdrivers crippling rise and performanceseem to have been greatly exaggerated.So the TL:DR then is that in a big surpriseto no one we're looking at a higherclocked our RX 480 and 470 for this releaseAMD chose to iterate on their existingpolaris architecture cards in order toaddress some of their short comingsagainst Nvidia's mid-range and budgetline up. Have they achieved that? Well asfar as performance is concerned yes yesthey have when it comes to powerconsumption the story does fall apart alittle bit particularly with thesefactory overclocked cards though itshould be noted that we didn't use Radeonchill for our testing because itmakes apples-to-apples comparisons gosour so then if you're an AMD fandesperately waiting to upgrade yourhigh-end Hawaii or Fiji based GPU thenyou get to keep waiting but if you'remore of a mid-range buyer who didn'tknow enough lawns last summer for a 470or a 480 then great news because you geta little bit more for your money thisyear so rock on you sexy gardening beastyou.So Thanks for watching.Guys if this video sucked you know what to do.But if it was awesome get subscribed hit the likebutton or check out the link to where tobuy the stuff we featured in the videodescription also down there's our merch storehas cool shirts like this oneand our community forum which you shouldtotally join.\n"