AMD had a rollercoaster of media attention last week, as the RX 480 both wowed audiences and drew heated criticism from those taking a little bit of a closer look. The $200 card offers exceptional performance for the price according to a host of reviews, but as uncovered by the same few it breaks a few rules to do so. One of which would be drawing more power from the motherboard that is generally safe, and AMD isn’t trying to hide it anymore.
Instead of dodging the questions and trying to make it seem like a small deal, AMD have put their hands up in the air and admitted that the RX 480 can break PCI-e specifications and draw an unsafe amount of power from the motherboard PCI-slot. This, especially on cheaper motherboards, can cause massive issues, but AMD says that their engineers are working on a patch to sort things out very soon.
As you know, we continuously tune our GPUs in order to maximize their performance within their given power envelopes and the speed of the memory interface, which in this case is an unprecedented 8Gbps for GDDR5. Recently, we identified select scenarios where the tuning of some RX 480 boards was not optimal. Fortunately, we can adjust the GPU’s tuning via software in order to resolve this issue. We are already testing a driver that implements a fix, and we will provide an update to the community on our progress on Tuesday (July 5, 2016).
Now one would assume that means diverting more power to the 6-pin power connector on the reference version of the card, which will easy up on draw from the PCI-slot as well. Although at what cost? The RX 480 is a powerful piece of hardware, but if the reference design was already struggling to balance power consumption it stands to question what this patch will do to figures.
More powerful AiB versions obviously shouldn’t suffer from this thankfully, but it’s a predicament AMD really didn’t need to find themselves in. Especially with marketing for the GTX 1060 ready to pounce on any mistakes.
Last Updated: July 4, 2016
Pariah
July 4, 2016 at 12:07
So like the 970 was referred to as the 3.5+5 card – will this end up being the 150 + 50 card?
Greylingad[He Charges!]
July 4, 2016 at 12:08
* 150-50W after patch…
Pariah
July 4, 2016 at 12:09
With performance to match. 😛
Greylingad[He Charges!]
July 4, 2016 at 12:11
I’m waiting for that nVidia ad that states “nVidia, when sticking to PCIe standards, means you really get what you pay for…”
HairyEwok
July 4, 2016 at 14:41
Either way AMD gave Nvidia fans some firepower to bite back after the 3.5+5 vram saga.
chimera_85
July 4, 2016 at 15:15
And gave Nvidia something to think abiut on the 1060- imo Nvidia should lower or match the price of the RX 480 now, even if their original price was more than the 480.
Alien Emperor Trevor
July 4, 2016 at 12:10
So we’ve graduated from patching software that was shipped unfinished to patching hardware.
Kromas GG
July 4, 2016 at 12:17
Waiting on GPU with 1gig memory … rest of the memory you have buy as PSC (physically shipped content).
EA approves.
Greylingad[He Charges!]
July 4, 2016 at 12:18
I can download GDDR!?
Kromas GG
July 4, 2016 at 12:21
Nope … only availible in the Cycle Pass. Icluded will be 4 PSC the forst will be 7gig more memory DDR. The second will be a GDDR upgrade. The last two are unannounced.
Greylingad[He Charges!]
July 4, 2016 at 12:23
Would it not be easier to release a “Deluxe Edition”?
Kromas GG
July 4, 2016 at 12:25
GPU of the year edition will eventually happen and may even get a takealot summer sale so you can grab it all later down the line.
Hammersteyn_hates_Raid0
July 4, 2016 at 12:19
Apparently it’s called progress
HairyEwok
July 4, 2016 at 14:44
Only progress i see so far is from the PC bin to the Dust bin.
Frost
July 4, 2016 at 14:08
Will probably need to buy the seasons pass GPU from now on…
HairyEwok
July 4, 2016 at 14:42
We made jokes about it last year…. Guess the jokes on us now, or rather the people who bought the reference card.