AMD has shocked the world with their new $200 Radeon RX 480 video card powered by their Polaris GPU with performance expected to beat or be at least on par with the GTX 980 Ti.
NVIDIA had the upper hand with their GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 for the high-end market. However, AMD seems to have swept the masses off of their feet with the AMD Radeon RX 480 which is less powerful but priced more competitively at $200.
During the company's presentation, it was shown that two of the Polaris 11 cards were able to beat the GTX 1080 by a considerable margin. The choice seems clear for budget-conscious customers as two cards would cost roughly $400 while the 1080 costs around $600.
Since NVIDIA has not yet unveiled the GTX 1060 or the GTX 1050 cards, the new Polaris cards are now being compared with the 900 series. The AMD Radeon RX 480 beats the GTX 980 by default at more than 5.0 TFLOPS compared to the latter's 4.4 TFLOPS, MyGaming has learned.
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti does have 5.63 TFLOPS but the Polaris card does not have the exact TFLOP count. AMD says that it will have more than 5.0 TFLOPS and it could still beat the card on paper.
AMD's Radeon RX 480 does beat the 900 series in terms of the power draw and the price range. The GTX 980 Ti costs $700 while the GTX 960 costs $200 but has a peak compute of 2.3TFLOPs only.
The company is also set to reveal the RX 470 which is expected to cost even less but could still beat at least the GTX 970 card. Some expect the Polaris 10 card to be around the $150 range.
After the initial release on June 29, better AIB cards could still be unveiled. The AMD Radeon RX 480 with customized coolers could be priced at $250 which is still a cheap way to get into VR, MegaGames reported.
Initially, the $500 to $600 price range for GPUs needed to support VR was expensive. The total cost of building a rig for the Oculus Rift or the HTC Vive a few months back could reach more than $1000.
AMD's Radeon RX 480 will be the best bet for gamers who are on a budget that may want to try VR. It would also be a welcome upgrade as it beats the GTX 980.