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It feels like over the last 4-5 years this has become a regular thing. Or perhaps, I wasn't paying attention before hand due to lack of upgrades needed.

I was considering getting an RX480 8gb, especially seeing them drop right below or around $200. Now of course that the 570/580 dropped the 480's are impossible to find or they are $400+ making it worthless. Considering the 580 is just a power hungry POS version of the 480, I can't see paying any premium for that either. Anyone else sort of have remorse for not jumping on a 480 while they were cheap? It seems like the prices on everything are just climbing and you've got to get on the band wagon before it's gone. So sad that I'm not in a position to be buying new hardware for myself and possibly missed a perfect mid-high range card.

Yeah the RX 580 seems like a bad buy given the power consumption and only ho-hum performance increase. Hopefully AMD will offer something more worthwhile in the mid-range soon.

I must be the only insane person that doesn't really care about power usage. If a GPU that was cheap used 50% more power to hit the same performance level, but it was 2/3 the cost, I can't say I'd care a whole lot...

I'd agree with Waco. There are use cases for which it matters, but most gamers have heavily overspecced power and cooling anyway, and gamers don't tend to use GPUs at a high enough duty cycle to make power costs a big deal. Overclocking's prominence shows how many people out there don't care.

I'd buy a 250W GPU without a second thought if the perf/$ was there, and I have a 13 liter case.

ronch wrote:

Yeah the RX 580 seems like a bad buy given the power consumption and only ho-hum performance increase. Hopefully AMD will offer something more worthwhile in the mid-range soon.

If you find it at nice price, underclock/undervolt is trivial. The chip will certainly run at ~150W, if you want it to. So, it's not better or worse than the RX480.
For people who want to run stock (afraid of modifying volt/freq), I would certainly recommend the RX480 over the 580.

If you're dead set on not undervolting, just get the 570. It's close enough to a 480 and doesn't have high power consumption. But you'll have to wait until the ETH mining bubble pops and they start coming back in stock at reasonable prices.

Just grab a basic RX580, because it's just an RX480; I "upgraded" from a 480 to a 580 and the difference is nonexistent, right down to the fact that they both have similar limits when undervolting, overvolting, underclocking and overclocking. Apart from a BIOS flash and a new label on the box, the 580 is the 480. That talk about extra memory power states doesn't appear to be true when talking about the three 580 cards I've encountered.

Get a cheap one if you're concerned about power consumption, because you won't need a fancy cooler or stupid RGBLED shrouds to add cost without performance. At 1050mv and 1200MHz, it'll be using about 125W, and I've yet to see a chip that cannot run at those speeds and voltages. Several, in fact, have run at 1000mv/1200MHz. The low consumption means that even a fairly basic cooler can deal with the load quietly.

Personally I wouldn't be concerned about power consumption. The difference between an RX480 with the 150W compatibility mode on, or an RX580 at 190W really isn't a deal-breaker. If you're that worried about 40W then you should probably focus on other things such as better, quieter case-cooling, replace some incandescent bulbs in your house with LEDs, or buy a new energy-efficient water-heater or something. That'll save your wallet and the environment more in the long run.


Edit:
LOL, looks like the Crypto miners are at it again! Newegg is completely out of stock of all RX580s. Wow. I guess I should flip my two 480's on ebay. I'd offer to sell you one but adding transatlantic shipping and import duty makes it pointless.

I don't care about power consumption either until it is high enough to make my office unbearably hot.

That's why I chose a R9 Fury over the RX 480 8 GB. The Fury was ~$20 cheaper than any 480 8 GB with an acceptable cooler.

I keep my Fury running with a BIOS mod that has the TDP/Power Limit set to 450W and a 1175 MHz overclock for 24/7 use. The room is still bearable with system running Furmark and Prime95.

If you care about power usage, just get a 580 and undervolt/underclock it when prices go down.

all the cheap AMD cards have probably been bought by crypto miners

I'm starting to think I should be worried about Vega supply when it hits the shelves with yet another mining craze going on.

Perhaps I recall info incorrectly, but I could have sworn people were talking 2 times + the power usage from a 480 to 580... I guess not.

Even so, it's not the cost of the power that usually is why I and other care about power usage, it's the heat and overclocking headroom. It seems silly to pay someone more money to get the same product that has just been overclocked if I can do the same. In this case it is more expensive (albeit, a small amount) and you can achieve the same thing with a BIOS flash. Even with my energy cost being much more than most of the states ($0.27 a kWh), it's the last thing to come to mind. Lets break that down though, is it really insane for people to not want an additional 40w inside their case? It's wasted energy which costs something and adds up over the years, it causes heat which can slow other parts down or bring them to their limit sooner, possibly more noise on the devices fans or others components fans in the computer. There is also the possible need for a slightly larger PSU in a system build because you pushed a bit too close to the comfortable range of the supply you were going to get.

Yeah, all of those things are really small nit pick things, but when you add them up you can't tell me it is any less insignificant than people complaining over only getting a 4-5% performance gain from a new generation CPU.

Also hoping the Vega isn't effected by the scum of the earth, aka data miners, wasting resources on fake "work". Do some Folding@Home or hell even SETI and then come talk to me.

Welch wrote:

Even so, it's not the cost of the power that usually is why I and other care about power usage, it's the heat and overclocking headroom. It seems silly to pay someone more money to get the same product that has just been overclocked if I can do the same.

They are basically the same card, but what people seem to have forgotten is that the 480s PCI Express certification was revoked. I'm guessing that's the only reason it was rereleased at all...the OEMs probably didn't care to use a part with unknown reliability as such.

As for that additional 40w, unless it's true of the idle clocks as well I'd think it wouldn't matter to basically anyone. I didn't look at the reviews, since the 480 and 580 are basically a 290 that uses less power and has a little bit newer tech.

Welch wrote:

Even so, it's not the cost of the power that usually is why I and other care about power usage, it's the heat and overclocking headroom. It seems silly to pay someone more money to get the same product that has just been overclocked if I can do the same. In this case it is more expensive (albeit, a small amount) and you can achieve the same thing with a BIOS flash. Even with my energy cost being much more than most of the states ($0.27 a kWh), it's the last thing to come to mind. Lets break that down though, is it really insane for people to not want an additional 40w inside their case?

If you're overclocking anyway then there is no extra energy, the RX 580 will output similar heat at similar clock speeds to the RX 480. It's only hotter to begin with because the clock speeds are higher to begin with.

Given that many card makers have improved their coolers and the chips seem to be marginally improved it's better all-round for your usage.

Of course, good enough at a lower price is nice too. Generally the best time of year to buy computer stuff is may/june or December. This time last year the RX 480 prices were climbing above their 220USD launch price too. This year we may see some deals on the 580s when Vega launches but other than that I wouldn't expect big reductions won't be until black friday.

Newegg doesn't have any.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductL ... ageSize=96

Waco wrote:

I must be the only insane person that doesn't really care about power usage. If a GPU that was cheap used 50% more power to hit the same performance level, but it was 2/3 the cost, I can't say I'd care a whole lot...

Nope, I tend to agree with you. Power consumption is often given an out sized role in my opinion in the decision process. I live in the land of the cold and cheap energy though so that colours my opinion. It has too use a lot of power for it to really impact on my power bill.

Firestarter wrote:

all the cheap AMD cards have probably been bought by crypto miners

The mania is about to crash too. AMD and etailers are just laughing themselves to the bank.

The wife said she will upgrade me from a 7870 to a rx 580 for xmas.

Hopefully by then it will be in stock and the price will have dropped to about $200-$250 where it should be.

(I game at 1920x1080)

Krogoth wrote:

Firestarter wrote:

all the cheap AMD cards have probably been bought by crypto miners

The mania is about to crash too. AMD and etailers are just laughing themselves to the bank.

Well, that was what the people were saying a few years ago, but bitcoins have been appreciating in value. My mini-farm (2xR9 280X) paid for itself in approximately 6 months and if I had continued, I would have made a few thousand $. I, too, thought it would crash. I'm not saying it's a good time to invest in mining, I'm just saying that for some obscure reason, the cryptocurrencies simply refuse to die.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

Newegg doesn't have any.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductL ... ageSize=96

That's a problem because I now need one.

This is super aggravating - my 390 works great for now, but ever since I fixed the problem of the card running at desktop clocks even in games, I've discovered that at any kind of load it runs reliably at 95C.

As a special bonus it appears that the fan happily ignores the driver settings and is fixed at "auto", so I can't even use loud noises as a temporary solution.

The good news is that performance of the card is fine, for as long as it lasts.

Vhalidictes wrote:

This is super aggravating - my 390 works great for now, but ever since I fixed the problem of the card running at desktop clocks even in games, I've discovered that at any kind of load it runs reliably at 95C.

I added another case fan to my build and changed my UEFI fan profiles and my 290 stopped running so hot. Might be worth looking into.

Vhalidictes wrote:

JustAnEngineer wrote:

Newegg doesn't have any.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductL ... ageSize=96

That's a problem because I now need one.

This is super aggravating - my 390 works great for now, but ever since I fixed the problem of the card running at desktop clocks even in games, I've discovered that at any kind of load it runs reliably at 95C.

As a special bonus it appears that the fan happily ignores the driver settings and is fixed at "auto", so I can't even use loud noises as a temporary solution.

The good news is that performance of the card is fine, for as long as it lasts.

For what it's worth, that won't kill it. They'll happily run at 95 C all day long for years. If it's not unstable, it'll be fine.

ptsant wrote:

Krogoth wrote:

Firestarter wrote:

all the cheap AMD cards have probably been bought by crypto miners

The mania is about to crash too. AMD and etailers are just laughing themselves to the bank.

Well, that was what the people were saying a few years ago, but bitcoins have been appreciating in value. My mini-farm (2xR9 280X) paid for itself in approximately 6 months and if I had continued, I would have made a few thousand $. I, too, thought it would crash. I'm not saying it's a good time to invest in mining, I'm just saying that for some obscure reason, the cryptocurrencies simply refuse to die.

The source of the sudden surge comes from unstable markets out in the far east (namely China) and a few EU countries. It is pretty much a geeker version of previous metal craze. The mania actually started back in March of this year. The hype train is just trying to lure in more people before the big crash.

No, the "hype" is directly correlated to the end of USD withdrawals from bitfinex:

https://www.bitfinex.com/posts/199

That's dated April 13, but it was an open secret since customers were reporting problems for a week or two before that, and also because they attempted to sue Wells Fargo many days before that announcement (filings are public).

This might seem ridiculous, as seeing the price of an essentially irredeemable asset skyrocket is counter-intuitive. But, hey, it's cryto-currency. Also, there's precedent: The previous "All Time High" was reached after Mt Gox "temporarily" suspended USD withdrawals (and never resumed them) in June 2013, at around $100.

By the time it collapsed completely in February 2014, it was something like $1.2k.

Yes. The "price" increased an order of magnitude in a timeframe when it couldn't actually be realized.

What you are seeing, in effect, are people playing silly games on someone else's spreadsheet. It isn't a market, and it isn't anything like the ~2008 era "metal craze".

Waco wrote:

I must be the only insane person that doesn't really care about power usage. If a GPU that was cheap used 50% more power to hit the same performance level, but it was 2/3 the cost, I can't say I'd care a whole lot...

After using an R9 380, I sure do bloody care. I can't believe how loud the sucker is even during games.

Some of those 580 models differed by as much as 60w in load power consumption over the 480's, so have fun with that.

Kougar wrote:

After using an R9 380, I sure do bloody care. I can't believe how loud the sucker is even during games.

Some of those 580 models differed by as much as 60w in load power consumption over the 480's, so have fun with that.

That's the biggest side effect of power consumption for me too--noise. You risk louder fans or coil whine as you pull more amps, and I'd rather just have a quiet machine.

Kougar wrote:

Waco wrote:

I must be the only insane person that doesn't really care about power usage. If a GPU that was cheap used 50% more power to hit the same performance level, but it was 2/3 the cost, I can't say I'd care a whole lot...

After using an R9 380, I sure do bloody care. I can't believe how loud the sucker is even during games.

Some of those 580 models differed by as much as 60w in load power consumption over the 480's, so have fun with that.

That's usually the fault of a crappy cooler, though, since most good aftermarket/AIB coolers aren't terribly noisy.

Waco wrote:

Kougar wrote:

Waco wrote:

I must be the only insane person that doesn't really care about power usage. If a GPU that was cheap used 50% more power to hit the same performance level, but it was 2/3 the cost, I can't say I'd care a whole lot...

After using an R9 380, I sure do bloody care. I can't believe how loud the sucker is even during games.

Some of those 580 models differed by as much as 60w in load power consumption over the 480's, so have fun with that.

That's usually the fault of a crappy cooler, though, since most good aftermarket/AIB coolers aren't terribly noisy.

That's especially weird since the R9 380 == R9 285 == Tonga, which was AMD's low power/efficiency GPU for that generation.

I can't imagine that the cooler should get that loud? What version of it do you have?

Yeah, I'd agree that it's a cheap cooler so maybe that's why. Powercolor R9 380, this sucker: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product. ... 814131673R I run it at stock. F@H or games it doesn't matter, it runs at a steady 82c with the fans loud enough to be heard the next room over. It's a lightly used model I acquired to tide me over until Volta shows up.

I've been a long-time GPU watercooler, GTX 480 and a Titan Black before it self-destructed. So maybe my ears are not used to it, but I will most definitely be putting Volta under a waterblock as soon as possible. That said, the 750 Ti I have in the spare rig remains silent even under F@H load (52c).

Apparently there's a crypto-currency rage going on again (that I missed out on...again). Before that happened, you could get RX580's for around $220 or so on sale. It's childishly easy to underclock and/or undervolt AMD GPUs with the built-in WattMan utility. If you don't like the RX480+ power draw, then simply drop clocks back to 1250MHz and 950mV. Guaranteed you're at/under 100W there and you've only sacrificed ~7% performance.

The real travesty is the RX470. 6 months ago, you could get an RX470 4GB for $130 after MIR WITH a free game. Good luck finding a deal like that these days....