AMD RX 480 released, AMD will possibly open up Radeon Software

The next generation of AMD GPU's have launched, and it begins with the AMD RX 480. Benchmarks are now out there along with plenty of info.

I don't have the card myself as I have no contacts at AMD, but luckily Phoronix managed to bag a card and he's done plenty of testing as you can imagine. I will be referencing the green site due to other sites obviously focusing on Windows.

See the Phoronix article here for the full benchmarks. The Vulkan benchmarks are especially impressive where it performed better than an Nvidia 980 in Dota 2!



According to Phoronix, the UI "Radeon Software" may be open-sourced:

QuoteWhile my hopes for WattMan quickly diminished, on the call when inquiring about this lack of Linux support it was brought up that they are looking to potentially open-source Radeon Software! There is nothing set in stone yet and they are still investigating, but the hope would be to open-source Radeon Software and provide potential basic Linux support so the community can drive it further.

Phoronix did an extra set of benchmarks, but that article is sadly locked behind a paywall. Apparently in there he benchmarked Tomb Raider, Shadow of Mordor and Company of Heroes 2 all of which aren't even supported on AMD drivers.

Looks like the AMD RX 480 might actually be a pretty good card. It looks close to the level of an Nvidia 970, but will cost less. That's pretty damn interesting and will firmly put AMD on the table for a lot of people now I imagine. Not only that, but the performance of the card on Mesa is quite impressive too.

Considering the drivers for it are brand new, I expect the performance to improve a bit over time.

While the Nvidia 970 does outperform it in a fair few tests, it's not by much looking at the scores so considering the price if you were thinking about getting one, I would seriously think again and look at the AMD RX 480. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.