{"id":97688,"date":"2016-07-10T17:12:18","date_gmt":"2016-07-10T15:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/?p=97688"},"modified":"2016-07-10T17:14:16","modified_gmt":"2016-07-10T15:14:16","slug":"radeon-rx-480-versus-geforce-gtx-970-which-should-you-buy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/hardware\/97688-radeon-rx-480-versus-geforce-gtx-970-which-should-you-buy","title":{"rendered":"Radeon RX 480 versus GeForce GTX 970 – which should you buy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The AMD Radeon RX 480 has been officially released, and\u00a0it boasts a high level of performance at a lower cost than previous graphics card generations.<\/p>\n

The Radeon RX 480 is built on AMD’s Polaris architecture, featuring a 14nm FinFet manufacturing process and increased power efficiency.<\/p>\n

As AMD’s latest graphics card is aimed at the mid-range PC gaming market, we thought we’d compare it to the previous favourite in this performance bracket – Nvidia’s\u00a0GeForce GTX 970.<\/p>\n

The GeForce GTX 970 is a powerful card that allows for smooth gameplay at a resolution of 1080p, and according to recent benchmarks, performs similarly to the Radeon RX 480.<\/p>\n

Check out the detailed performance comparison below:<\/p>\n

\n

Specifications<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Radeon RX 480 and GeForce GTx 970 are based on two different generations of GPU architecture, namely Polaris and Maxwell.<\/p>\n

Nvidia has since released it’s new GPU architecture, Pascal, which both the GeForce GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 are built on.<\/p>\n

Below are the specifications of the Radeon RX 480 and GeForce GTX 970 reference cards.<\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Radeon RX 480 and GeForce GTX 970 Specifications Comparison<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/th>\n\n
GeForce GTX 970<\/div>\n<\/th>\n
\n
Radeon RX 480<\/div>\n<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
CUDA Cores\/Stream Processors<\/strong><\/td>\n1,664<\/td>\n2,304<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Base Clock<\/strong><\/td>\n1,050MHz<\/td>\n1,120MHz<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Boost Clock<\/strong><\/td>\n1,178MHz<\/td>\n1,266MHz<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Memory Speed<\/strong><\/td>\n7Gbps<\/td>\n8Gbps<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Memory Amount<\/strong><\/td>\n4GB<\/td>\n8GB<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Memory Bus Width<\/strong><\/td>\n256-bit<\/td>\n256-bit<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Memory Bandwith<\/strong><\/td>\n224GB\/s<\/td>\n256GB\/s<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
TDP<\/strong><\/td>\n145W<\/td>\n150W<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Price<\/strong><\/td>\n\u00a0R5,299<\/a><\/strong><\/td>\n\u00a0R4,799<\/strong><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

Benchmarks<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Radeon RX 480 and GeForce GTX 970 are aimed at PC gamers seeking high levels of performance at a resolution of 1080p.<\/p>\n

We have compared the average frames-per-second delivered by the graphics cards across a variety of games, using benchmarks from the same source, Guru3D<\/a><\/strong>, in order to maintain accuracy across measurements.<\/p>\n

Below are the average frames-per-second for the GeForce GTX 970 and Radeon RX 480.<\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Radeon RX 480 and GeForce GTX 970 Full HD\u00a0Benchmark Comparison<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
\n
Game<\/div>\n<\/th>\n
\n
GeForce GTX 970 Average\u00a0FPS<\/div>\n<\/th>\n
\n
Radeon RX 480 Average FPS<\/div>\n<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Rise of the Tomb Raider<\/td>\n63<\/td>\n63<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Fallout 4<\/td>\n88<\/strong><\/td>\n86<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Far Cry Primal<\/td>\n62<\/td>\n66<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Grand Theft Auto V<\/td>\n79<\/td>\n84<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Hitman<\/td>\n53<\/td>\n75<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Total War: Warhammer<\/td>\n64<\/td>\n74<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Witcher 3<\/td>\n53<\/td>\n53<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
DOOM<\/td>\n91<\/td>\n94<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Anno 2205<\/td>\n64<\/strong><\/td>\n60<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Thief<\/td>\n61<\/td>\n77<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Battlefield Hardline<\/td>\n55<\/td>\n60<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Division<\/td>\n57<\/td>\n59<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Average FPS<\/strong><\/td>\n66<\/strong><\/td>\n71<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

Verdict<\/h3>\n

Although the Radeon RX 480 is based on newer architecture and delivers better performance for its price, the GeForce GTX 970 still matches its performance in a few DirectX 11 games, with the RX 480 leading in most titles, especially those using DirectX 12.<\/p>\n

The price difference is\u00a0not too great, considering that the Powercolor Radeon RX 480 from Wootware is heavily discounted compared to competing products.<\/p>\n

Overall, The Radeon RX 480 is the GPU to buy if choosing between it and the GeForce GTX 970.<\/p>\n

However, if you are the owner of a GeForce GTX 970 and are looking to upgrade, you are probably better off buying a new Pascal card or waiting until the Vega launch, as the RX 480 only boasts an average increase of 5 frames-per-second over the Maxwell GPU<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\n

More gaming news<\/h3>\n

These game mechanics must die<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Biggest movie releases in South Africa this week<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Check out the massive graphics difference between FIFA 16 and FIFA 17<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Which is the better card – The Radeon RX 480 or the GeForce GTX 970?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":232,"featured_media":97750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_enabled":true,"_sma_x_custom_text":"","_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,7],"tags":[19617,10519,2420,13972,19209,16819,8679,1486,19029,14560],"class_list":["post-97688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-hardware","tag-better","tag-comparison","tag-geforce","tag-gtx-970","tag-maxwell","tag-polaris","tag-pricing","tag-radeon","tag-rx-480","tag-specifications"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/232"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}