AMD’s Polaris range was always intended to bring affordable hardware to the masses and encourage prospective PC gamers to join the platform. This is a noble idea because the vast excitement and media coverage surrounding flagship products which cost over £600 can give consumers a skewed perception of how expensive PC gaming is. Saying that, the lower tier offerings haven’t been ideal and it’s generally recommended to spend around £230-£300 until now. AMD’s RX 480 apparently offers a premium VR experience and rumours suggest it performs better than an R9 390. This particular GPU features 5 TFLOPS of compute performance and starts from a ridiculously cheap $199. Today, AMD released some slides to the press which helps us to understand what Polaris is all about. As you can see, 95% of those who completed the Steam hardware survey use a 1080P monitor or below.
Additionally, AMD’s own research suggests that 84% of consumers purchase graphics cards within the $100-$300 bracket. As a result, AMD is targeting the mainstream user and wants to provide excellent performance. This is actually possible because most people are using a monitor which doesn’t require a very expensive graphics solution.
The RX 480 could be hugely successful for AMD and help them to forge a better position in the discrete GPU market. This release is good news for consumers and I’m looking forward to seeing how the RX 480 performs in a number of demanding titles.
