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AMD's Radeon RX480 is the cheapest VR-capable graphics card yet

AMD's Radeon RX480 is the cheapest VR-capable graphics card yet

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$199 for a card that can handle games on Rift and Vive

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Nvidia took to Computex to show off its recently announced GeForce GTX 1070 and 1080. These high-end graphics cards retail for north of $380, but longtime rival AMD chose a different approach at the Taiwanese show. AMD used its own Computex press conference to reveal its new Radeon RX480 video card, a powerful new card capable of running VR games for Oculus' Rift and HTC's Vive headsets, that will retail for a comparatively cheap $199.

Only $199 to Nvidia's $380 GTX 1070

The RX480 has more than five teraflops of computing capability, and will be available in 4GB and 8GB configurations when it launches on June 29th, with the 4GB model hitting the $199 price range. The card's built AMD's new Polaris architecture, marking the fourth generation of the company's Graphics Core Next (GCN) technology, and it will only have a power draw of 150W — much lower than some of the bigger Radeon 7700 cards released earlier in the GCN project. The price point and low power demand make it both cheaper to buy and cheaper to run than many of its graphics card peers, while still offering an entry point into VR gaming.

While a single Radeon RX480 lags behind Nvidia's GTX 1080 in computing power, AMD senior vice president Raja Koduri said that two of the cards in the same PC — a configuration the company has long called CrossFire to Nvidia's SLI — is actually capable of delivering better performance than Nvidia's $600 beast. Koduri proved his point by showing the cards running strategy game Ashes of the Singularity. The two AMD cards were capable of churning out 62.5 frames per second as the screen swarmed with tiny units, while the GTX 1080 lagged slightly behind, only able to keep the action at 58.7 frames per second.


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