For a number of valid reasons, AMD still continues to tweak and evolve its GCN architecture rather than outright replace or revolutionise it, but that's not to say it's done a bad job with Polaris. The transition to the 14nm FinFET process coupled with AMD's tweaks has given the red team a GPU capable of delivering excellent frame rates at 1080p and very strong 1440p performance too, all within a healthy 150W power envelope.
As a reminder, prices start at £180 for the 4GB/7Gbps baseline version of the RX 480 and £210 for the 8GB/8Gbps part that we've tested here, and we expect that custom partner cards will carry at least a £20 to £25 premium on top of these prices. Meanwhile, the current pricing of the GTX 970 is £200 at an absolute minimum (this appears to have only very recently happened in anticipation of this launch), and more realistically around £230 or more for most overclocked and custom cooled versions. Ultimately, if your GPU budget is £200 or thereabouts, you really only have two realistic options: the RX 480 or the GTX 970.
