Why is the rx 480 so low on the GPU benchmark list?

[DennisD]

I'm not sure if this has been answered yet, but It worries me that the rx 480 scores so low on the GPU list. I've always came to Passmark before buying a GPU but when the rx 480 8gb is shown to be slower than the gtx 1060, and even the 970??, I wonder if there is some discrepancy. All the youtube tech reviewers are saying that the rx 480 4gb beats the 1060 3gb and the rx 480 8gb and gtx 1060 6gb should be relatively close in performance.

[David (PassMark)]

You seem to be implying the quantity of video RAM should related to the card's performance. But the amount of video RAM on the card doesn't significantly effect the performance of the card, in terms of our benchmarks and for most games, at least once you get past the 3GB level. For example our DirectX12 test at 4K, requires at lest 2GB of video RAM. Adding more than this won't help performance much. Adding faster RAM or a wider bus would help however.

The RX480 is priced below the GTX970 and 1060 and the vendors generally price these cards in terms of how they view the performance.

Have a look at this page as an example.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/10540/...trix-review/10
You'll note that the speed of the 4GB & 8GB RX480s are nearly identical. So there is no benefit to the 8GB card (for most games and benchmarks at least at the moment).
You'll also notice that the GTX 970 and GTX 1060 out perform the RX 480.

Our benchmark is reporting a 13% difference, in favour of the 1060 over the 480.
The Witcher 3 benchmark reports an even larger 21% difference.

Different games and benchmarks do give different results however. So it always pays to consult a range of different results from different sources before you make a purchasing decision.

[DennisD]

When I go on UserBenchmark.com the performance between the rx 480 and gtx 1060 variants seem a lot closer, it even beats the 970. Also, the gtx 970 is way overpriced at the moment. You look on Newegg and all the prices are in the $400+ USD price range, even at $300 it is way overpriced considering the gtx 1060 6gb can be bought for $250 on Newegg. So according to the Passmark benchmarks, the rx 480 should be a flop, people should be ignoring the rx 480 8gb completely since you can just get a gtx 1060 3gb for about $60 cheaper. Hardware Canucks shows the performance between the cards to be even closer now where AMD comes out on top in many benchmarks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEw3CaNSbUo&t=32s .

[David (PassMark)]

It is impossible to have one benchmark that replicates the behaviour of all past and future games at all possible resolutions, quality settings & driver versions. So the GTX 1060 does well in games like Grand Theft Auto V, Witcher 3, Overwatch, War hammer, (and in our benchmark). The conclusion you come to as to which card is best will depend on the selection of games you use as a benchmark.