Is the RX 480 a decent card for unreal engine?

Community Community & Industry Discussion
1

Hi,

I’m wanting to buy a new graphics card for my system, both for gaming, and for use in unreal engine.

I know the capability of the 480 for gaming, but I was wondering what people thought of it for actual game development? Is it a good choice? Or are there far better cards?

Thanks allot!

2

There’s not really much difference between developing a game and playing a game. Of course there’s much better cards than the RX 480, like the GTX 1060, GTX 1070, GTX 1080, or the new GTX Titan X

3

That’s good to know, thanks for the reply.

And is the 1060 better than the 480?
As far as I could see they were fairly neck and neck - the 1060 performing slightly better in current, DX11 games and the 480 out performing the 1060 the newer DX12 and Vulkan API’s.

4

Most tests have the 1060 better than the 480, and really would you gamble on an AMD card or an Nvidia card?

6

Fair point.
I think the main point people were raising, was the DX12 and Vulkan thing.
With the 480 running games that utilised DX12 And Vulkan a bit better than the 1060, the 480 was suggested to be more “future proof”, considering DX12 and Vulkan are the API’s of the future.
How that will translate to reality I don’t know.

The rest of my setup consists of a six core Intel W3680 running at a speed of 3.3, and 32gb of 1333mhz DDR3 Ram.
Are they okay specs for UE4, do you think?

Thanks.

7

The RX 480 is a great card. Just get the 8 Gig version.

8

That’s an OK system, but it’s a pretty old CPU and slow RAM, you’re probably going to run into a bottleneck with that.

9

AMD cards are not as bad as people make them out to be. I own a 1070 right now, but I’ve never had any problems with my previous AMD cards. In fact, while the experience has been fairly smooth with my 1070 so far, I’ve had problems that I didn’t have with my AMD cards that made me miss them. They’re both great cards though.

10

Thanks for the info

11

Yeah, I presumed it’d bottleneck to some degree.
Do you think that’d be a major problem?

Thanks

12

The RX480 is a great choice. Your older computer won’t be a major problem, depending on what you do in UE4 probably not a problem at all. The six cores will be an asset.

Until recently I used an ancient Q6600 with 8 gb ram and a GTX 660 Ti. It was capable of running UE4 quite well.

If you feel limited by your system, you can always upgrade later!

13

The RX480 is an excellent card for gaming and developing. It’s basically a 1060 with a little more VRAM and it’s more future proof due to the whole async shader thing AMD cards are capable of. I did read on the wiki that UE already supports async shaders on XBOX but not on PC yet, but maybe that will change when more people use GCN based cards.

If you just need raw power for now then might as well buy a used 980ti for 400$ or so.
Other then this, DX12 and Vulkan will make the future.

http://www.pcper.com/files/imagecache/article_max_width/news/2016-07-13/amd-2016-doom-vulkan-benchmark-computerbasede.png

But take this graph with a pinch of salt - UE does not have a proper DX12 or Vulkan implementation yet - and it could take alot of time until this changes.

14

RX 480 will do you just fine in game development. Purchase the 8 Gig version should help set yourself up for “future proofing” your Unreal Engine development.

I run AMD GPU card exclusively and all my cards run UE4 games and development with zero issues. In fact, my development card of choice is the AMD R7 370. I use this card to develop in Autodesk Stingray game engine, UE4, Maya 2017, and play various games. I even play Epic’s Paragon quite frequently using my R7 370 card. Zero issues and is able to hold very high frame rates (80+ fps) with this card.

I also have a R9 390X and the new RX 480. All my AMD cards uses the latest Direct12 drivers and Vulkan. You’ll do fine with the RX 480 for UE4 development.

15

That’s good to know, thanks for the info.

In terms of what I’d be doing, I don’t really know yet, I’m fairly new to the engine. What sort of stuff is the most intense for the computer to handle?

16

Interesting, so would you recomend the 480 over the 980ti? I know the ti is more powerful, but from what you’re saying, the 480 would be a better card for the future?
Those bench marks are impressive, hopefully UE4 will implement DX12 and Vulkan tech fairly soon.

Thanks

17

That’s good to know.
I’ve actually considered other AMD cards - would you say the RX 480 was the best choice right now?

Thanks

18

The best choice right now is the card that:

  • has the needed connectors for your monitor
  • fits in your existing computer
  • doesn’t draw more power than you have available
  • has no known driver problems for use cases you care about
  • has as much RAM and shader processing power as possible
  • doesn’t cost more than you’re willing to spend

Someone was having problems with older AMD cards and mesh distance fields in this forum a week ago.
Does that matter to you? Will the same problems show up on your machine with that card? No idea.

Personally, I’ve found AMDs to always be slightly behind the NVIDIAs in driver compatibility.
There was even a time when a new card of theirs I was testing rendered DXT compressed textures upside down compared to uncompressed textures …
If I were buying today, I’d get the GTX 1080, but it’s quite likely my constraints are different than your constraints.

Other things matter too.
Do you use SSD for your system, application, and work data drives? If not, that should be on your short list for upgrades.
Your CPU has a pretty old microarchitecture; a modern Core i7 at the same clock rate will likely run much faster (and you can get them at higher clock rates!)
Do you have two monitors? If not, spending $200 on a second monitor will give you a whole lot more area to work on, keep debuggers on, etc.

19

Well I’m only actually just starting out in unreal engine, so I don’t really know what I’ll be wanting - I’ve just started studying game development at college, so I’m not really sure what might be a problem.
I’m just looking for something decently powerful for both gaming and for use in UE4, and I thought the RX 480 would be a good choice.

I don’t have a huge budget, either, being a student, so something like the 1080 isn’t something I can afford, nor is it a great idea for my current system, Dispite how much I’d like to have the funds, and a system to match it.

I do have SSD, and two monitors.

Thanks

20

Well, then the 480 is probably fine! When it comes to AAA game creation, it’s always a problem trying to push all the content editing onto a system and make it bearable, given that you’re already targeting high end hardware, and that’s a target WITH optimized content, while you’re editing unoptimized content …
For indie type games, that pressure is off, so go forth and have fun :slight_smile:

21

Cool, thanks for the tips, I’ll go for the 480, then.

Just out if curiosity, what are generally the most computer resource heavy activities when using UE4?