GTX 970 or RX 480?

[brodi]

Should I buy the GTX 970 or RX 480?

 

[Fl0r!an]

Only macOS Sierra has RX 480 drivers, and they're in an early state, so for every day usage the 970 is the superior choice.

The RX 480 might become OOB supported some day, but no one knows if / when this will happen.

 

[trs96]

Right now we're in a gray area where you just have to wait it out and see what Apple does. Once Sierra gets released later in October and we get the next MacBook and other new Macs it should be easy to make a good graphics card choice. I've seen gaming laptop makers like MSI putting full Nvidia desktop GPUs in their builds. The 1060/1070 and 1080. They are clocked slightly lower but otherwise the same chips that go into the desktop cards. There is a chance Apple could put a 480 into a 5K iMac in the future and then it would be fully supported. Content creators would love to have an I7-6700K 5K iMac with dual RX 480s. The question for me though is how do you keep it cool enough during intensive usage ?

 

[pastrychef]

From what I've read, both Nvidia and AMD have made great strides in TDP efficiencies with their latest generation of GPUs. I think Apple would do well to adapt these GPUs ASAP. Whether they choose to go with AMD or Nvidia, it will be huge steps in the right direction.

If you can live with using the built-in HD 530 for now, do so until Apple and/or Nvidia give us indications of what will be supported.