TheinsanegamerN AMD already regained the middle ground with the RX480, it was competitive and sold well.

In my opinion, this is thus far the only RX 480 that looks like it can compete with the GTX 1060 and its custom designs.

As a result, the card is 4% faster than the RX 480 reference and 6-7% slower than the [reference] GeForce GTX 980, GTX 1060, and Radeon R9 Fury, which all have roughly the same performance at 1080p.

No they didn't ... not even close. Pre 9xx series, AMD was not competing in the top two prce tiers. With 9xx, they lost the 3rd and with 10xx they lost the 4th.First the performance comparison ...... copied from an old post so not current pricing=============================Of course the correct choice for ant individual will ultimately depend on what games you play so will speak in overall terms. What we know:- Not all cards are created equal but this is especially true with the RX 480. Techpowerup writes:- So let's compare two cards from the same (MSI) manufacturer and model line (Gaming X). From above link:- From the above, we see that the MSI RX 480 is 7% faster overall in TPUs 16 game test suite. From Below, the MSI 1060 Gaming X is 3% faster than the reference 1060 ... so we can can conclude that at the time of testing the MSI 1060 was 10% faster than the MSI 480 in the 16 game test suite- We see there that the MSI 480 overclocks 8.6% and the MSI 1060 overclocks 15.1%.. So when the 1060 (10% performance advantage) is overclocked, the relative difference would be:110% x (115.1 / 108.6) = 116.6% of the 480s speed or 16.6 % faster... the various brands trade wins depending on generation and model line but the EVGA SC is one to avoid as, unlike the competition, they use a reference PCB and referece style PCB cooling.- AMDs driver improvements have improved the performance of the 480 since originally tested. As we can see from the link here, TPU tested the results from the latest driver improvements and found an increase if 2.1% at 1080 p average across 21 games:Unfortunately, that resource provide no info on what improvements have resulted from newer nVidia drivers but suffice to say, those improvements have not erased that 10% gap outta the box (16.6% in both overclocked.- Last I looked (yesterday) the MSI 1060 6GB was about $15 more than the MSI 480 8GB on newegg. But there are other costs worth considering- There is a significant difference in power usage between the two cards. One of the reasons for the MSI 480s performance,as stated in the review, is because it is able to use more power than many other 480s. That's 75 watts in typical gaming and 99 watts peakThe MSI 480 draws from 196 - 224 wattsThe MSI 1060 draws from 121 - 125 watts- While this is something you normally wouldn't consider, when cards are very close in performance, it may be of significance to many users, especially those in Europe and especially in urban / suburban locales.75 watts x 35 hours per week x 52.14 weeks per year x 3 years usage x $0.131 US average electric cost per kw-hr / (1000 watts per kw=hr x 85% efficiency) = $63.28- The rule of thump for case fans in a relatively quiet system is one (1) case fan per 75 watts for power. So for comparable interior case temps, you might want to include the cost of an extra case fan.- The 480 is 3 dbA louder than the 1060=============================================Now lets look at the sales..... from steam hardware surveyThe GTX 1060 is the most popular card hitting steam servers.... representing 13.76 % of the steam market and up 0.87% in the last month.The RX 480 sits in 28th place among cards hitting steam servers.... representing 0.66 % of the steam market and up 0.07% in the last month. The 58- adds 0.44% bring market share to 1.10% ... Combined, the 1060 ourtsells then by 12.51 to 1. That's 92.6% of the market in this price niche.So not only is the 1060 outselling the 480 20.84 to one, the gap is widening. More new 1060s hit steam servers oin the last month than all 480s put together since it's release.The 480, power issues aside, is not a bad card at all... it had some power issues .... it's 2nd place finish in this market niche is was not that far behind however, who remembers who won the silver medal in the Olympic... on;y the gold medal winner makes the Wheaties Box. So, no ... AMD has certainly not "regained" anything here. AMD, at this point in time, doesn't have a horse in the race from the 1060 level on up.And price wise, I thnk we have to wait for the dust to clear on several fronts. 1) have to wait and see what prices are after the vendor price gouging phase is over where the focus is on taking advantage of those who must be the 1st on the block to have the new shiny thing. 2) It's no secret that nVidia has a large lot of pre-tariff priced 10xx series that it wants to sell before ramping up production on 20xx. And finally 3) let's wait till after January when warehoused stock on this side of the pond for both compoanies has been sold and there's a 30% on all goods imported into US.