My imprssions of the AMD RX480 reference.

[guskline]

I had two strokes of luck last week.

First I was able to purchase a reference Sapphire RX480 8 gig from Newegg for $239. (They do pop up every once in a blue moon!)

Second, I found a seller on another forum who was selling an almost new 6700k and almost new Asus Z170i Pro Gaming mb for $400 shipped.

Though the mb is a mini-itx, it got decent reviews and the price was right. Plus, I've decided to stay with single video cards so the solo gpu slot was not a negative.

I decided to place it all in a Fractal Design S non-windowed case together with 2 8gig sticks of GSkill Ripjaw DDR4-3200 and a Samsung 850EVO -500g ssd (see sig below for specs).

I wanted a RX 480 to play around with and I must say that even though I am using a 2560x1440 BenQ BL3200PT monitor, the RX480 really impresses me as a solid gaming card.

I have a GTX1080 in my 5960x rig and a GTX 980TI SC in my 4790k rig. Obviously they benchmark better, BUT in game play the RX480 holds it's own and then some. In game play the difference was not as obvious.

I'm interested in seeing how much AMD can improve the drivers for the RX 480.

So far, it's a solid card even at 1440p.

 

[YBS1]

Yeah, I hooked mine up to my 1440p Acer briefly just to try out Vulkan Doom. It's a very solid 1080p card, but I found it did very well at 1440 on Doom and Black Ops 3 as long as you don't go overboard on certain settings. It may be as simple as just not going crazy on AA, using Ultra instead of Nightmare, etc.

 

[Hitman928]

What's the ASIC quality of your card?

 

[guskline]

Yeah, I hooked mine up to my 1440p Acer briefly just to try out Vulkan Doom. It's a very solid 1080p card, but I found it did very well at 1440 on Doom and Black Ops 3 as long as you don't go overboard on certain settings. It may be as simple as just not going crazy on AA, using Ultra instead of Nightmare, etc.

I agree. Doom on the Vulcan setting plays very fast.

 

[guskline]

What's the ASIC quality of your card?

75.8%

 

[YBS1]

72.9 on mine

 

[guskline]

Since I wanted to have a separate monitor for the rig I built for the RX480 and since I have 2 bigger monitors for the GTX 1080 and GTX 980TI SC rigs (below) I decided to stay 1080 and go for a freesync monitor. I saw a 24" TN paneled Viewsonic VX2457 MHD which is freesync and supposedly gamer fast so I took a chance at a VERY low price and and quite satisfied. It's the first time I have personally experienced freesync.

In addition, I'm getting great frame rates from the RX480 at 1080. It did well at 1440, but to have higher frame rates, in most games you needed to lower the detail settings. Not in 1080. This sucker screams. It's retro fun to move back to a 24" screen.

The more I use this RX480, the more I like it.

 

[DamZe]

Congrats on the new setup OP! The RX480 is a screamer no doubt about it, and in Vulka/DX12 it's going to keep on trucking!

 

[guskline]

Thank you DamZe. BTW, I see from your sig you have a 4790k. I do also (see rig 2 below). I ran Aida64 Benchmarks for both my 4790k and 6700k OC'd to 4.7Ghz. On most benches the 6700k is slightly faster BUT the 4790k is quite close. Rest assure you have a VERY fast rig also.

 

[raghu78]

OP the Rx 480 is a good card for the price. It really shines in DX12/Vulkan which bodes well for upcoming DX12 AAA games in 2016 and well into the future. I hope AMD is able to fix the clock / power issues and release a revision in H1 2017. A 1400 Mhz Rx 485 with 135w power would be nice. GF generally start off poorly on a new process node but over time they make significant improvements like they did with 32nm SOI and 28nm SHP.

 

[Sonikku]

It would be sitting in my motherboard right now if not for availability woes. (and price gouging)

 

[moonbogg]

Nice to see the 480 is doing well. Sounds like you got a heck of a deal on that whole rig. NICE!

 

[kawi6rr]

I'm still waiting so see what comes out in the near future. The 480 is nice but it's not fast enough for me to replace my Trixx 290 OC.

 

[Azix]

what do you use the computers for? Why not just get multiple monitors on one? You don't need a computer PER monitor you know...

 

[guskline]

what do you use the computers for? Why not just get multiple monitors on one? You don't need a computer PER monitor you know...

I am well aware that I don't "need" a computer per monitor. It is my hobby so I have 3 separate builds.

All 3 are used primarily for gaming.

 

[guskline]

I'm still waiting so see what comes out in the near future. The 480 is nice but it's not fast enough for me to replace my Trixx 290 OC.

I had 2 R9 290s in CrossFire and I agree they are fast.

Frankly, the last build of 6700k and RX480 was a combo of luck snagging a RX480 8g for $239 and a great deal on a slightly used 6700k and Asus Z170i mini ITX mb.

No doubt the R9 290 is a very good gpu.

 

[Stuka87]

For what its worth, the ASIC quality in my RX480 Nitro is 87.6%.

 

[guskline]

Stuka87, that's high! GOOD news. How is it performing?

 

[Stuka87]

Stuka87, that's high! GOOD news. How is it performing?

I have not had a chance to try any over clocking, but it does come with a small OC from Sapphire. And they are binning their chips for the Nitro cards, so not super surprising that its better than the reference cards.

 

[Madpacket]

In have one 480 with a 90% ASIC rating and a couple in the high 80's. The 90% one performs poorly as a miner. Cards with 75% do much better (performance per watt).