Has anyone recently bought a RX480?

[Ket]

As title says really, of particular interest to me would be a Asus Radeon DUAL RX 480 OC VR. I've noticed much newer RX480s seem to clock better so I'm curious about how one performs now with a OC of say 1.35GHz+ on the GPU combined with the latest Crimson drivers. If performance is up there with my OCd GTX980 I wouldn't mind switching to a 8GB RX480.

[zanzabar]

i just bought a 4GB gaming X since it was only thing i could local when my old card died and i was in the middle of moving. i have not clocked it yet but it did 1.35ghz on auto in oc mode.

i was a bit disappointed in performance since it runs basically the same as my 7950 boost @1280mhz, but it is also half the power consumption and quiet.

[chew*]

If getting 480 make sure its an 8gb. It has quite a bit less shaders than a 290x.

Due to this in some games a R9 290x 4g is actually faster than a RX480 4g. I do not believe this is the case when its 290x 4g vs Rx480 8g. The quantity of memory can make up for the lower shader count.

The only true advantage it offers is as zanzabar stated power consumption. I would add to that with saying in general it OC's a lot better as well ( compared to a 290X )

Obviously it was not intended to be a top tier part either ala 290X 390 Fury etc.

[Ket]

Thats why I'm curious about the 480, I need some numbers I can more directly compare. Back in the "old days" this kind of info would of been easy to find, plenty of knowledgeable people around tinkering and testing so the info would already be out there. Tis not the way things are anymore though :'(

The closest I can find to the info I'm looking for is this GTX980 vs RX480 comparison but that still doesn't tell the whole picture I'm after so if anyone can run some quick benchmarks using the latest Crimson drivers with the RX480 clocked as high as it will go for BF1, Far Cry Primal, Firestrike and Timespy that will give me the general picture I'm looking for.

[chew*]

Wait for reviews. Im sure bf1 will be included. I recently sold a 290 tri x OC new edition to a guy on an i5 intel and 380. He thought card was broken... He gained nothing.

It was evident immediately he is system bottleneced by cpu @3.5 and ram at ddr3 1600.

Preety much all reviews with a faster cpu shows the 290 @ nearly double the 380 performance.

There is a good review with the new radeon relive drivers pitting 290 vs 480. Google is your friend.

Based on this as i had been pondering 480 i chose to add a second used 290 on water as it offered little cost with decent gains and trails a pair of 480s by a small margin in only 50% of games.

Fyi in no way am i reccomending used 290s...mine are on water. If not on water they suck bigtime.

[zanzabar]

i dont have farcry or BF1, but i can run time spy and overclock it later in the week.

[Ket]

Thanks, that would be very helpful Zanzabar

Wait for reviews. Im sure bf1 will be included. I recently sold a 290 tri x OC new edition to a guy on an i5 intel and 380. He thought card was broken... He gained nothing.

It was evident immediately he is system bottleneced by cpu @3.5 and ram at ddr3 1600.

Preety much all reviews with a faster cpu shows the 290 @ nearly double the 380 performance.

There is a good review with the new radeon relive drivers pitting 290 vs 480. Google is your friend.

Based on this as i had been pondering 480 i chose to add a second used 290 on water as it offered little cost with decent gains and trails a pair of 480s by a small margin in only 50% of games.

Fyi in no way am i reccomending used 290s...mine are on water. If not on water they suck bigtime.

I'm not surprised that guys system bottlenecked a 290, its still a fast card when OC'd despite its hunger for power. I only got the GTX980 at the time as it was pretty much the fastest (Ti excluded) GPU you could buy, I knew it would serve the purposes I needed it for (DX12 shortcomings considered) with a high OC. I always doubted just how long the card would last though with only 4GB vRAM, even Skyrim with HD texture mods easily eats up that vRAM and thats with being sensible about the HD textures as well - 2k armour / weapons, 2k foliage, 1k misc items, mix of 1k and 2k for roads, buildings, etc. I'll admit I've always been curious about the 480 and wanted to tinker with one so maybe this is fate

I might just sell my 980 on ebay for 250 or so they still retail new for about 300 (and thats the lowest end of the scale) here in the UK and pick up a 8GB RX480.

[chew*]

Early reference card 480 adopters got free upgrades to 8gb.

All were 8gb. Simple flash to 8gb vga bios and done.

Might want to search used may find a unlockable card from someone less educated about that trick.

[zanzabar]

Early reference card 480 adopters got free upgrades to 8gb.

All were 8gb. Simple flash to 8gb vga bios and done.

Might want to search used may find a unlockable card from someone less educated about that trick.

but then you have a reference card and they suck too much pci-e power and clock poorly without volt mods.

[chew*]

but then you have a reference card and they suck too much pci-e power and clock poorly without volt mods.

Oh. didn't know they were that bad.

[Ket]

I wouldn't touch any reference card from nvidia or AMD, manufacturer custom coolers are bad enough, actual reference coolers are just terrible. I have 2 Gelid Icy Vision GPU coolers, one for AMD cards the other for nvidia cards, both of which without fail always improve on noise levels and cooling capacity. Latest example; the WF3 cooler of Gigabytes 980 cards when the fans are set to highest possible RPM before becoming ungodly loud can't even keep the 980s GPU below 81c with the card clocked to 1.5GHz @ 1.24v / 7.6GHz in Unigine Valley. The Icy Vision? Barely breaks 63c and whisper quiet with the stock fans, never mind if I mount a couple Arctic F80s on it then it struggles to even break 50c. Its a pain having to clean the F80s every few months though so I stick with the stock Gelid fans.

I get what chew is saying though, grab a cheap reference from ebay maybe from someone who doesn't know any better, make some changes to a 8GB vBIOS with a hex editor, flash it, chuck a custom made cooler on it and bam you have a pretty decent card on the cheap. Downside is that early batch syndrome, GPU likely won't get past about 1.35GHz.

[zanzabar]

here is the best 2 runs i got with stock voltage, 4.2ghz cpu and staying around 350W cpu+gpu load. it is what i run for the DD.
http://www.3dmark.com/compare/spy/1301293/spy/1301251#
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/12021198

the ram sucks on my 4GB card, but it also looks undervolted

[Ket]

Thanks zanzabar Now I just have to trawl my registry to remove 3dmark remnants as the install has borked itself somehow.

[AlleyViper]

After a user in a forum was having stutters with an Asus RX480 OC, I went to check their bios on the Techpowerup DB. It seems like they are limited to 99W +50% like reference cards instead of 150W +50% (Nitro+, Gaming X with updated bios or 180W on release bios), or 125W for the Strix. There's a chance that they might throttle a lot when pushed to the limit.

[zanzabar]

was it this one https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16814126135 or the 8GB version. in the past the white cards from asus use the reference board on amd.


in the future you should never buy reference boards unless it is a high end amd card. nvidia sucks at making board and amd always cheeps out on the midrange and low end so they get pwm problems.

[AlleyViper]

On the DB there are bios for the Dual 4GB OC and Dual 8GB non-OC, both with TDP 110W, TDC 110A, Max Power Limit 99W. Unfortunately no Dual 8GB OC was uploaded, but given the 4GB OC model, I find no hope to be different. On the Hexus review the 4GB model was found to be throttling at a very low OC.

Just to make it clear on the Gaming X 8GB. The original shipped bios on my card, that MSI refers to TV341MH.152, has 110W/180A/180W (+50%), which seems way above what the slot+8 pin might be safe to deliver. The later TV341MH.153 that some cards are shipping with, or is delivered via MSI Liveupdate for the same card has 110W/124A/150W, which is exactly the same as the Nitro+ OC 8GB of a friend of mine.

[zanzabar]

On the DB there are bios for the Dual 4GB OC and Dual 8GB non-OC, both with TDP 110W, TDC 110A, Max Power Limit 99W. Unfortunately no Dual 8GB OC was uploaded, but given the 4GB OC model, I find no hope to be different. On the Hexus review the 4GB model was found to be throttling at a very low OC.

Just to make it clear on the Gaming X 8GB. The original shipped bios on my card, that MSI refers to TV341MH.152, has 110W/180A/180W (+50%), which seems way above what the slot+8 pin might be safe to deliver. The later TV341MH.153 that some cards are shipping with, or is delivered via MSI Liveupdate for the same card has 110W/124A/150W, which is exactly the same as the Nitro+ OC 8GB of a friend of mine.

the 8 pin can safely do 250W but is speced for 150W. my card (4GB gaming X) was reporting 188W on stock volts.

[AlleyViper]

I've compared my Gaming X to a friend's 8GB Nitro+, and at same 1316/2025 clocks mine consistently reports 30W less GPU Power. It's a high leak gpu (85.3% ASIC) with only 1.043V stock (droop to ~1.037V at gaming load, 1.025V on furmark, but fails the GPUTool stress test at ~1350MHz without touching voltage), while his is a regular ~78% 1.150V default that raises to ~1.160V on load (but according to watt tool, the Nitro+ bios applies an offset over VID for all power states).

Edit: Regarding wire gauge and the plugs, much higher power could be drawn than spec 150W, but I guess then problem then is the ability of the PCB's traces directly after the plug to deal with it.
Out of curiosity, did your card come with the 150 or 180W base limit bios?

[loften]

i still check this place out from time to time,, try to keep my brain in check with the newer stuff.. wishing i could still do it.. it has been pretty dead on here for a long while.. sorry i do not have anything good to contribute... i quit playing games so i could get sleep at night.. i quit building stuff because it is so dang expensive and times have been tough.. kids still gaming the old ftw i5 750 at 4.4 then 4.2 the last year @ 1.46 volts on water with hd7950 and ssd's... it's about done though. something degraded.. lasted a long time with few minor upgrades... i got some good life from it for it being maxed out this long.. have to build a new one soon..

[vario]

here is the best 2 runs i got with stock voltage, 4.2ghz cpu and staying around 350W cpu+gpu load. it is what i run for the DD.
http://www.3dmark.com/compare/spy/1301293/spy/1301251#
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/12021198

the ram sucks on my 4GB card, but it also looks undervolted

I decided to share because i saw how similar our systems are and it makes a decent comparison for 290X v Rx 480
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/12067190

Same cpu clocks/ram/amount of ram vram size.
290x has ~25% more shaders
rx480 has ~25% (im at 1080mhz) higher gpu clocks, and 2/3`s of bandwith and still its decently faster

EDIT:
After updating drivers i got somewhat better than rx480 score, but still, same league.
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/12068223
What i find awesome is when i looked at the scores from 290X launch, they were in the 12-14k range, now its almost 18k.

[zanzabar]

I've compared my Gaming X to a friend's 8GB Nitro+, and at same 1316/2025 clocks mine consistently reports 30W less GPU Power. It's a high leak gpu (85.3% ASIC) with only 1.043V stock (droop to ~1.037V at gaming load, 1.025V on furmark, but fails the GPUTool stress test at ~1350MHz without touching voltage), while his is a regular ~78% 1.150V default that raises to ~1.160V on load (but according to watt tool, the Nitro+ bios applies an offset over VID for all power states).

Edit: Regarding wire gauge and the plugs, much higher power could be drawn than spec 150W, but I guess then problem then is the ability of the PCB's traces directly after the plug to deal with it.
Out of curiosity, did your card come with the 150 or 180W base limit bios?

mine says 72.9% and i think it has the 180W base limit since that is what it draws and it is 1.1375V

[AlleyViper]

Thanks for checking!

Just for reference, there are two easy ways of checking this stuff on bios. To check TDP/TDC/Max Power limit, just extract bios via gpu-z and load it in Polaris BIOS Editor, I've noticed that some models like the Nitro+ have more relaxed timings on the 2000MHz vram strap, instead of using the same as the previous. Because it'll only show max voltage for lowest ASIC, WattTool is required to check the currently active VID table.
Because of the new validation thing, drivers will fail to load with an edited bios.

[zanzabar]

it looks like i have a timings strap for 2ghz ram as well, but the ram voltage looks really low.


it also really wont load a moded bios?, you normally just have to fix the hash. the signature does not look long enough to be some kind of key.

[Charles Wirth]

I have two of the 8GB Sapphire 480 Nitro+ cards, they both have different bios and will still crossfire together.
I have been on NV forever and I am impressed with the UI controls, driver stability, and image correctness on the 480.
Gimme a day to check bios revs on both cards, my cards are from AMD event.

I did not swap out my Titan X in my gaming machine for the 480+ in CF.

[lismo]

I just started OC'ing with the AMD RX480 8GB. Neafty card, however, the stock cooler is unable to keep the damn thing at stock clocks, i.e it will throttle and run basicly on lower specs. It's hard to actually hold 1350MHz.

Try a simple furmark session, you can see the core clock going up and down, even with power target +50%.

Hwinfo64 and with sensor readment, will show some interesting results as well. If your oc'ing the memory, you'll note the GPU memory errors. If you get lots of errors it will actually hurt performance for 'retrying' that same failed bit over and over again.