RX 480 Review - The New Value King
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,358 words · ~6 min read
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large powerful expensive graphics cards are fun but they often require a
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similarly endowed wallet in order to afford them this can make the
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achievability of high-end gaming rather frustrating enter the rx 480 which may
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just be the remedy you've been looking for at the impressive price of around
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200 us dollars a dose
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cooler masters master case maker 5 features the freeform modular system
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allowing you to customize adjust and upgrade on your own make it yours at the
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link in the video description down below jokes about the new rx naming aside the
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new polaris architecture named after what is commonly known as the north star
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features AMD's new and quite capable 14
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nanometer finfet process which should be especially helpful on the power
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consumption side of things the fourth generation gcn architecture in the rx
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480 features 2 304 stream processors
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running at a boost clock of 1 266 megahertz for a peak performance of up
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to 5.8 teraflops the default memory
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configurations will be four gigabytes of gddr5 memory running at seven gigabits
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per second on the reference config and up to eight gigabytes again of gddr5
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memory but running at eight gigabits per second
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on other possible variations AMD has also stated that aftermarket configs may
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vary but will always feature memory clocks of seven gigabits per second at
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least all that memory will be running on a 256 bit memory interface with a
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bandwidth of 224 gigabytes per second in
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terms of features we now have no no no no no no man walkman
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okay that was lame and that almost fell but it's actually kind of cool at first
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it looks like just a simple overclocking utility and it can be but it also has
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some other cool stuff as well like per voltage point frequency offsets like the
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ones we recently saw toted on the NVIDIA
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1000 series gpus this allows you to increase the normally linear frequency
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offset curve specific amounts per voltage point being applied to the card
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this results in more control over how your card works
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great it also gives you a histogram of the last 20 minutes of your card's
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activity percentage core clock speed
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memory clock speed temperature and fan
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speed which should make it easier to identify issues we'll have more fun with
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wattman later when we get some aftermarket cooled cards the card
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features a cooler reminiscent of the awesome looking aesthetic of the r9 nano
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but just more cheaply there's more plastic incorporated in the design and
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in places where the nano would have had shiny metal the 480 features glossy
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plastic it also features an extension beyond the slightly longer than a nano
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pcb in order to add some more heatsink space and incorporating the fan due to
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this the six pin PCIe connector doesn't sit at the end of the card which some
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people may not like overall on the outside i actually think it's a
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pretty attractive card for this price point if you're going for something that
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isn't too in your face at least also note that naturally there will be
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aftermarket cards if you don't like it for connectivity on the back there are
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three displayport outputs compatible with dp 1.3 hbr3 and displayport 1.4 HDR
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then the HDMI port is HDMI 2.0 b for 4k
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60 and HDR now for the current state of crossfire NVIDIA's sli setup with the
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1000 series and directx 12 was a public
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relations nightmare AMD is going to be
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handling things in a very similar way but leaning heavily on out of driver
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control like in explicit modes for link display adapter mode and multi-display
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adapter mode not much here is changing for the vast majority of users on the
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AMD side in in a visible way so just
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check out my video on sli for more info as much of it is crossover and it's
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probably going to be fine but all the features in the world aren't worth an
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election in north korea if the performance isn't up to par so let's
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take a look at some numbers AMD promised a high level of performance at a price
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point of just 200 and they mostly delivered on that performance at 1440p
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was mostly on par with the gtx 970 in
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current titles with the rx 480 breaking 40 FPS in all of our benchmarks with the
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settings cranked and even blew away the 970 in hitman though that is a heavily
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AMD optimized title the rx480 is even capable of playable frame rates at 4k
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with the settings turned down a bit to around medium now this isn't a top-end
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card but it wasn't designed to be the goal was to raise the bar at the 200
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mark and given that the cheapest gtx 970 on the market at the time of writing
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this review was 260 dollars AMD has put
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forth an extremely compelling card for budget conscious gamers who are looking
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for the quintessential millennium falcon of graphics cards something that isn't
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flashy but has it where it counts especially when you consider that it
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matches the gtx 970 a car that was considered the sweet spot for high-end
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gaming until the 1070s release a few weeks ago and for significantly less
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money i'd go even as far as to say if you don't have the cash for a GeForce 10
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series and just care about raw performance rather than aesthetics or
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manufacturer exclusive features like ansel or smp or something like that
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there's no reason to buy gtx 970 anymore
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now that the rx 480 is on the market the 480 was a smart move from AMD competing
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against NVIDIA's 1080 would have been a little crazy shooting for the value
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option was smart as it fits something that people are actually asking for and
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beating out NVIDIA's recently price dropped cards handily in the price to
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performance department was a perfect target for them to shoot for considering
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how their funds have been trending lately hopefully the community agrees as
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well the k7xx
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limited edition ruby red headphones which are featured over on mass drop at
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the link in the video description mass drop has actually not just that but tons
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of cool products that you can check out everything from camping supplies to
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keyboards to audio products like the k7xxs that i'm showing off now the
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concept over there is pretty simple the more people commit to buy a given
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product the lower the price of that totally authentic product from the
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manufacturer or an authorized distributor gets
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boom lots of people buy price goes down
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spec wise the headphones i'm featuring today are the same as the ones that i
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reviewed last year which you can check out over here with the only real
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difference being that this run uses red accents on the earcups and on the
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headband like many drops this is a limited time at limited quantity drops
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so if you want a pair you're going to have to act pretty
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fast so check them out at the link in the video description if you're looking for
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a really nice open-backed comfortable pair of headphones
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if you like this video like it if you want a shirt you can check that out in
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the video description down below and if you want to join the forums so you can
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hotly debate the hot or not specs of the
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480. you can do that but like debate it in a friendly way or something i guess
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if you want to see another video check up here that's our new 1070 review
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which is like nearly twice the price but pretty cool
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i don't know how i want to outro this we're gonna walk this way usually i walk
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that way i don't know where i'm going