# ASUS RX 480 STRIX OC 8 GB



## W1zzard (Jul 21, 2016)

The ASUS RX 480 STRIX OC is the first custom design variant of the RX 480 we are reviewing. It comes with the same cooler as the STRIX GTX 1080, which ensures excellent temperatures. ASUS has also improved the power capability of their card since it comes with an 8-pin power connector.

*Show full review*


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## ZeppMan217 (Jul 21, 2016)

DX12, Vulkan - that's what I wanna see.

And holy shit, it's burning even with a custom cooler!?


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## Agentbb007 (Jul 21, 2016)

The Battlefield 4 & Assassin's Creed: Syndicate performance on the RX 480 is atrocious.


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## ShurikN (Jul 21, 2016)

> At 1920x1080 the performance uplift of the ASUS STRIX is 3%, not a whole lot. This makes the card 10% slower than GTX 1060, 5% faster than GTX 970.


Reference 1060 is 7% faster than reference 480. How is an even faster 480 slower on average?

Also I expected a bit more from custom design.


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## Ungari (Jul 21, 2016)

I believe it will cost more than $260 just because it's ASUS.


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## jabbadap (Jul 21, 2016)

No dual bios? Or am I blind. 

Hopefully that fan curve is more silent on retail versions(Or did asus send you a retail version W1z). 



Ungari said:


> I believe it will cost more than $260 just because it's ASUS.



Heh, gtx 1060 strix cost here 390€, I would be surprised if this cost anything lower than 350€...


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## ShurikN (Jul 21, 2016)

Also I find it strange that the reference, as we know it, was throttling and never ran at the given boost speed. So this card which should be stable at 1300+ should be a bit faster than reference. Unless this card is throttling as well?


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## rhythmeister (Jul 21, 2016)

I'm glad I've just ordered a GTX 1060 at this rate! Hopefully the drivers for these RX 480s mature nicely and eek out much better performance to close the gap on the nGreedia card.


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## the54thvoid (Jul 21, 2016)

Ungari said:


> I believe it will cost more than $260 just because it's ASUS.



Yeah, the Nvidia Asus cards are preposterously priced given the clocks across Pascal are pretty much the same.  Asus are the Nvidia of AIB's 

The Sapphire OC will be a better option I think.


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## W1zzard (Jul 21, 2016)

jabbadap said:


> Or did asus send you a retail version W1z


Looks like retail to me.



ZeppMan217 said:


> And holy shit, it's burning even with a custom cooler!?


Yes, burning at 68°C. My house is on fire!


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## ShurikN (Jul 21, 2016)

rhythmeister said:


> I'm glad I've just ordered a GTX 1060 at this rate! Hopefully the drivers for these RX 480s mature nicely and eek out much better performance to close the gap on the nGreedia card.


If they are greedy, why buy their card


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## jabbadap (Jul 21, 2016)

W1zzard said:


> Looks like retail to me.



Uhh silly me , you did show pictures of that retail package in the review...


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## sutyi (Jul 21, 2016)

Welp, noisy fans are a no go for me. 

W1zzard do you have a Sapphire RX 480 NITRO+ in the labs maybe?


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## TRWOV (Jul 21, 2016)

Underwhelming clocks. I've seen youtube videos with custom cooled RX 480 clocking at >1.4Ghz... GPU lottery I guess :/

I guess I should just go and grab another reference 480 while they are available. If the AIB designs aren't getting out more performance I will just go for the cheapest one. AMD reference boards are top notch anyway.

I have a bunch of GPU coolers lying around. It'll be nice to put them to use again.


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## Malabooga (Jul 21, 2016)

GTX1060 review

1080p
RX480 93%
GTX1060 100%
R9 Fury 103%

RX480 Asus Strix review

1080p
RX480 97%
RX480 Asus 100%
R9 Fury 109%
GTX1060 111 %

you migth want to recheck your performance summary

Also in what mode was the card tested since it has silent/gaming/OC modes


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## Mtom (Jul 21, 2016)

Somethings fishy with the review.

Same games as in the GTX1060 review, same Nvidia driver, same FPS numbers.
In the GTX1060 review the Nvidia card is faster than the ref 480 by 7.5% at 1080p
In this test the Nvidia card is faster than the Strix 480 by 11%

Which one is faulty????


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## ZeppMan217 (Jul 21, 2016)

W1zzard said:


> Yes, burning at 68°C. My house is on fire!


With 3 fans and 40 decibels! It can't be just the cooler, right?


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## Rahmat Sofyan (Jul 21, 2016)

Yeah something odd..
performance summary at 2160p

RX480 96%
RX480 Strixx 100%
GTX1060FE 105%

in other review

RX480 96%
GTX1060FE 100%

suddenly RX480 9% slower than GTX1060FE?

how it come?different drivers or any new game or software for the test?

or what?


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## GC_PaNzerFIN (Jul 21, 2016)

Wow total failure in the fan profile. 6dBA noisier than GTX 1080 Strix (which btw is not too quiet either)?


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## Mtom (Jul 21, 2016)

ZeppMan217 said:


> With 3 fans and 40 decibels! It can't be just the cooler, right?



Asus...charging extra for lazy works 



Rahmat Sofyan said:


> Yeah something odd..
> performance summary at 2160p
> 
> RX480 96%
> ...




Nope, i've checked, the NV driver is the same, the games are the same, the FPS numbers are the same, they just somehow miscalculated the summary.


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## W1zzard (Jul 21, 2016)

Malabooga said:


> you migth want to recheck your performance summary





Mtom said:


> Which one is faulty????





Rahmat Sofyan said:


> performance summary at 2160p



I had to remove the World of Warcraft benchmarks, they prepatched to the next expansion which changes a lot of graphics settings related stuff, so new benchmark data is invalid.


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## marios15 (Jul 21, 2016)

Malabooga said:


> GTX1060 review
> 
> 1080p
> RX480 93%
> ...









W1z probably made some error in calculation(i hope)



Malabooga said:


> Also in what mode was the card tested since it has silent/gaming/OC modes


^Yeah i couldn't find any details either


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## W1zzard (Jul 21, 2016)

Malabooga said:


> Also in what mode was the card tested since it has silent/gaming/OC modes


Default mode out of the box, which is gaming


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## FlanK3r (Jul 21, 2016)

its tsrange...No DX12/Vulcan titles. Who paid for it ,-)? No seriously. Need DX12 games also and I cant believe  much with GPU scaling, if I compare another review with stock RX 480 card vs OC GPU memory only and increase in %...There is something wrong.

http://www.hardwareluxx.de/index.ph...39615-amd-radeon-rx-480-im-test.html?start=25


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## birdie (Jul 21, 2016)

> the RX 480 STRIX uses 177 W during gaming, which is 10 W more than GTX 1080



So, AiB cards are not a magic bullet for burning GloFo chips. Darn.


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## KainXS (Jul 21, 2016)

after seeing this I kinda wish I just went out and bought a reference 480 instead of waiting for AIB if they will overclock the same, I might just do that if I can get a 4GB card and flash it to 8GB.


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## Mtom (Jul 21, 2016)

KainXS said:


> after seeing this I kinda wish I just went out and bought a reference 480 instead of waiting for AIB if they will overclock the same, I might just do that if I can get a 4GB card and flash it to 8GB.



In all fairness, in the reviews the OC numbers are all much lower what you can pull off at home. On the 390/390X cards they usually listed 50-80MHZ OC, when in reality you could easily OC them a good 150MHZ.


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## rtwjunkie (Jul 21, 2016)

FlanK3r said:


> its tsrange...No DX12/Vulcan titles



So, which widely used mainstream DX12 titles do you want him to use?  Hitman, which is as far as I've read, full of DX12 problems.  The backwards patched RotTR?  That's not terribly well-optimized either, is it?   Maybe AoTS?

On the Vulkan side, up until a couple weeks ago the only title available under that was The Talos Principle.  A great game, but surely not appealing to the masses.  We have Doom now, and I'm sure at some point W1z will be including that.

Really, we do not have an abundance of titles in either API, a year after release.  That's the reality.  Reviews should reflect that, don't you think?


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## Ungari (Jul 21, 2016)

No Vulkan and DX12 tests again?
I call Bravo Sierra!


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## -The_Mask- (Jul 21, 2016)

W1zzard said:


> Default mode out of the box, which is gaming


Overclocking should give you a lot more performance. I guess you didn't change the max power consumption in the BIOS right?


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## Ungari (Jul 21, 2016)

W1zzard said:


> Default mode out of the box, which is gaming



Please not again.
The "Gaming" Mode is not showing the performance that anyone would want to buy this card, show the OC preset benchmarks and stop making this look so bad.


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## W1zzard (Jul 21, 2016)

Ungari said:


> Please not again.
> The "Gaming" Mode is not showing the performance that anyone would want to buy this card, show the OC preset benchmarks and stop making this look so bad.


Troll has been banned. You seem to be only here to post negative comments, so post them somewhere else. Constructive criticism is welcome.


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## Maranak (Jul 21, 2016)

W1zzard said:


> I had to remove the World of Warcraft benchmarks, they prepatched to the next expansion which changes a lot of graphics settings related stuff, so new benchmark data is invalid.


But without WoD the gap between the 1060 and 480 should be smaller and not bigger. There is definitely something wrong with the performance summary.


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## W1zzard (Jul 21, 2016)

The relative OC is smaller because the ASUS card is overclocked out of the box.

Ref at 1335 / 2250 gets 77.0 FPS.
ASUS at 1355 / 2250 gets 79.0 FPS.

Looks right to me.


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## W1zzard (Jul 21, 2016)

Maranak said:


> But without WoD the gap between the 1060 and 480 should be smaller and not bigger. There is definitely something wrong with the performance summary.


Yup, looking into that right now


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## Malabooga (Jul 21, 2016)

W1zzard said:


> I had to remove the World of Warcraft benchmarks, they prepatched to the next expansion which changes a lot of graphics settings related stuff, so new benchmark data is invalid.



But WoW was game that greatly favors NVidia cards but performance for reference 1060 vs reference 480 has grown from 7,5% to 14,4% without WoW?

edit



W1zzard said:


> Yup, looking into that right now



ah yes, thanks


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## sutyi (Jul 21, 2016)

birdie said:


> So, AiB cards are not a magic bullet for burning GloFo chips. Darn.



No AIB board design will do wonders for a GPU's power draw. The only thing that might keep power usage down is a custom cooler with much better higher cooling capacity, and only if said GPU is built on a crap node with lots of thermal leakage.


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## Maranak (Jul 21, 2016)

W1zzard said:


> Yup, looking into that right now


Thank you.


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## the54thvoid (Jul 21, 2016)

-The_Mask- said:


> Overclocking should give you a lot more performance. I guess you didn't change the max power consumption in the BIOS right?



No it shouldn't.  Overclocking is not a magic wand that makes all cards go  twice as fast.  Remember Fury X?  What about the Pascal clock ceiling common to all GTX1080's?  The 'nm' sizes are having an impact on headroom as both AMD and Nvidia seek to control voltage.  

Also - standard to all of his reviews, @W1zzard does not over volt or alter bios settings to overclock - just the simplest slider approach to keep it all even, for Nvidia and AMD.


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## marios15 (Jul 21, 2016)

W1zzard said:


> I had to remove the World of Warcraft benchmarks, they prepatched to the next expansion which changes a lot of graphics settings related stuff, so new benchmark data is invalid.


In WoW the rx480 was WAAAY slower than 1060, so by removing that game, it would have brought them closer
If performance summary is average of all games and unless they're weighted differently, then you have something off, for example:

Sample 1(1060)

Game X: 10 fps
Game Y: 8 fps
Game Z: 12 fps
10 +8 + 12  = 30
30 / 3 = 10fps average

Sample 2(480)

Game X: 7 fps
Game Y: 12 fps
Game Z: 8 fps
7  + 12 + 8  = 27fps
27 / 3 = 9fps average

Sample 1 is 100%, so sample 2 is 90%

Removing Game X from both:

Sample 1(1060)
Game Y: 8 fps
Game Z: 12 fps
8 + 12  = 20
20 / 2 = 10fps average

Sample 2(480)
Game Y: 12 fps
Game Z: 8 fps
12 + 8  = 20
20 / 2 = 10fps average

Sample 1 is 100%, so sample 2 is 100% too


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## ShurikN (Jul 21, 2016)

W1zzard said:


> I had to remove the World of Warcraft benchmarks, they prepatched to the next expansion which changes a lot of graphics settings related stuff, so new benchmark data is invalid.


WoW was always a highly NV favoring game. 1060 has 22% more fps @ 1080p. If you remove it, that should favor AMD card at the performance summary, and thus have a deficit of less than 7% 

EDIT

I see that its being look into. Thanks


On a side note. I cannot believe 3 fans cant keep this thing cool and quiet. I'm guessing Asus fucked up somewhere. If its good enough for 1080 than it should be good enough for this.


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## W1zzard (Jul 21, 2016)

marios15 said:


> In WoW the rx480 was WAAAY slower than 1060, so by removing that game, it would have brought them closer
> If performance summary is average of all games and unless they're weighted differently, then you have something off


Looking into that right now


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## CAT-THE-FIFTH (Jul 21, 2016)

I added up the FPS at 1080P for both cards and came up with the following:
1.)Asus RX480 1110.6 FPS
2.)FE GTX1060 1173.3 FPS

That would make the FE GTX1060 5.65% faster.

Also if you look at the TPU and computerbase.de images of the cooler,it looks the same as the GTX1080 one Asus use and it only really two heatpipes make decent contact out of the 5. The other two make periphery contact,so it looks a bit of a bodge job by Asus!


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## ShurikN (Jul 21, 2016)

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:


> Also if you look at the TPU and computerbase.de images of the cooler,it looks the same as the GTX1080 one Asus use and it only really two heatpipes make decent contact out of the 5. The other two make periphery contact,so it looks a bit of a bodge job by Asus!


Nice find

So the Nitro it is 

And unlike other Asus BS, this cant be fixed with a bios/driver update.


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## truth teller (Jul 21, 2016)

letting asus in charge of releasing a good custom graphics card





oh cmon...


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## Fragment (Jul 21, 2016)

is this with stable clocks out of the box? or did you have to increase the power level for stable stock clocks?


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## rtwjunkie (Jul 21, 2016)

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:


> Also if you look at the TPU and computerbase.de images of the cooler,it looks the same as the GTX1080 one Asus use and it only really two heatpipes make decent contact out of the 5. The other two make periphery contact,so it looks a bit of a bodge job by Asus!



I'm waiting to see what magic Saphire and XFX can work.  Surely they can do a better job.


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## ShurikN (Jul 21, 2016)

rtwjunkie said:


> I'm waiting to see what magic Saphire and XFX can work.  Surely they can do a better job.


The two of us  could do a better job.


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## -The_Mask- (Jul 21, 2016)

the54thvoid said:


> No it shouldn't.


Yes it should....

Clock frequentie is dynamic, 1120 MHz is the base clock of this card and 1310MHz is the max boost clock. But it only stays at 1310MHz if power consumption doesn't passes the maximum set in the BIOS. The same applies with overclocking, if you push the card to 1400MHz but the power limiter doesn't allow more current you don't get more performance because the GPU frequentie just goes down when you put a heavy load on the card. 

That's what you see here, W1zzard didn't change the power limiter in the BIOS so the performance gain with overclocking is rather small.


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## W1zzard (Jul 21, 2016)

Malabooga said:


> But WoW





Maranak said:


> Thank you.





marios15 said:


> In WoW



Ok I found the problem, had a coding bug in my summary script, it didn't count the last score (WOW), but counted the one before that twice (COD BO).

Will remake all summaries

Thanks everyone!


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## mrthanhnguyen (Jul 21, 2016)

Mtom said:


> In all fairness, in the reviews the OC numbers are all much lower what you can pull off at home. On the 390/390X cards they usually listed 50-80MHZ OC, when in reality you could easily OC them a good 150MHZ.



Why dont you buy the same card when its available and OC it the way you have claimed and show the result here? My gtx 670 TOp and the msi gtx 970 OC capacity are very close to Wizard review.


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## W1zzard (Jul 21, 2016)

Oh boy this is bad .. looks like perf summary has been wrong all along since we introduced the new graphs


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## dj-electric (Jul 21, 2016)

oh... shit.
This is serious. so many people count on these as a reference

Have fun fixing it w1z. :X


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## W1zzard (Jul 21, 2016)

Dj-ElectriC said:


> oh... shit.
> This is serious. so many people count on these as a reference
> 
> Have fun fixing it w1z. :X


Internet will explode


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## ShurikN (Jul 21, 2016)

W1zzard said:


> Oh boy this is bad .. looks like perf summary has been wrong all along since we introduced the new graphs


When was that?


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## W1zzard (Jul 21, 2016)

New graphs are up in this review


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## the54thvoid (Jul 21, 2016)

W1zzard said:


> Oh boy this is bad .. looks like perf summary has been wrong all along since we introduced the new graphs



How far back?

And whoopsy!


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## CAT-THE-FIFTH (Jul 21, 2016)

I got 5.65% faster for the FE GTX1060(when I manually added up the FPS) at 1080P and the new graphs say 8% or are there new numbers for some of the games??


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## W1zzard (Jul 21, 2016)

Come here to check and discuss my math: https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/tpu-math-check.224326/


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## sutyi (Jul 21, 2016)

ShurikN said:


> When was that?



If look careful enough you can find some on ancient cave walls.


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## Mtom (Jul 21, 2016)

W1zzard said:


> Oh boy this is bad .. looks like perf summary has been wrong all along since we introduced the new graphs



Oh boy, there goes some overtime


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## tajoh111 (Jul 21, 2016)

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:


> I added up the FPS at 1080P for both cards and came up with the following:
> 1.)Asus RX480 1110.6 FPS
> 2.)FE GTX1060 1173.3 FPS
> 
> ...



I re added the numbers twice and although your 1060 numbers are correct. Using the rx480 numbers from the 1060 review, the total FPS is 1074.8. I think you might have added the 900p number during your calculation somewhere. 

This makes the FE edition 9.16% faster than a rx480 and this is without WOW. With wow, its 12.5% faster.


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## W1zzard (Jul 21, 2016)

tajoh111 said:


> I re added the numbers twice and although your 1060 numbers are correct. Using the rx480 numbers from the 1060 review, the total FPS is 1074.8. I think you might have added the 900p number during your calculation somewhere.
> 
> This makes the FE edition 9.16% faster than a rx480 and this is without WOW. With wow, its 12.5% faster.


Don't add FPS numbers, you'll weigh higher performing benchmarks more than low fps ones. See my math thread here for how I do it: https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/tpu-math-check.224326/


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## Shatun_Bear (Jul 21, 2016)

W1zzard you really, really need to add DOOM to your game testing suite. And you really need to consider swapping out some games that are now either very old or quite irrelevant these days that you are currently using.

There seems to be little point in having BF4 AND BF3, which is even older than an old game. Surely BF3 can be laid to rest in your testing suite in favour of DOOM, and preferably tested in Vulkan. This would give your benches more legitimacy.


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## W1zzard (Jul 21, 2016)

Shatun_Bear said:


> W1zzard you really, really need to add DOOM to your game testing suite. And you really need to consider swapping out some games that are now either very old or quite irrelevant these days that you are currently using.
> 
> There seems to be little point in having BF4 AND BF3, which is even older than an old game. Surely BF3 can be laid to rest in your testing suite in favour of DOOM, and preferably tested in Vulkan. This would give your benches more legitimacy.


Yes, I'll add Doom on next full rebench.

I agree BF3 is old. BF3 is included for OC stability testing, best and most reliable stability test for me. I have to get numbers for all cards anyway so I can show them in the OC gains chart, so I thought including them in the main review too could be useful for some people.


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## rtwjunkie (Jul 21, 2016)

Shatun_Bear said:


> BF3, which is even older than an old game


 I understand your point, but only someone extremely young would label BF3 "old" 

Try hitting middle age, and you'll see that quite a few years need to pass before something is actually old.   BF3 is still quite a technically good and impressive looking game.  So not actually old. 

But I understand your point about wanting a new API game in the testing.


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## CAT-THE-FIFTH (Jul 21, 2016)

tajoh111 said:


> I re added the numbers twice and although your 1060 numbers are correct. Using the rx480 numbers from the 1060 review, the total FPS is 1074.8. I think you might have added the 900p number during your calculation somewhere.
> 
> This makes the FE edition 9.16% faster than a rx480 and this is without WOW. With wow, its 12.5% faster.




Nope,I added the numbers for both correctly.







They are both at 1080P.

Edit!!

I am looking at this review,and you are looking at the reference model,so that is why we have difference scores.


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## Shatun_Bear (Jul 21, 2016)

W1zzard said:


> Yes, I'll add Doom on next full rebench.
> 
> BF3 is included for OC stability testing, best and most reliable stability test for me. I have to get numbers for all cards anyway so I can show them in the OC gains chart, so I thought including them in the main review too could be useful for some people.



Thanks for the response I appreciate your hard work with the benches. Looking forward to seeing Doom added in there. I also appreciate you only have the time and resources to bench only so many games.



rtwjunkie said:


> I understand your point, but only someone extremely young would label BF3 "old"
> 
> Try hitting middle age, and you'll see that quite a few years need to pass before something is actually old.   BF3 is still quite a technically good and impressive looking game.  So not actually old.
> 
> But I understand your point about wanting a new API game in the testing.



Lol ok I'm nearly 32.

BF3 is an old game compared to the rest of the titles in the line-up. But sure, if you want to play semantics of what 'old' is and place it in a line of games that were released in the last 30 years, it would be newer than it would be old, but that would be slightly ridiculous. By normal standards, most gamers today would call BF3 'old' in the context of benchmarks when BF4, BF:HL and soon BF1 have succeeded it.


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## Moofachuka (Jul 21, 2016)

Yo we need an actuary here =P


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## G33k2Fr34k (Jul 21, 2016)

A couple of problems with Polaris 10 and AMD chips in general:
1- Too much FP64 resources which adds to the power ratings of the cards and wastes die area.
2- Their DX11 driver overhead is quite bad.

On a side note, it seems that Polaris 10 has much better Tessellation throughput than the previous AMD cards:


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## arnold_al_qadr (Jul 22, 2016)

definitely will save some money and buy gtx 1060..


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## LAN_deRf_HA (Jul 22, 2016)

So it looks like aftermarket cards aren't making the huge overclocking difference people were hoping for. Temps are good but that noise is oddly high for a 2016 Strix card.


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## Fluffmeister (Jul 22, 2016)

Yeah solid enough card, but not quite the silver bullet many had hoped for.

@W1zzard are you likely to have the equivalent 1060 Strix in the labs at some stage?


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## las (Jul 22, 2016)

Uhm, very noisy and the OC potential seems terrible on these chips so far? 3% GPU OC?!?!


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## W1zzard (Jul 22, 2016)

Fluffmeister said:


> Yeah solid enough card, but not quite the silver bullet many had hoped for.
> 
> @W1zzard are you likely to have the equivalent 1060 Strix in the labs at some stage?


Yes I have the 1060 STRIX here


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## Tsukiyomi91 (Jul 22, 2016)

with aftermarket GTX1060s being cheaper than ASUS & MSI branded RX480s, especially Zotac's new lineup of the mid-range Pascal card, I think AMD has lost the fight yet again. Hopefully upcoming driver releases will fix this or Polaris can bid it's silicon ass goodbye as it fails AMD & made some Red campers rather angry on what should have been a potent new chip. Guess AMD didn't see this coming especially after all that hype they've been building...


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## etayorius (Jul 22, 2016)

We need more DX12/Vulkan Benchmarks pleasem.  RotTR seems the only Benchmark with DX12... there`s Quantum Break, AotS, Hitman, Doom, Total War Warhammer, Etc. the list will grow fast.


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## Tsukiyomi91 (Jul 22, 2016)

won't be seeing a large library of DX12 ready games by summer next year as recently launched games comes with DX12/Vulkan as optional APIs, not shipped as standard or pre-sewned into the game's engine.


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## G33k2Fr34k (Jul 22, 2016)

Tsukiyomi91 said:


> won't be seeing a large library of DX12 ready games by summer next year as recently launched games comes with DX12/Vulkan as optional APIs, not shipped as standard or pre-sewned into the game's engine.



How so? Battlefield 1 and Deus Ex HR are both DX12 games. The new Watchdog game is also rumored to be a DX12 game. 
http://wccftech.com/dx12-enabled-watch-dogs-2-confirmed-optimized-amd-hardware/


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## sweet (Jul 22, 2016)

It's Asuck again with their failed DirectCU design. We can see 2 of the heatpipes don't touch the GPU, 1 of them barely touches. What the point of a 5 heatpipes design then?


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## djisas (Jul 22, 2016)

sweet said:


> It's Asuck again with their failed DirectCU design. We can see 2 of the heatpipes don't touch the GPU, 1 of them barely touches. What the point of a 5 heatpipes design then?



Same cooler for all cards, cheaper than developing exclusive models...


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## Mistral (Jul 22, 2016)

Thanks for the review W1zzard. Shame for the Asus fan profiles. 

A minor UX suggestion for the graphs, if I may:
- when reviewing a NV card, mark it in green
- when reviewing an  AMD card, mark it in red
- have the main competing card from the opposite camp also using its colour instead of grey, for ease of comparison
- when an AIB card, the reference card stays blue as you have it now, that's excellent


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## rtwjunkie (Jul 22, 2016)

G33k2Fr34k said:


> How so? Battlefield 1 and Deus Ex HR are both DX12 games. The new Watchdog game is also rumored to be a DX12 game.
> http://wccftech.com/dx12-enabled-watch-dogs-2-confirmed-optimized-amd-hardware/



These are not large numbers of games. These are a few big titles.  The majority of games will still be primarily DX11 for awhile.


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## Smartcom5 (Jul 22, 2016)

Am i the only one who asking why the heck the actual *Crimson 16.7.2* isn't used?
*Mantle* _anyone_?! Honestly, _what_ is this kind of advertorial?! Do you got paid for this?
Something is clearly wrong on this for sure …


Smartcom


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## mrthanhnguyen (Jul 22, 2016)

Smartcom5 said:


> Am i the only one who asking why the heck the actual *Crimson 16.7.2* isn't used?
> *Mantle* _anyone_?! Honestly, _what_ is this kind of advertorial?! Do you got paid for this?
> Something is clearly wrong on this for sure …
> 
> ...


  You dont have to believe what you see. Just buy one and test it for yourself. Then go back here and prove Wizard is wrong.


----------



## Smartcom5 (Jul 22, 2016)

mrthanhnguyen said:


> You dont have to believe what you see. Just buy one and test it for yourself. Then go back here and prove Wizard is wrong.


Honestly? Why is the 16.7.1 Beta used instead of the rather actual _*Crimson 16.7.2*_?
Everyone uses 16.7.2 and we all know, what benefit AMD is getting from this.
Give me a _single_ reason except trying to make look AMD look bad on this! A single one. This review seems like a bad joke for me …


Smartcom


----------



## G33k2Fr34k (Jul 22, 2016)

Smartcom5 said:


> Honestly? Why is the 16.7.1 Beta used instead of the rather actual _*Crimson 16.7.2*_?
> Everyone uses 16.7.2 and we all know, what benefit AMD is getting from this.
> Give me a _single_ reason except trying to make look AMD look bad on this! A single one. This review seems like a bad joke for me …
> 
> ...



It has nothing to do with the driver version used. AMD's DX11 drivers are causing performance issues for their cards. You can see that when you compare performance between DX11 and DX12 in AOS, Hitman, Total War Warhammer, Doom, etc.


----------



## Air (Jul 22, 2016)

truth teller said:


> letting asus in charge of releasing a good custom graphics card
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Its like this because they are using the same cooler for various cards. Its not like the 2 extra heat pipes make cooling any worse. What do you guys want ASUS to do? Decrease heatpipe radius? Increase the die area (lol)? Cant use a base plate, because of the name (DIRECT CU III).

Its a smaller chip than the GTX 1080/1070 with bigger power draw. It will always be noisier when the same cooling capacity is applied, there's no way around it. I doubt other manufactures will do much better.


----------



## GhostRyder (Jul 22, 2016)

Whelp, so much for the extra power providing much results.  Guess those leaks were false...Unless the voltage mods really do make that much of a difference.


Good design on the STRIX cooler and such, but the rest of the GPU leaves something to be desired.


----------



## buggalugs (Jul 22, 2016)

Theres no way this cooler should be noisy unless there is something wrong. This cooler should be silent on  card with 100 more watts and 2x 8 pin power connectors.
How can the same cooler be quiet on one card, and noisy on another, particularly when the card uses only 170Watts and a single 8 pin? Its not normal.

 Maybe Asus screwed up with the fan profile which is common for many new graphics cards, Wizzard why dont you ask Asus about it?? Its a shame this card will forever be branded "noisy" when its not.  

 I see people are already saying this card is a failure, its not awesome, but it does offer best price to performance, and provides good long term value with DX12 games in the near future.


----------



## mrthanhnguyen (Jul 22, 2016)

Noone knows the future. What if all upcoming dx12 games will be exactly like Tomb Rider? Vulkan will end up like Mantle in bf4?


----------



## Air (Jul 22, 2016)

buggalugs said:


> Theres no way this cooler should be noisy unless there is something wrong. This cooler should be silent on  card with 100 more watts and 2x 8 pin power connectors.
> *How can the same cooler be quiet on one card, and noisy on another, particularly when the card uses only 170Watts and a single 8 pin*? Its not normal.
> 
> Maybe Asus screwed up with the fan profile which is common for many new graphics cards, Wizzard why dont you ask Asus about it?? Its a shame this card will forever be branded "noisy" when its not.
> ...



Maybe it should not be THIS bad, but if you are comparing it to the 1080, keep in mind that the die area is smaller (314 vs 232 mm²), so given similar power, heat transfer will be proportionally (~25%) lower.


----------



## Smartcom5 (Jul 22, 2016)

G33k2Fr34k said:


> … You can see that when you compare performance between DX11 and DX12 in AOS, Hitman, Total War Warhammer, Doom, etc.


… and you've forgotten the new _16.7.2 release_ made some improvements on this, don't you? 


Smartcom


----------



## Nima (Jul 22, 2016)

It's interesting how much AMD fanboys are loud and noisy. anybody noticed if there is something slightly negative about AMD in a review every body SCREAMS how unfair the review is but nobody cares about Nvidia. for example performance per dollar is calculated based on 300$ GTX 1060 despite most 1060s are selling under 300$(most around 250$-) but nobody complained about that.


----------



## dyonoctis (Jul 22, 2016)

mmmh....If the RX 470 will be like the HD7950 of the HD7970, at 149 €, then it will actually be the real success.

I'm feeling like GCN is reaching it's limits. The 7870 could get a 20% overclock easy, (who even become factory setting with the R9 270x), meanwhile polaris seems to have so little room for improvement.

I wish they could have just suck with the "199€ VR gpu" even with the 8GB version. 199$ is what got ppl hyped, but instead we got a 249€ card a little too close from the 279€ of the 1060.

DX12/Vulkan is the only point were AMD is clearly winning, but those games are so few right now (Not counting DX12 tomb raider -_-).


----------



## Frick (Jul 22, 2016)

Smartcom5 said:


> Am i the only one who asking why the heck the actual *Crimson 16.7.2* isn't used?
> *Mantle* _anyone_?! Honestly, _what_ is this kind of advertorial?! Do you got paid for this?
> Something is clearly wrong on this for sure …
> 
> ...



Because it wouldn't have the same base as the reference review if he changed drivers. He's due for a big rebench, but that is lots of work and he has lots of cards on the review pile.


----------



## Caring1 (Jul 22, 2016)

Not happy AMD, I want this level of performance, using half the Watts.


----------



## Suka (Jul 22, 2016)

ShurikN said:


> Also I find it strange that the reference, as we know it, was throttling and never ran at the given boost speed. So this card which should be stable at 1300+ should be a bit faster than reference. Unless this card is throttling as well?


Check this video out I think it may answer the question


----------



## Suka (Jul 22, 2016)

FlanK3r said:


> its tsrange...No DX12/Vulcan titles. Who paid for it ,-)? No seriously. Need DX12 games also and I cant believe  much with GPU scaling, if I compare another review with stock RX 480 card vs OC GPU memory only and increase in %...There is something wrong.
> 
> http://www.hardwareluxx.de/index.ph...39615-amd-radeon-rx-480-im-test.html?start=25


TOmb Raider is in DX 12 mode


----------



## Tsukiyomi91 (Jul 22, 2016)

put it simple, there's like 90% of current games running DX11 APIs while there's barely 5% of new games came out recently, has DX12 as optional while remaining has additional support for Vulkan. While 2 of these new APIs are still in their infancy stage, I wouldn't put my hopes up for them until there are 50% of upcoming games shipped with DX12 sewn into them as standard.

wouldn't spend more cash over an aftermarket variant if this is where AIB vendors are going... I rather pick a reference card that they're selling, remove the shroud cooler & slap on either a GPU Bracket with compatible AIO fittings or go full custom water-cooling block via EKWB as those options has better cooling power over air.


----------



## Assimilator (Jul 22, 2016)

FlanK3r said:


> its tsrange...No DX12/Vulcan titles. Who paid for it ,-)? No seriously. Need DX12 games also and I cant believe  much with GPU scaling, if I compare another review with stock RX 480 card vs OC GPU memory only and increase in %...There is something wrong.
> 
> http://www.hardwareluxx.de/index.ph...39615-amd-radeon-rx-480-im-test.html?start=25



Do you mouth-breathers even read past the pretty charts? https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/RX_480_STRIX_OC/28.html



			
				W1zzard said:
			
		

> I'm slightly undecided on DirectX 12, which is currently in its infancy, and only time can tell how much the power balance will shift in 2017 when more DX12 titles will be released and developers have had time to garner more experience with the API.





Caring1 said:


> Not happy AMD, I want this level of performance, using half the Watts.



Buy Pascal, problem solved. #JustSaying


----------



## FlanK3r (Jul 22, 2016)

W1zzard said:


> The relative OC is smaller because the ASUS card is overclocked out of the box.
> 
> Ref at 1335 / 2250 gets 77.0 FPS.
> ASUS at 1355 / 2250 gets 79.0 FPS.
> ...



Friend, not true. Stocks clocks are 1335/2000 MHz. And you cna try compare stock vs 1335/2250 in few games. You must see solid increase of performance in FHD.



truth teller said:


> letting asus in charge of releasing a good custom graphics card
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Its because direct contact between heatpipes help also to lower temps. The heat is not only  from the core to the 3 heatpipes, but  the heatpipes at the edges help to expand "directheat" from 3 heatpipes (higher flat)


----------



## Caring1 (Jul 22, 2016)

FlanK3r said:


> Frined, not true. Stocks clocks are 1335/2000 MHz. And you cna try compare stock vs 1335/2250 in few games. You must see solid increase of performance in FHD.


I'm seeing a lot of stock cards around 1288 / 2000 and 1266 / 2000


----------



## FlanK3r (Jul 22, 2016)

I mean (and he also mentioned) the "stock" of Strix card.
Because in average you can have +7% increase only if you overclock the memory from 2000 to 2250 MHz (without taking the core clocks).
Look at this: http://www.hardwareluxx.de/index.ph...39615-amd-radeon-rx-480-im-test.html?start=25
They tested how RX 480 perform with memory clocks

//update
RX-480 Strix in average at Computerbase



in OC manufacture mode is +2% better than GTX1060 reference card


----------



## hojnikb (Jul 22, 2016)

W1zzard said:


> Yes I have the 1060 STRIX here



What about palit or gainward cards ? They seem to be selling for 279€, which is really good pricing for EU.



dyonoctis said:


> mmmh....If the RX 470 will be like the HD7950 of the HD7970, at 149 €, then it will actually be the real success.
> 
> I'm feeling like GCN is reaching it's limits. The 7870 could get a 20% overclock easy, (who even become factory setting with the R9 270x), meanwhile polaris seems to have so little room for improvement.
> 
> ...





dyonoctis said:


> mmmh....If the RX 470 will be like the HD7950 of the HD7970, at 149 €, then it will actually be the real success.
> 
> *I'm feeling like GCN is reaching it's limits. The 7870 could get a 20% overclock easy, (who even become factory setting with the R9 270x), meanwhile polaris seems to have so little room for improvement.*
> 
> ...


Actually, 270x has the same baseclock and a 50Mhz boostclock OC, so not much. The real improvement is memory bandwidh, which was upped from 1200 to 1400Mhz


----------



## rhythmeister (Jul 22, 2016)

ShurikN said:


> If they are greedy, why buy their card


To send AMD a message, I want more performance for my hard earned pounds! I had such high hopes for the RX 480, it's just not lived up to my expectations


----------



## xenocide (Jul 22, 2016)

A 3% OC is really unimpressive.  I think I'm settled on a 1060 for my next card.  Was hoping AIB 480's could close the gap but apparently not.


----------



## FlanK3r (Jul 22, 2016)

Manual OC is possible  via another BIOS up to 1450 MHz. But The Stilt from AMD told at another forum, 14nm process for these Polaris cards is not very well for high clocks.


----------



## LooKMaYnE (Jul 22, 2016)

W1zzard said:


> I had to remove the World of Warcraft benchmarks, they prepatched to the next expansion which changes a lot of graphics settings related stuff, so new benchmark data is invalid.



Will you be re-adding it in future? TPU is like the only site that uses WoW in benchmarks, i really like it.


----------



## W1zzard (Jul 22, 2016)

LooKMaYnE said:


> Will you be re-adding it in future? TPU is like the only site that uses WoW in benchmarks, i really like it.


Yes


----------



## -The_Mask- (Jul 22, 2016)

W1zzard said:


> Yes


W1zzard can you do the OC with OC profile, like Computerbase?
https://www.computerbase.de/2016-07/asus-radeon-rx-480-strix-test/4/


----------



## FlanK3r (Jul 22, 2016)

Maybe as new article OC Guide for RX 480?


----------



## PerfectWave (Jul 22, 2016)

wondering why using old drivers.......


----------



## rtwjunkie (Jul 22, 2016)

PerfectWave said:


> wondering why using old drivers.......



This was already covered within just this page, which was a repeat of W1zzard's statement on the fact from earlier.


----------



## PerfectWave (Jul 22, 2016)

Better switch website for getting good benchmark sadly


----------



## Adam Freeman (Jul 22, 2016)

As mentioned in computerbase.de review of the same card RX 480 strix, the reason of the high noise level is default setting
for the temperature target which is 65c so it results in 2100 rpm noisy fan speed and 41.5db noise level. When setting the temperature
target to 80c, the fan speed dropped down to 1350 rpm and the noise level to 32db. I believe the temperature target is set to 65c by mistake.
https://www.computerbase.de/2016-07/asus-radeon-rx-480-strix-test/4/


----------



## dyonoctis (Jul 22, 2016)

hojnikb said:


> Actually, 270x has the same baseclock and a 50Mhz boostclock OC, so not much. The real improvement is memory bandwidh, which was upped from 1200 to 1400Mhz


Yhea, my bad. But you could still get a + 200 mhz oc with a good sample. the real shame for me was the use of elpida chip instead of samsung on the custom board. the reference design could get 1700 mhz on the memory, while the best custom could only reach 1590 mhz.


----------



## W1zzard (Jul 22, 2016)

Adam Freeman said:


> As mentioned in computerbase.de review of the same card RX 480 strix, the reason of the high noise level is default settingfor the temperature target which is 65c[...] When setting the temperature
> target to 80c, the fan speed dropped down[..] I believe the temperature target is set to 65c by mistake.


That's pretty much exactly what I wrote in my review, and I also mentioned my test with higher temp target in the conclusion. Did you read the review?


----------



## JBVertexx (Jul 22, 2016)

Disappointed in this first custom board.  Are there any 4GB variants on the horizon?


----------



## Tsukiyomi91 (Jul 22, 2016)

3% gain after OC is kinda lame while a stock non-FE GTX1060 gained 14% for $250.


----------



## Caring1 (Jul 22, 2016)

PerfectWave said:


> Better switch website for getting good benchmark sadly


Bye. 

@W1zzard  is there any reason the R9 Nano isn't included in the test cards?
I believe it sits between the Fury and Fury X so would be interested in how it competes with the new RX480.


----------



## Adam Freeman (Jul 22, 2016)

W1zzard said:


> That's pretty much exactly what I wrote in my review, and I also mentioned my test with higher temp target in the conclusion. Did you read the review?


Surely I read the review but I focused on the benchmarks, I didn't read all the conclusion. It is bad mistake by Asus
to set the temperature target to low value raising noise level witch most customers nowadays focus on when deciding
which graphic card to buy.


----------



## HD64G (Jul 22, 2016)

Caring1 said:


> Not happy AMD, I want this level of performance, using half the Watts.


And I want the triple payment for my work but I live in a poor country atm. So, just get realistic. RX470 is the most efficient GPU of AMD for now. Vega will get even better and get closer to Pascal.


----------



## W1zzard (Jul 22, 2016)

Caring1 said:


> is there any reason the R9 Nano isn't included in the test cards?


I don't have one


----------



## HD64G (Jul 22, 2016)

xenocide said:


> A 3% OC is really unimpressive.  I think I'm settled on a 1060 for my next card.  Was hoping AIB 480's could close the gap but apparently not.


A few days for Sapphire Nitro+ OC to land in market. After the review, let's dicuss again about which is the best GPU for up to $300.


----------



## mrthanhnguyen (Jul 22, 2016)

AMD uses the same trick again. Wait for NVIDIA card then they have a performance target. They will launch VEGA when its a little faster than 1070-1080. Now we have a new Titan X with Pascal architecture. AMD need more time to wait for the perf of the  new TITAN X and work something on it product. All I can see about the Nitro+ on reddit (no proof at the moment) is a slideshow of 1420mhz rx480 beats 2100mhz gtx 1060. If it really can hit 1420mhz for ALL THE CARD, AMD fans must be very happy.


----------



## ShurikN (Jul 22, 2016)

HD64G said:


> A few days for Sapphire Nitro+ OC to land in market. After the review, let's dicuss again about which is the best GPU for up to $300.


Here are the specs and prices

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/sapphire-nitro-radeon-rx-480,32306.html


----------



## Casecutter (Jul 22, 2016)

IDK, this review seems off in many ways to use it to make any judgment at this point would be a disfavor.

I'm waiting for more reviews a other AIB's before I call anything.  I'm waiting for Sapphire Nitro and PC's PCS+ versions, the 4Gb prices in those for 1080p hold the most for the regular gamers.


----------



## rubenclavs (Jul 22, 2016)

Oh no. Another biased review towards Nvidia showing custom RX480s are not worth it compared to 1060.

Guys we need to check fair reviews starting now on.

And also, Sapphire is now reviewed.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3098...480-review-polaris-rethought-and-refined.html


----------



## rtwjunkie (Jul 22, 2016)

rubenclavs said:


> Oh no. Another biased review towards Nvidia showing custom RX480s are not worth it compared to 1060.
> 
> Guys we need to check fair reviews starting now on.
> 
> ...



Just so you know, someone else, instead of providing constructive thoughts and criticisms, thought he could continually make allegations that W1z is biased.  See what happened:  https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/asus-rx-480-strix-8-gb.224311/page-2#post-3492861


----------



## rubenclavs (Jul 22, 2016)

@rtwjunkie

I don't care what will happen. Maybe W1z is just guilty or something? HAHAHAHAHA

And also if I will be banned for life here, there are way more good review sites like Guru3d, Toms, TechSpot and etc to read on.

Oh, and if W1z got the Sapphire, in the conclusion page he will still be recommending the 1060 cards hahaha which is at around $249 to $309.

Sapphire Nitro+ RX 480 4GB @ $219 in PC World beats 1060 reference in some games. So do you think W1z will recommend this over the 1060?

We will find out next week or so. Go W1z!


----------



## mrthanhnguyen (Jul 22, 2016)

rubenclavs said:


> @rtwjunkie
> 
> I don't care what will happen. Maybe W1z is just guilty or something? HAHAHAHAHA
> 
> And also if I will be banned for life here, there are way more good review sites like Guru3d, Toms, TechSpot and etc to read on.



1400mhz OC on the nitro and the gain is massive 1-2 fps. Its in line with Wizard review here in term of OC. Other benchmark is different because they use different bench system.


----------



## rtwjunkie (Jul 22, 2016)

rubenclavs said:


> And also if I will be banned for life here, there are way more good review sites like Guru3d, Toms, TechSpot and etc to read on.



ROFLMAO!!!! You wouldn't know a good review site if it hit you in the ass.


I read "Toms" and literally sprayed soda on my monitor it was so instantaneously funny!  Good thing it belongs to my work.


----------



## Tsukiyomi91 (Jul 22, 2016)

"Sapphire Nitro+ RX 480 4GB @ $219 in PC World beats 1060 reference in some games" yea right... comparing a stock clocked non-FE GTX1060 VS manually OCed RX480 on DX12 + A-Sync driven games. A very "fair" comparison right there lel


----------



## Dimi (Jul 22, 2016)

I find it so funny how nvidia gets blaimed for price gouging on the 1070's and 1080's when the only AVAILABLE for purcchase RX 480's on newegg are these 2 listed.

380$ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA85V4N59840
410$ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA85V4ME3998

No offense but for a few dollars more (excellent movie btw) you can buy this 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127955

290$ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125881

GG AMD


----------



## Tsukiyomi91 (Jul 22, 2016)

@Dimi hahahaha let them AMD fanboys get burned when they see that xD


----------



## Tsukiyomi91 (Jul 22, 2016)

to make things worst, over here in Malaysia, ASUS STRIX RX480 costs over MYR2k with tax while Zotac's GTX1060 AMP! Edition costs around MYR1400 with tax. While DX12 is starting to gain traction, DX11 is still the dominant API. So, for now the 1060 is the cheapest best performing mid-range card for 1080p in my country now.


----------



## Dethroy (Jul 22, 2016)

I just read this @ eteknix regarding noise ...



> Annoyingly, a driver bug prevented me from accurately assessing the load noise output which is the reason why there’s no data being displayed below. AMD’s latest driver automatically overrides Sapphire’s tuned fan profile which results in ridiculously fast fan speeds above 2300RPM. Apparently, it’s because AMD targeted a 65C delta instead of 75C which the Sapphire model’s cooling apparatus is based upon.


----------



## Adam Freeman (Jul 22, 2016)

Dimi said:


> I find it so funny how nvidia gets blaimed for price gouging on the 1070's and 1080's when the only AVAILABLE for purcchase RX 480's on newegg are these 2 listed.
> 
> 380$ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA85V4N59840
> 410$ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA85V4ME3998
> ...


These RX 480s you are referring to are sold and shipped by external seller named OutletPC whereas other 
normally priced RX 480s are sold and shipped by newegg. There are many external sellers that deals with
newegg like saveMart, antonline and many others in many countries and the price for the item is caluculated
depending on taxes and shipping costs to such countries. That is why you might see high prices for
some graphics cards or other computer parts sold by some external seller. Here is some other examples
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA85V4NF3264
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA0AJ49S4705
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA0AJ40W5929


----------



## mrthanhnguyen (Jul 22, 2016)

Adam Freeman said:


> These RX 480s you are referring to are sold and shipped by external seller named OutletPC whereas other
> normally priced RX 480s are sold and shipped by newegg. There are many external sellers that deals with
> newegg like saveMart, antonline and many others in many countries and the price for the item is caluculated
> depending on taxes and shipping costs to such countries. That is why you might see high prices for
> ...



His point of view is the RX480 has nothing available at the MSRP. Same story as the 1070/1080, no better no worse.


----------



## mrthanhnguyen (Jul 22, 2016)

W1zzard said:


> I don't have one


Did you increase the power limit when OC?Coz I read some guys said the gain 1-2 fps when OC with this card is due to not increase power limit.


----------



## Kissamies (Jul 22, 2016)

That OC potential (or rather not having it) is the worst in 480's.


----------



## rtwjunkie (Jul 22, 2016)

9700 Pro said:


> That OC potential (or rather not having it) is the worst in 480's



I'm actually curious why this is a big deal to people.  Honestly curious. 
My reasoning is look how well it already does at 1080p, where the 480's were intended for.  OC is not really a necessity, and so should not count against it, IMO.


----------



## Kissamies (Jul 22, 2016)

rtwjunkie said:


> I'm actually curious why this is a big deal to people.  Honestly curious.
> My reasoning is look how well it already does at 1080p, where the 480's were intended for.  OC is not really a necessity, and so should not count against it, IMO.


Well, RX480 would be the thing for me, but since I always OC my gear to the max, 480 isn't the thing to me. I rather get a cheap GTX970 from my friend, with 100eur it's cheap as hell.


----------



## Dethroy (Jul 22, 2016)

Sapphire Nitro+ 4GB OC results from PCWorld


----------



## rtwjunkie (Jul 22, 2016)

Dethroy said:


> Sapphire Nitro+ 4GB OC results from PCWorld



Now THAT is what I was expecting from Sapphire!  The review shows something completely different than the ASUS offering.


----------



## Fluffmeister (Jul 22, 2016)

Dethroy said:


> Sapphire Nitro+ 4GB OC results from PCWorld



Nothing too exciting in the end then.


----------



## Dethroy (Jul 22, 2016)

rtwjunkie said:


> Now THAT is what I was expecting from Sapphire!  The review shows something completely different than the ASUS offering.


Here is a review of the Sapphire Nitro+ OC 8GB card in case you haven't read it yet. And as I mentioned earlier the review states that the Sapphire card is also trying to cool itself down to 65C instead of 75C due to a bug introduced by AMD's latest patch. Hence ASUS is probably not to blame.


> Annoyingly, a driver bug prevented me from accurately assessing the load noise output which is the reason why there’s no data being displayed below. AMD’s latest driver automatically overrides Sapphire’s tuned fan profile which results in ridiculously fast fan speeds above 2300RPM. Apparently, it’s because AMD targeted a 65C delta instead of 75C which the Sapphire model’s cooling apparatus is based upon.


----------



## ShurikN (Jul 23, 2016)

Seems to me that the 4GB Sapphire Nitro is the one to go for. And at $220 nothing can match it on price/performance. Also what I said about 4+GB seems true, for FHD you don't need more than 4. And for 1440p the gpu itself is not that strong, so having more ram doesn't help.


----------



## nem.. (Jul 23, 2016)

let's burn nitro


----------



## Jism (Jul 23, 2016)

So many people posting about 'waiting' for custom AIB's...

Here it is and the only positive is the lower temps and in some occasions, noise. The thing still OC's like marginally better then AMD card.

I guess buying an AMD R480X itself is more then enough.


----------



## Fluffmeister (Jul 23, 2016)

Jism said:


> So many people posting about 'waiting' for custom AIB's...
> 
> Here it is and the only positive is the lower temps and in some occasions, noise. The thing still OC's like marginally better then AMD card.
> 
> I guess buying an AMD R480X itself is more then enough.



The efficiency of the card seems to take a nose dive too, and that certainly wasn't award winning to begin with.

Based on the new found love of Doom Vulkan benches it seems people just want loads of performance, top of the range pure performance and not in fact middling mediocrity.

Let's all hope the serious competition turns up at some stage.

OMG I am turning into Donald Trump.


----------



## illli (Jul 23, 2016)

This video card failed to impress me. You'd think with a MASSIVE heatsink and THREE fans, they could have mustered a little more impressive than a measly 44mhz clock over the normal reference card 

also, some of the 1060 numbers were missing? for example in the power draw graphs


----------



## Jism (Jul 23, 2016)

AMD cards are usually already maxed out on performance, we get a very little OC headroom and it only gets better when you apply some cold stuff and extra voltage to it. A huge or large cooler is'nt upping performance, clocks are. And that chip is'nt limited by heat.

But what's the purpose of running an OC'ed card way beyond it's designed specs. You are throwing away efficienty at that moment. I have the AMD 480X, never touched OC'ing because the game a play do perfectly fine. At some point get another one, and enjoy up to 50% scaling in CF.

It's a good card, sure, hits the sweetspot starting from 200$ up the way to 300, but i wonder if that extra money is worth it.


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## illli (Jul 23, 2016)

so basically it is GLOFLO and their crappy process then?  And Asus making a card with a totally unnecessary massive heatsink and 3 fans?


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## Jism (Jul 23, 2016)

Yeah, sort of, and that AMD does'nt offer that much headroom by already maxing out the proces. But the card could be more silent and cooler with a better heatsink, and some people prefer a more beefyer heatsink then the AMD's standard.


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## Nabarun (Jul 23, 2016)

@W1zzard Thanks for the review. I don't comment much but I do keep visiting everyday. This is just to let you know that there's a typo in the front page of the review:



> In this review, we are taking a first look at a custom-design Radeon RX 480 version. This one is by ASUS. The ASUS STRIX series is well known and covers pretty much every segment of the graphics card market. ASUS uses a dual-slot, *dual-fan* thermal solution with heatpipes that make direct contact with the GPU.


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## abundantcores (Jul 23, 2016)

Unfortunately mainstream reviewers are no longer relevant, they have all gone to #### with following the review guides Nvidia sent out, They are just marketing arms for Nvidia.

Which is a shame because Nvidia are trying to push AMD into going bust and reviewers like this are happy to help, its disgusting.

This independent reviewer knows whats going on.


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## Fatsodonkey (Jul 23, 2016)

Why these new gpu's suck at overclocking?


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## illli (Jul 23, 2016)

Fatsodonkey said:


> Why these new gpu's suck at overclocking?



the more I think about it, the more I believe GLOFLO is just a mediocre fab


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## W1zzard (Jul 23, 2016)

Nabarun said:


> This is just to let you know that there's a typo in the front page of the review:


Thanks, fixed!


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## Stefan Payne (Jul 23, 2016)

Hey, could you please test the temperature of the card again with a little copper plate between the DIE and the Heatsink??

With the old ASUS R9-290X it made a difference of about 7-10K...


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## Tatty_One (Jul 23, 2016)

abundantcores said:


> Unfortunately mainstream reviewers are no longer relevant, they have all gone to #### with following the review guides Nvidia sent out, They are just marketing arms for Nvidia.
> 
> Which is a shame because Nvidia are trying to push AMD into going bust and reviewers like this are happy to help, its disgusting.
> 
> This independent reviewer knows whats going on.


We can all be independent reviewers after the release has gone to retail of course, I assume from your comments you know that AMD do not provide any form of review guidance?


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## abundantcores (Jul 23, 2016)

Tatty_One said:


> We can all be independent reviewers after the release has gone to retail of course, I assume from your comments you know that AMD do not provide any form of review guidance?



If they do they either don't include dictating what games to test and what not to test or they are not being followed, nor should they be.


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## etayorius (Jul 23, 2016)

I don`t care if there are 1 game or 10 titles Supporting DX12 as of now, when i buy a GPU i look at all features, and *DX12 is a feature* and just so happens that i may be playing a Game Supporting DX12 Or Vulkan that will make my experience even better, so when i see a review i really expect these New APIs be thrown in the mix of the benchmarks.

I`m not throwing any accusations on this site, but back in the PhysX days i remember tons of ATi GPUs getting many "thumbs down" for not supporting PhysX, and don`t come up with the AMD Fanboy tag, so far i owned several GeForces since i started Gaming on PC back in 2004 like the FX5200, 7300GT, 8800GT, GTX470 and currently own a 780Ti and i plan to move toward a GTX1070. I have only owned a HD5770 and it was not that bad, but most newer GeForce i used after were much much better in all regards, but i really think that for fairness DX12 and Vulkan should be thrown into the benchmarks, why use DX12 for RotTR if it`s the worst case scenario of a DX12 Title? makes no sense... not giving DX12/Vulkan benchmarks because they are not relevant as of now would be a very bad statement (No one at TPU has claim this though).

It`s not about how relevant New LowLvl API's are now, it`s about Features that add up into the final performance of each GPU, if it`s a feature that add more performance it should be benchmark Period. Or at the very least thrown as an optional/separate benchmark.

I think AMD CPU's are crap, i used to have a PhenomII. Their GPU's are not as bad, but i think the RX480 is fail in regards of performance/TDP, i can see the RX480 being a nice option to people with a 200/250 Price Range that have a slower older GPU, but Please let the reviews be *fair.*

Like my GTX780Ti, i see a performance loss by switching from OpenGL to Vulkan... that's why i want to see DX12/Vulkan to see how much performance i could get with those API's on my next GPU.


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## Tatty_One (Jul 23, 2016)

abundantcores said:


> If they do they either don't include dictating what games to test and what not to test or they are not being followed, nor should they be.


So you know that?  I only ask for 2 reasons, firstly you start your reply with "if they do" which suggests you don't know for sure, but then you go on to make a conclusion, but secondly I only asked the question because I would find it odd that if one did the other wouldn't, simply because it would then be an unfair playing field so my instinct tells me they possibly both do but maybe in different ways, it just appears that in this case it has gone public, clearly though I don't know.


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## akaloith (Jul 23, 2016)

from http://www.techspot.com/review/1209-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1060/page10.html

DirectX 11
GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB) 58fps
Radeon RX 480 (4GB) 52fps

DirectX 12 / Vulkan
GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB) 60fps
Radeon RX 480 (4GB) 61fps




 



The Radeon RX480 4GB especially the Sapphire custom one is unbeatable for 1080p gamming if found for 200-220$

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/sapp...ddr5-pci-express-graphics-card-gx-37d-sp.html

***Use the edit button, don't triple post

ok now i saw the edit button  sorryyy


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## Jism (Jul 23, 2016)

Yeah please dont listen to youtube channels or vids, they are there for ads / revenue and are usually non-objective.


etayorius said:


> Like my GTX780Ti, i see a performance loss by switching from OpenGL to Vulkan... that's why i want to see DX12/Vulkan to see how much performance i could get with those API's on my next GPU.



Vulkan is designed to take advantage of asynchronous compute which that TI fails todo so. You wont see any gains switching from OpenGL to Vulkan API in games on Nvidia cards in general.

Doom is a pretty solid example on how AMD cards get the best out of asynchronous compute.


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## anubis44 (Jul 24, 2016)

sutyi said:


> Welp, noisy fans are a no go for me.



Your wish is Sapphire's command: http://www.pcworld.com/article/3098...480-review-polaris-rethought-and-refined.html


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## zzzaac (Jul 24, 2016)

Seriously, for the premium Asus charges over the others, they put out very average cards. I remember when they just slapped on the cooler they used on a Nvidia card to an AMD one.


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## Fluffmeister (Jul 24, 2016)

Jism said:


> Vulkan is designed to take advantage of asynchronous compute which that TI fails todo so. You wont see any gains switching from OpenGL to Vulkan API in games on Nvidia cards in general.
> 
> Doom is a pretty solid example on how AMD cards get the best out of asynchronous compute.



Nvdia really offer consistent performance right across the board, and they certainly do far better when CPU limited, whether it's OpenGl or Vulkan:





I assume the people in the maket for a RX480 or 1060 isn't also packing a 6700K CPU.


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## abundantcores (Jul 24, 2016)

Fluffmeister said:


> Nvdia really offer consistent performance right across the board, and they certainly do far better when CPU limited, whether it's OpenGl or Vulkan:
> Pic Snip*
> I assume the people in the maket for a RX480 or 1060 isn't also packing a 6700K CPU.



You don't have to have a 6700K, don't daft, it works on any FX series and Ivy Bridge CPU or newer, those ancient CPU's on that chart are too old and no doubt lacking extensions.


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## Fluffmeister (Jul 24, 2016)

The point is simple, the 1060 is less CPU limited, and will offer more performance on a wider range of low end systems.

The 480 does shine when not CPU, so don't be too mad.


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## abundantcores (Jul 24, 2016)

Fluffmeister said:


> The point is simple, the 1060 is less CPU limited, and will offer more performance on a wider range of low end systems.
> 
> The 480 does shine when not CPU, so don't be too mad.



When it comes to DX11 and OpenGL yes they do.

Nvidia put what resources they have in supporting the past while AMD build sophisticated API's and then give them away so they can be used to push game development to new levels.

I have an Nvidia GPU but right now i have to say i'm far more excited about what AMD are doing and disappointed about Nvidia's lack of vision.
All they are interested in is the status quo and broken asset libraries... because it suits them and no one else.


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## Fluffmeister (Jul 24, 2016)

True nVidia addressed their CPU overhead with DX11 too, which should be commended, sure it shows less improvement going to DX12 like it did for AMD, but then that is just people celebrating mediocrity.


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## abundantcores (Jul 24, 2016)

Fluffmeister said:


> True nVidia addressed their CPU overhead with DX11 too, which should be commended, sure it shows less improvement going to DX12 like it did for AMD, but then that is just people celebrating mediocrity.



Mediocrity? i presume you are talking about the RX 480?
You said yourself AMD are bottlenecked in DX11.
DX12 / Vulkan is where it isn't, where its true performance is free to stretch its leg, there where its on paper performance throughput compared with the 1060 is put into practice, its a significantly more powerful card than the 1060.

AMD could have put all the time and money they put into Mantle into improving DX11 for themselves instead, like Nvidia did and this conversation would have been very different, but they didn't and we are.

As a result we now have more than one API monopolised by Microsoft, hell Vulkan is thought to be much better than DX12 let alone DX11 which Microsoft flat out refused to upgrade until Mantle came along.
It also means we don't have to be tied to Microsoft.

And all we can talk about is AMD as some sort of pseudo failure?


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## Dimi (Jul 24, 2016)

Yes better in Vulkan, but the power draw is ridiculous. That alone is a massive failure to me.

Having 2 monitors, buying a 1060 would save me about 150 KW/h per year on combined idle/gaming power draw per year. Which results in roughly 60 EURO per year. 

As i do about 3 years per GPU. I'd save around 180 EURO on power alone. I could almost buy my wife a new card from the money saved on electricity!


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## abundantcores (Jul 24, 2016)

Dimi said:


> Yes better in Vulkan, but the power draw is ridiculous. That alone is a massive failure to me.
> 
> Having 2 monitors, buying a 1060 would save me about 150 KW/h per year on combined idle/gaming power draw per year. Which results in roughly 60 EURO per year.
> 
> As i do about 3 years per GPU. I'd save around 180 EURO on power alone. I could almost buy my wife a new card from the money saved on electricity!



Thats some proper expensive electricity you have there


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## Alduin (Jul 25, 2016)

I have to say i'm not disappointed and not surprised by amd. because the performance of rx 480 is Clearly good
But efficiency is not good enough. i think
it's not Globalfoundries fault. GCN cores 
are power hungry. but gaming powerdraw  
of polaris 10 Is good And is comparable to Maxwell.Pascal is hard to catch


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## Fluffmeister (Jul 25, 2016)

abundantcores said:


> Mediocrity? i presume you are talking about the RX 480?
> You said yourself AMD are bottlenecked in DX11.
> DX12 / Vulkan is where it isn't, where its true performance is free to stretch its leg, there where its on paper performance throughput compared with the 1060 is put into practice, its a significantly more powerful card than the 1060.
> 
> ...



Again, these new API's are about reducing overhead, why is it a bad thing that nV can address it in DX11 and OpenGL yet AMD can't?

Nv provide great performance right across the board, you don't need to wait for new API's if your packing a slower CPU.



abundantcores said:


> You don't have to have a 6700K, don't [be] daft, it works on any FX series and Ivy Bridge CPU or newer, those ancient CPU's on that chart are too old and no doubt lacking extensions.



Yet Nv don't suffer nearly as much, in fact they offer great performance as i said.

I'm not knocking the 480, I'm merely pointing out an awkward truth.


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## abundantcores (Jul 25, 2016)

Fluffmeister said:


> Again, these new API's are about reducing overhead, why is it a bad thing that nV can address it in DX11 and OpenGL yet AMD can't?
> 
> Nv provide great performance right across the board, you don't need to wait for new API's if your packing a slower CPU.
> 
> ...



Clearly there are limits to Nvidia's DX11 hacks, the technology in all these low level API's is clearly better.
Instead of criticizing AMD for not being as good with old technology as Nvidia your energy would be well spent being critical of Nvidia still not supporting this technology after promising it already with Maxwell and still not available on Pascal.


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## Fluffmeister (Jul 25, 2016)

abundantcores said:


> Clearly there are limits to Nvidia's DX11 hacks, the technology in all these low level API's is clearly better.
> Instead of criticizing AMD for not being as good with old technology as Nvidia your energy would be well spent being critical of Nvidia still not supporting this technology after promising it already with Maxwell and still not available on Pascal.



No, I'm merely trying to put these results into context, these cards are aimed at budget gamers after all, or aren't they?

The HardOCP Vulkan results posted in this thread were also done with a 6700K @ 4.7Ghz for example, great results they were too, but it's not exactly a true reflection of the target audiences setup.

And DX11 has been around long enough, no excuses now.


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## N3M3515 (Jul 25, 2016)

Tsukiyomi91 said:


> "Sapphire Nitro+ RX 480 4GB @ $219 in PC World beats 1060 reference in some games" yea right... comparing a stock clocked non-FE GTX1060 VS manually OCed RX480 on DX12 + A-Sync driven games. A very "fair" comparison right there lel



Not to be an asshole but it would be unfair to the rx480 haha, after all it is a good 30 bucks cheaper than FE 1060


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## abundantcores (Jul 25, 2016)

Fluffmeister said:


> No, I'm merely trying to put these results into context, these cards are aimed at budget gamers after all, or aren't they?
> 
> The HardOCP Vulkan results posted in this thread were also done with a 6700K @ 4.7Ghz for example, great results they were too, but it's not exactly a true reflection of the target audiences setup.
> 
> And DX11 has been around long enough, no excuses now.



You on with that 6700K again? you don't need a CPU anything like that, this is the beauty of it, much lower performance CPU's will give you the same game performance, where as in DX11 it will be worse.


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## Fluffmeister (Jul 25, 2016)

abundantcores said:


> You on with that 6700K again? you don't need a CPU anything like that, this is the beauty of it, much lower performance CPU's will give you the same game performance, where as in DX11 it will be worse.



Worse with AMD.


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## mastershake575 (Jul 25, 2016)

What the hell is AMD doing ? 

AMD delayed a lot with AIB RX 480 cards. On the contrary we could find AIB GTX1060 from day1.

AMD did a poor job with reference RX480 aswell.

So... How did they manage to turn a situation where they will play alone in the $250 market to this mess?

This magnitude of fail is fishy. Do they have people inside AMD that will be benefit from AMD going bankrupt?


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## [502] (Jul 25, 2016)

mastershake575 said:


> What the hell is AMD doing ?
> 
> AMD delayed a lot with AIB RX 480 cards. On the contrary we could find AIB GTX1060 from day1.
> 
> ...


The same thing happened with GTX1080. Perhaps they didn't have enough chips.


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## tuklap (Jul 25, 2016)

My r9 290x is still relevant compared to RX 480.. hence... no upgrade for me wahahaha!


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## dwade (Jul 26, 2016)

AIB cards are still no where to be found. Many people such as myself surrendered to the GTX 1060 for $230 @ Newegg. So much for trying to support AMD when they have failed themselves...


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## abundantcores (Jul 26, 2016)

Well there is some good news, AMD shares grew 15% today, its added about $500m to their Market Cap. they are higher today than they have been since late 2011.

http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/amd


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## THU31 (Jul 26, 2016)

The power consumption of these cards is so bad.

GCN was designed with consoles in mind, so AMD are not making any significant changes in the architecture, in order to keep the best compatibility for the console refresh (Scorpio and Neo). Without those changes the efficiency cannot change much either, which is why at 14 nm they achieved what NVIDIA did at 28 nm with Maxwell.

For the same reason AMD GPUs do so well in low-level APIs, that is what they were designed for years ago, for the future. I hope they continue to do well in DX12/Vulkan games, because I want them to force NVIDIA to drop the prices of their overpriced Pascal cards. I want my cards to be inaudible (silence>performance), but I will not pay that much for the 1070. I am sticking with my 970 for now.


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## Shatun_Bear (Jul 26, 2016)

Hmmm there are more problems with this review.

W1zzard your OC results are way off from those in KitGuru's review released today. They managed 1400Mhz OC and could have pushed further but the sliders in GPU Tweak were maxed at that setting. What overclocking software did you use? 3% overclock didn't make sense even before KitGuru's review tbh.

http://www.kitguru.net/components/g...us-rx-480-strix-gaming-oc-aura-rgb-8192mb/30/







Also, your power consumption figures seem particularly unfavourable for the card. KitGuru measure total system power draw but their tests show the card draws less under load than a non-reference 970:






http://www.kitguru.net/components/g...us-rx-480-strix-gaming-oc-aura-rgb-8192mb/29/


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## mrthanhnguyen (Jul 27, 2016)

Shatun_Bear said:


> Hmmm there are more problems with this review.
> 
> W1zzard your OC results are way off from those in KitGuru's review released today. They managed 1400Mhz OC and could have pushed further but the sliders in GPU Tweak were maxed at that setting. What overclocking software did you use? 3% overclock didn't make sense even before KitGuru's review tbh.
> 
> ...



First, your card can hit 1.4Ghz doesn't mean all other cards can hit the same 1.4Ghz. Second, 3dmark gives 6% gain doesn't mean it gains 6% in games.


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## Shatun_Bear (Jul 27, 2016)

mrthanhnguyen said:


> First, your card can hit 1.4Ghz doesn't mean all other cards can hit the same 1.4Ghz. Second, 3dmark gives 6% gain doesn't mean it gains 6% in games.



It's disingenuous of W1zzard to test this card using WattMan when WattMan is buggy. There's a Nitro OC+ review from KitGuru today and again, they said they could possibly achieve higher overclocks (than 1390 this time) with the Nitro but AMD's OC software is sh*te and the voltage control doesn't even work.

So we should wait for Trixx.


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## W1zzard (Jul 28, 2016)

Shatun_Bear said:


> It's disingenuous of W1zzard to test this card using WattMan when WattMan is buggy. There's a Nitro OC+ review from KitGuru today and again, they said they could possibly achieve higher overclocks (than 1390 this time) with the Nitro but AMD's OC software is sh*te and the voltage control doesn't even work.


Who said I'm using WattMan?

I recommend you buy a RX480, test maximum stable clock in 3DMark, then test maximum stable clock in various games.



Shatun_Bear said:


> their tests show the card draws less under load than a non-reference 970:


How's that compared to a reference 970 ?


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## mrthanhnguyen (Jul 28, 2016)

Shatun_Bear said:


> It's disingenuous of W1zzard to test this card using WattMan when WattMan is buggy. There's a Nitro OC+ review from KitGuru today and again, they said they could possibly achieve higher overclocks (than 1390 this time) with the Nitro but AMD's OC software is sh*te and the voltage control doesn't even work.
> 
> So we should wait for Trixx.



Did you watch Joker? His nitro hits only 1342mhz.


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## elcedion (Jul 29, 2016)

tuklap said:


> My r9 290x is still relevant compared to RX 480.. hence... no upgrade for me wahahaha!



The R9 290X release price was $550 and the RX 480 release price is $240, you have to wait the RX 490X for a serious upgrade.


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## medi01 (Aug 9, 2016)

Dimi said:


> Yes better in Vulkan, but the power draw is ridiculous.


Ditto.
But Anandtech reported 37w more AT POWER SOCKET in ref 480 vs FE 1060 while running Crysis 3.


That goes vs what TPU and most other sites are reporting, although they are trying to measure it right at the GPU (it still doesn't explain the difference, if anything, Anand should have seen ever bigger numbers, since PSUs have about 80% efficiency) what is much harder to do right, compared to what Anandtech is measuring.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10540/the-geforce-gtx-1060-founders-edition-asus-strix-review/16

PS
Oh, kitguru seems to also agree with Anandtech more than with TPU (and a number of others).

Anyhow, total system power consumption is more interesting, since it takes into account CPU load (which might be different from card to card) and is more reliable in general.


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## Athlonite (Jul 21, 2017)

Apparently this same card with a modded BIOS is now being sold by Asus as the 

ASUS ROG-STRIX-RX580-O8G-GAMING  

with 1380MHz OC clock and 1360MHz gaming clock


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