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Sapphire Reference Radeon RX 480 Taken Apart, Pictured Some More

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A Sapphire branded AMD reference design Radeon RX 480 graphics card was taken apart, giving us an early close look at the card and its key components. The pictures reveal pretty much the same details as the first close-up shot of the reference RX 480 / RX 470 common PCB, and the cooling solution was taken apart further, revealing more details than the first time we saw what's underneath.

To begin with, the reference RX 480 PCB features a 6-phase VRM that draws power from a single 6-pin PCIe power connector. Display outputs include one HDMI 2.0 and three DisplayPort 1.4 connectors. One of the pictures features a close-up of the 14 nm "Ellesmere" silicon. The cooling solution is confirmed to feature a chunky monolithic aluminium heatsink with a copper core, cooling the GPU, with a metal base-plate conveying heat from the VRM and memory to it; ventilated by a lateral blower. The Radeon RX 480 is expected to launch on the 29th of June, 2016, priced at $199 for the 4 GB variant, and $229 for the 8 GB variant.



More pictures follow.



Here you see the PCB up close, beginning with the 14 nm "Ellesmere" silicon. This chip appears to have a smaller die than, say, "Tonga," a similar package size, yet a higher transistor count owing to its smaller fab process. Next up is the 6-phase VRM with LFPAK MOSFETs. Lastly, it's revealed that the 8 Gbps GDDR5 memory chips on the card are supplied by Samsung.



Lastly, taking the cooling solution apart reveals a very simplistic design. AMD is taking advantage of the 150W TDP of the "Ellesmere" silicon, and employing a simple monolithic aluminium heatsink, with a copper core. There's no complex fin-stack, no heat-pipes. The metal base-plate transports heat from the VRM and memory chips onto the main heatsink, while itself dissipating some of the heat under the lateral-blower's airflow.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site
 
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Cooler looks quite simple blower design maybe low thermal output.
 
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One more week to go! I hope it's not all hype....
 
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We're a week away from the RX 480 and still haven't heard jack about the 490... :(
 
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We're a week away from the RX 480 and still haven't heard jack about the 490... :(
May be a latecomer.
However if 480 prove whatever AMD say right then you can have good expectations from that.
 
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Nice. Shouldn't be a problem for a better cooler to allow the 480 to be ~7".
 

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Nice. Shouldn't be a problem for a better cooler to allow the 480 to be ~7".
Was thinking the same thing. Give it a more compact cooler and this will be an awesome card for SFF/ITX builds, especially considering the 150W TDP and the fact it only uses a 6-pin.
 
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Looks like a pentium4 era heatsink :)

Will defenetly look for non reference designs. Can't stand blowers (well some of them :D:D)
 
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I wonder if they could put a passive cooler with heatpipes on this thing like they used to do. Silent 1080P gaming.
 
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Is what we are looking at a cut-down version of a future RX 490?
 
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Most certainly. This time around, there won't be any rebranded models. They will all arrive with all new GCN 4.0 meaning by that alone they can't be just a process shrinkage or optimization like R9-390X was.
 
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that board has the same memory that the GTX 1070 has, it should OC about 300Mhz if lucky. With such a tiny heatsink I'm really interested in seeing what AIB's will do when they smack their huge heatsinks on one.

anyone know the mounting hole spacing?
 
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Nope, this is a full die. RX490 will be vega.

I asked this because AMD stated that they would seek to compete in the majority $100-$300 price point market with Polaris.
If the 480 is at $200, where is the $300 Polaris?
 
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I asked this because AMD stated that they would seek to compete in the majority $100-$300 price point market with Polaris.
If the 480 is at $200, where is the $300 Polaris?

8GB Polaris is 249$ - AIB - +20~40$ + VAT = 300~350$/
 
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I asked this because AMD stated that they would seek to compete in the majority $100-$300 price point market with Polaris.
If the 480 is at $200, where is the $300 Polaris?
During E3, alienware confirmed existence of Polaris XT. 480 is supposed to be Polaris, which means there might be 485 or 480x based on Polaris XT which should be 50$ extra over Rx-480 8GB. That probably is the 300$ card Amd was talking about.

8GB Polaris is 249$ - AIB - +20~40$ + VAT = 300~350$/
No, 8GB Rx-480 is 229$, so custom cooled 480s will cost another 20-30$ extra.

http://wccftech.com/amd-radeon-rx-480-8-gb-229-usd/
 
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We're a week away from the RX 480 and still haven't heard jack about the 490... :(


THIS! I posted on the last 480 thread where they were just showing Sapphire's cards sitting on an assembly line and that was "news" ! I was last commenter and as you pretty much just said I was wondering wth is going on with the 490 etc because it's like no one even talks about it all you even hear of every day is the 480 launch....Ok I get it's about to happen so it's news, but the biggest chip hopefully to come fairly soon after isn't worth even mentioning once in a while? Something strikes me as odd about that lack of any details for quite a while...either launch is delayed or issues with yields etc. I just would expect AMD to leak teases and get us excited for what is next to come Christmas Future ghost 490 but so far seems that ghost hasn't even found Scrooge's house yet...
 
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Cooler looks quite simple blower design maybe low thermal output.

Tests have indicated that power consumption sits around the 100w mark. The cooler is rated for 150w anyway so there's some head room for OCing even with the reference cooler.
 
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Yeah,yeah,yeah....it's a 390/390X/970/980 class card for $200..we get it, no really..we do.

Very interesting (ZZZzzz!!!) in a 2014 kind of way..I suppose.

..But can we please get on with it already and release the Vega cards so we can stop Nvidia pulling our pants down and giving it to us where the sun don't shine over 1070/1080 pricing levels.
 
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Yeah,yeah,yeah....it's a 390/390X/970/980 class card for $200..we get it, no really..we do.

Very interesting (ZZZzzz!!!) in a 2014 kind of way..I suppose.

..But can we please get on with it already and release the Vega cards so we can stop Nvidia pulling our pants down and giving it to us where the sun don't shine over 1070/1080 pricing levels.

Not everyone likes us waiting for next Titan Z..

95% of Steam users are using 1080p monitor and lower.
 
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THIS! I posted on the last 480 thread where they were just showing Sapphire's cards sitting on an assembly line and that was "news" ! I was last commenter and as you pretty much just said I was wondering wth is going on with the 490 etc because it's like no one even talks about it all you even hear of every day is the 480 launch....Ok I get it's about to happen so it's news, but the biggest chip hopefully to come fairly soon after isn't worth even mentioning once in a while? Something strikes me as odd about that lack of any details for quite a while...either launch is delayed or issues with yields etc. I just would expect AMD to leak teases and get us excited for what is next to come Christmas Future ghost 490 but so far seems that ghost hasn't even found Scrooge's house yet...

There isn't even info about the 1080ti or even the next Titan and Nvidia launched their 1080 almost a month ago. AMD's best bet is to wait for news to surface about Nvidia's next move, then if they feel ballsy enough, they'll counter with some info about their Vega. Can't have AMD just pissing in the wind.
 
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Not everyone likes us waiting for next Titan Z..

95% of Steam users are using 1080p monitor and lower.


I dont care about them, ... I also use 1080p ... well 3x of them in 5760x1080p ... But I could care less about some card that is just A cheaper versions of of last gens cards. this new 480 is going to be as powerful as A 780ti / 970 ... pointless ... just buy one of them ...

We need power .. more power.

I want something that will replace my 2x 980ti's and then I will be Happy !
 
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