AMD Radeon RX 480 CrossFire

[Dimi]

Why anyone with half a brain would pick 2 x RX480 over a single GTX 1070 is beyond me.

The GTX 1070 is faster in MOST of the benchmarks, its cheaper, a lot less power draw, a lot less heat and noise and no CF issues or microstutter.

Pricing (newegg)

Gigabyte GTX 1070 G1 Gaming = $429.99
MSI RX 480 x 2 = $478.98

Thats $50 MORE expensive than a 1070. $80 if you pick the $399 gigabyte 1070.

 

[RejZoR]

1x faster GPU > 2x slower GPU

 

[nem..]

So basically a GTX 1070 faires better in all metrics - cherry picked situations aside. Still have some hope left for custom aftermarket solutions being good single card choices.

The % CF 480x exceeds to 1070

 

[Vicious2500]

The % CF 480x exceeds to 1070

How many of those games support CF?

 

[Bluescreendeath]

CF is fine. The card gets enough fps in games that don't support crossfire so it doesn't really matter. The triple A titles that are graphically intensive and thus require more fps DO support CF and SLi. It works where it matters.

RX 480CF is basically a cheaper version of GTX970 SLi. Same power consumption but cheaper and slightly better performance (especially in dx12 and as drivers improve).

 

[Spacegoast]

I wonder if better drivers will improve CF scaling...

 

[Fragment]

How many of those games support CF?

All of these games support CF, as the mentioned review only tested games that support CF in the first place. (You have to see that the percentages in this picture show how much faster 480CFX is than 1070, a single 480 wouldnt make that in any game-> so cfx has to work)


Also the list of games that support CF is higher than what many make you believe.

The problem with many of crossfire/SLI reviews is improper setup, because mostly crossfire and SLI
need some extra fixing/tweaking to work with good scaling. But as long as there is a Crossfire support or profile for it
the game will scale well.

http://amdcrossfire.wikia.com/wiki/Crossfire_Game_Compatibility_List

+ all source and goldsrc games
+ all dx9 games
other games that just arent in that list

most triple A titles definitely support CFX.

the only ones i know of that dont support it are (most are also in the list from above)

hearthstone
starcraft 2
titanfall
the crew
cities skylines
rainbow six the division
killer instinct
need for speed 2016
quantum break
rainbow six siege
just cause 3

 

[nem..]

AMD RX 480 PCB & VRM Design Beefier Than GTX 1080 Founder’s Edition – PCIe Power Issue Detailed

Read more: http://wccftech.com/amd-rx-480-pcie-power-issue-detailed-overclocking-investigated/#ixzz4DDxltUVA

 

[arbiter]

The % CF 480x exceeds to 1070

Funny i said it would be probably 10-15% faster then single 1070. Looks like i was right on the nose on that one.

AMD RX 480 PCB & VRM Design Beefier Than GTX 1080 Founder’s Edition – PCIe Power Issue Detailed

Read more: http://wccftech.com/amd-rx-480-pcie-power-issue-detailed-overclocking-investigated/#ixzz4DDxltUVA

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http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Power-Consumption-Concerns-Radeon-RX-480 Direct link to the PCper write with an explanation on what they seen how how they did the testing

 

[nem..]

CF 480 > 1080

 

[Fragment]

CF 480 > 1080

The moment they solve the "power-draw" thing is when this card is gonna be the absolute go to card.
-> When AIB cards release this in Crossfire is probably the best price/perf ratio that could happen to AMD.

 

[RealNeil]

I think that the 480 from AMD is a spike in the side of NVIDIA at its price point.
This is predicated on them fixing the power draw issues that it has, without hobbling the card's performance.
The price is right.

Honestly, I'm much more interested in the 490X cards when they arrive. Unless they are an epic fail, I'll get a pair of them.

BTW: I'm glad to read the reviews on everything new here at TPU. Review sites help me to not waste my money on crappy tech.

 

[oblivionlord]

The % CF 480x exceeds to 1070

How about we not use that horroble biased site for any fair comparison. First off they are extremly vague with how they even perform their tests within each game and their results dont even correlate with techpowerup. You simply have to wonder exactly how they are coming up with their results. Another thing... who is hothardware? Some hole in the wall site in comparison to techpowerup thats been present for years and has a firm reputation amongst the enthusiasts.

Im going to use techpowerups results and say that a 1070 is faster than 2 480s simply based on the results techpowerup has given. Until guru3d, tomshardware, hardwarecanucks, hardocp, pcperspective, bittech, etc etc come out with their results and even then ill base my final conclusion on the avg amongst results on all those sites.

Also if youre going to suggest that just because cfx works with the aaa games tested then you should also mention the issues that are also present which is the readon why people dont prefer multigpu over single gpu. Scaling is 1 portion but the flaws may exceed the scaling benefit which then makes it a pointless solution. Its bad enough as it is that alot of aaa games are poorly ported and ran on a single gpu let alone consider adding more frustratiin to the mix using multigpu.

 

[RealNeil]

Another thing... who is hothardware? Some hole in the wall site in comparison to techpowerup thats been present for years and has a firm reputation amongst the enthusiasts..

HotHardware has been around for years and years. Their testing is methodical and usually spot-on. They are one of the few sites that I trust.
Just because ~you~ don't know of them doesn't make them a hole in the wall organization.

Manufacturers trust them to publish fair reviews too. They always have the very latest samples on hand when they are brand new. Not bad for a hole in the wall site.

 

[yotano211]

Can the power draw be published for the crossfire cards. I really want to see that chart.

 

[ERazer]

The % CF 480x exceeds to 1070

what about upcoming games? are they gonna be xfire/sli supported out of the box? thats why single powerfull GPU>2 slow ones.

 

[nem..]

 

[oblivionlord]

HotHardware has been around for years and years. Their testing is methodical and usually spot-on. They are one of the few sites that I trust.
Just because ~you~ don't know of them doesn't make them a hole in the wall organization.

Manufacturers trust them to publish fair reviews too. They always have the very latest samples on hand when they are brand new. Not bad for a hole in the wall site.

Their forum is virtually inactive. Although their older posting date back to 2000, they hardly have had any activity from then and now. In the General pc section and mobo section there are only a handfull of recent poats untill u start seeing posting dating to a year and beyond. Their general disscusion section is the primary section with activity and its roughly just 1 page and its alot to do with free giveaways from a mod called Blackhawk 8100.

You compare them with this site and youll see a night and day difference in popularity especially with the abundance of net traffic this site gets vs that site. So i hope you can see where im coming from when saying how unpopular that site is especially since they date back to 2000.

If its been that long and they still dont have as good as a foothold as the more popular sites then they need to change their methods.

 

[illli]

I dunno, nothing against the review process, but it seems apparent that some of these games are not very optimized for crossfire. take Anno 2205 for example, there is hardly any difference between a 480 and 480 cf setup. who is to blame? the video card? or the lazy developers?

 

[Athlonite]

I dunno, nothing against the review process, but it seems apparent that some of these games are not very optimized for crossfire. take Anno 2205 for example, there is hardly any difference between a 480 and 480 cf setup. who is to blame? the video card? or the lazy developers?

The lazy dev's for not implementing CF properly when it's done right it's bloody good but when it's half arsed as an after thought then no amount of tom foolery from AMD with the drivers is going to make much of a difference

 

[arbiter]

Depends on game, DX12 its on the dev's to make it work, DX11 is still on in this case AMD to add CF support in the drivers.

 

[RealNeil]

Their forum is virtually inactive. Although their older posting date back to 2000, they hardly have had any activity from then and now. In the General pc section and mobo section there are only a handfull of recent poats untill u start seeing posting dating to a year and beyond. Their general disscusion section is the primary section with activity and its roughly just 1 page and its alot to do with free giveaways from a mod called Blackhawk 8100.

You compare them with this site and youll see a night and day difference in popularity especially with the abundance of net traffic this site gets vs that site. So i hope you can see where im coming from when saying how unpopular that site is especially since they date back to 2000.

If its been that long and they still dont have as good as a foothold as the more popular sites then they need to change their methods.

They changed their forum software about a year ago and it affected their traffic. (quite a lot)

But, I was talking about their reviews.

Those are good to go, and they always seem to have the latest gear reviewed on its release day.
They have a good relationship with most of the major manufacturers.

As for TPU, I really like this site. It ~is~ very active and the mods run a tight ship.
The forum members here are experienced and willing to help others.

 

[Ungari]

Disappointed there aren't any DX12 (Hitman is a DX12 game but DX11 was used) nor Vulkan tests.

That is because AMD usually performs much better with the new APIs.

 

[Ungari]

Why anyone with half a brain would pick 2 x RX480 over a single GTX 1070 is beyond me.

The GTX 1070 is faster in MOST of the benchmarks, its cheaper, a lot less power draw, a lot less heat and noise and no CF issues or microstutter.

Pricing (newegg)

Gigabyte GTX 1070 G1 Gaming = $429.99
MSI RX 480 x 2 = $478.98

Thats $50 MORE expensive than a 1070. $80 if you pick the $399 gigabyte 1070.

The beauty is that if a prospective GFX card buyer is in the market but does not have the money a higher tier single GPU solution, they can go out and buy a RX 480 that they can play on now , while saving for that second card.
This is why Nvidia disabled the SLI bridging on the 1060, because it would have killed 1080 sales.