FEATURED AMD RX 480 Review list

They aren't packed very well. The card was loose in a box, which was loose in a bigger box. The tabs on the rear plate were slightly bent and I had to straighten them to get it to install. Bad marks for Dell and VisionTek on packaging. By the time I got it straightened out and installed I was surprised everything else seemed fine. No problems with it, not much fan noise. Temps right now in the mid 20s C. I'm about to run Catzilla again and post the temp.

edit: Temp got to 65C. Average frame rates are lower than I thought, probably hovering around 100 fps, although I did see numbers as high as 257 fps and nothing below high 60s.

Really? That's kind of surprising, Dell normally packs their things pretty well. (Most of my monitors I order off of their site because of the free shipping.) If you consider packing peanuts and foam inserts well anyway.

That doesn't sound like good news for me though, most of the boxes I get look like they played hokey with it.

Temps are lookin' good though

I was surprised for sure. VisionTek probably gets the worst grade of the two, though. Having a card like that just floating around loose in the box is just asking for trouble. If it had been packed like my XFX cards it probably would have been fine to ship without a second box. There was no foam of any kind in the VT box. Just the card and a CD.

Here is another Video

1080p, a 'low' res these days - more CPU involved, shows more improvements than higher resolutions - with less CPU involved...(on NVIDIA GPUs)

Alaric said:

OK, I ran Catzilla (free version so only 720p) on my R7 260x in the rig in my sig. Put the RX 480 in this morning and changed nothing else, not even the drivers. I got an 8515 with the R7 and a 20533 with the 480. In places where the 260x would drop down to low double digits (like 11 fps) the new card was holding over 70 fps. Most of the benchmark was 170 fps to 200+ fps. That's my contribution.

Click to expand...

I just ran Catzilla again on the same rig. The only difference is the CPU is running at 4400 MHz, a mild OC. Mild enough that I did it with a mouse click in the motherboard app. LOL I got the resolution in the above post wrong, so I decided to do it again with the CPU OC and without. And the results are (drum roll)

Just different. Overall score lowered but very close.

At 4200 MHz the 720p score is 20645 on Catzilla. At 4400 MHz the score is 20674. I did see flashes of 300 fps. So I'm still happy. When my internet connection makes it doable I'll download a more universal benchmark and try again. Any suggestions for free benchmarks you guys would like to see on this set up?

Be happy about FPS in games, not benchmarks.

That was just for comparison, and something repeatable for others to compare their game performance to benchmark results. Some extrapolation required but hopefully useful. If I get X in Y benchmark and A in B game then maybe it gives a rough approximation. Or maybe not. I haven't really had a card worth checking before so I'm just throwing rocks to see what breaks. LOL

edit: post #119. Huge improvement in game so far. I'll see if I can get a fps from World of Warships.

edit 2: Didn't get fps in WoWs. War Thunder runs from 160+ to 200 fps on the highest settings. It's only 1080p, but that's what I have. WoWs max settings set the resolution at 1280x720. Not sure what that's about.

I can't wait to upgrade my GTX 650 to an RX 480. I'm just hoping the Sapphire Nitro version (which seems to be the shortest of the ones I've seen pictures of) will be short enough to fit my rig. The only downside is that I'll go from a (severe) GPU bottleneck to a CPU bottleneck. Even an FX-8350 seems to be holding the RX 480 back a bit and an OC'd FX-6300 definitely holds it back (see ), so in CPU intensive games I'm probably going to look at a significant drop in performance compared to the reviews. Compared to my GTX 650, however...

There's a great read on the OC Front Page about DX12 and AMD's FX chips. Check it out, it has good news for you. http://www.overclockers.com/amd-fx-processors-and-directx-12/

I had already come across that article, but thanks for the link. There are a few things that should be noted about that article:

1. Even using DX12, you can see the CPU holding the GPU back, since overclocking both CPUs yields ~9% increase in FPS.
2. NVidias GPUs haven't been very good at taking advantage of DX12 so far, at least not compared to AMDs GPUs. The 980Ti used in the article has actually given worse results in AotS when using DX12 over DX11 in some older reviews. Apparently the drivers are getting better, but AMD still probably has the upper hand here due to its better support for async compute. Had the GPU been from the red team, the DX12 would likely have yielded bigger relative gains and the CPU bottleneck would possibly have been smaller.
3. There aren't that many DX12 games on the market at the moment, and not all of them are as good as AotS in taking advantage of the more advanced API. For example in Tomb Raider the gains are a lot smaller, although recent patches have at least finally made the DX12 a better alternative than DX11.

So yes, DX12 will help with the CPU bottleneck, but only in a handful of games and in some of them the differences between the DX APIs are pretty small. It'll be interesting to see what my Phenom II can do with an RX 480.

What handful of games use DirectX 12?

wingman99 said:

What handful of games use DirectX 12?

Click to expand...

Google finds:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_DirectX_12_support

Got this card for $249 from Dell. Whoa! Way to take the "budget" out of a budget card. I may have to get another one from Dell. LOL

Alaric said:

Got this card for $249 from Dell. Whoa! Way to take the "budget" out of a budget card. I may have to get another one from Dell. LOL

Click to expand...

How many GB of ram does it come with, I can't find it on the listing.

It doesn't say on newegg's listing. Not sure why. Mine is the 8 GB card. They seem to be gone from Dell's site.

That is the highest priced 480 on newegg, by a pretty big margin, but it's the only one in stock. Hopefully $199 cards from PowerColor, Sapphire, and XFX will be closer to the norm when they fill the shelves again.

That's because it is being sold by a 3rd party and not newegg itself

Probably the guy who bought the rest of the Dell cards. LOL

For people living on the Old Continent:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/pc-components/graphics-cards/amd/radeon-rx-480