The AMD Radeon RX 480 Preview: Polaris Makes Its Mainstream Mark
by Ryan Smith on June 29, 2016 9:00 AM ESTGaming Performance, Continued
While AMD’s launch drivers for the RX 480 have by and large been stable, the one outlier here has been Grand Theft Auto V. In the current drivers there is an issue that appears to affect the game’s built-in benchmark on GCN 1.1 and later cards, causing stuttering, reduced performance, and in the case of the 380X, complete crashes. AMD has told me that they’ve discovered the issue as well and will be issuing a fixed driver, but it was not ready in time for the review.
Continuing our look at gaming performance, it’s becoming increasingly clear that RX 480 trends closely to the last generation Radeon R9 390 and the GeForce GTX 970. Given their architectural similarity, in a lot of ways this is a repeat of 390 vs 970 in general; the two cards are sometimes equal, and sometimes far apart. But in the end, on average, they are close together on our 2016 benchmark suite.
For mainstream video card users, this means that last year’s enthusiast-level performance has come down to mainstream prices.
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cjpp78 - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
weird, my reference xfx Rx 480 black edition came stock overclocked to 1328mhz. I've seen others clock reference to 1350+. Its not a good overclocker but it will overclockDemibolt - Friday, July 1, 2016 - link
Not here to argue, just fact checking.Currently, there are brand new GTX 970 (OC versions, not that it matters) available for $240.
hans_ober - Wednesday, June 29, 2016 - link
A bit disappointing, Perf/W is around GTX 980/970 levels = Maxwell. Not near Pascal.For the price? It's a good deal, but Perf/$ isn't as high as it was hyped to be.
PeckingOrder - Wednesday, June 29, 2016 - link
It's a terrible product. Look at the temps.http://media.bestofmicro.com/C/E/591422/original/0...
figus77 - Wednesday, June 29, 2016 - link
No one will buy one with the stock cooler. So, why bother for it?Namisecond - Wednesday, June 29, 2016 - link
I was going to pick one up today (stock model) at my local microcenter, but the temps and noise is making me pause until I get more verification on that...might as well wait for the 1060/ti that might be announced soon...TimAhKin - Wednesday, June 29, 2016 - link
And the card is not meant for 4K. No card stays cool or at decent temps like 60 degrees, in 4K.JoeyJoJo123 - Wednesday, June 29, 2016 - link
My GTX 970 does in 4K on Warframe. I disable AA (not need on 4k 24" screen) and other post-processing and lighting effects which get in the way of identifying enemies and allies quickly and efficiently.Speak for yourself. I'm getting tired of this whole "current gen video cardz can't HANDLE 4k!". At least define 4k as 4K resolution at maxed out settings on current gen AAA game titles, because at that point, you'd be correct. But just saying 4k can't be handled period is completely stupid and false.
eek2121 - Wednesday, June 29, 2016 - link
People do that all the time. When Xbox Scorpio was announced everyone was saying that there was no way it could do 4K, yet few are paying attention to the fact that xbox one games are designed around a slower version of the r7 260x. As an example, there is no doubt in my mind that the RX480 could easily scale these games to 4k.TimAhKin - Wednesday, June 29, 2016 - link
Do you understand my comment?This card(480) is not meant for 4K gaming and that temperature from the above picture is normal. I get 85-90 degrees as well in 4K.