Amd radeon rx 480 review (full review)

Finally the long-awaited day has arrived, the Polaris NDA is finished and we can already show you the most complete review of the AMD Radeon RX 480.

Undoubtedly, it is the maximum exponent of the new family of graphics cards of those of Sunnyvale. The new is the first GPU manufactured in 14 nm and with the new GCN 4.0 architecture for very high performance and great energy efficiency. AMD promises a virtual reality ready card with superior performance to the GeForce GTX 970 for a very tight price. Will it pass the tests in our laboratory? Do not miss the most complete review in Spanish.

AMD Radeon RX 480 technical characteristics

Unboxing and design

The Radeon RX 480 marks the debut of the AMD Polaris (GCN 4.0) architecture manufactured in the new and advanced 14nm Fin-FET process from Global Foundries. This new manufacturing process has allowed the creation of a very powerful GPU with a very small size of only 232 mm2. The following image shows the degree of miniaturization that the company's GPUs have experienced over the past 10 years.

This new card will be the most powerful in the Polaris family, at least for now, thanks to its Ellesmere GPU consisting of a total of 36 Compute Units (CU) totaling no less than 2, 304 stream processors, 144 TMUs and 32 ROPs at one frequency. maximum on the reference card of 1, 266 MHz. With these characteristics the Ellesmere core is capable of offering a maximum power of 5.8 TFLOPs, comfortably fulfilling the minimum requirement for virtual reality that is set at 5 TFLOPs.

The AMD Radeon RX 480 uses GDDR5 memory at a frequency of 8, 000 MHz and with a 256-bit interface to achieve a bandwidth of 256 GB / s. A figure of bandwidth that will allow excellent performance thanks to the presence of a new generation of AMD's Delta Color Compression technology that compresses colors to reduce bandwidth consumption.

AMD has gone to great lengths to upgrade its GCN 4.0 architecture to achieve CU performance up to 15% higher than previous Hawaii-based Radeon R9 290. It has also been able to improve power efficiency by up to 1.9x to deliver a very powerful card powered only through the PCI-Express slot and a single 6-pin connector.

Detail of the back of the graphics card. As we can see from the series, it does not have a backplate.

Such energy efficiency has allowed the card to be manufactured with a very small PCB with measures of 240 x 11 x 37 mm, which helps to achieve a very competitive product at a price level.

In the following images of the PCB we can see that the GPU and the memories are powered by a 6 + 1 phase VRM that seems quite simple for what we usually see in the best custom cards but that is nevertheless sufficient for a card like this and It will have a free operation of the so annoying Coil Whine as long as the components used are of good quality.

We can see that the VRM and the memory chips are cooled by a metallic piece that helps dissipate the heat generated in their operation. For its part, the GPU has an aluminum heatsink that seems too simple and we will have to see how it behaves in our tests. At the end we have a blower type fan that is responsible for expelling hot air out of the chassis of our PC, something that will be very advantageous in the case of having a configuration with a modest air flow and especially for CrossFire configurations.

The benefits of AMD's GCN 4.0 architecture continue to support FreeSync technology that eliminates thearing and stuttering of our games to provide a far superior gaming experience with great fluidity of movement. AMD boasts that FreeSync is a free and open technology that can be adopted by any monitor manufacturer to enhance the gaming experience. FreeSync is also characterized by not penalizing game performance at all.

We continue with 100% hardware compatibility with Async Compute to achieve the best possible performance in DirectX 12 as has been demonstrated in previous generations of GCN. With Async Compute, more efficient use of GPU resources is achieved, which results in better FPS rates in games and a better user experience.

Finally indicate that it has the video outputs of the reference PCB we appreciate four connectors in the form of 3 x DisplayPort 1.3 / 1.4HDR and 1x HDMI 2.0.

Test bench and performance tests

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	i7-6700k @ 4200 Mhz..
Base plate:	Asus Maximus VIII Formula.
Memory:	32GB Kingston Fury DDR4 @ 3000 Mhz
Heatsink	Cryorig H7 heatsink
HDD	Samsung 850 EVO SSD.
Graphic card	AMD Radeon RX 480.
Power supply	EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G2.

For benchmarks we will use the following titles:

• 3DMark Fire Strike normal.3DMark Fire Strike version 4K.Heaven 4.0.Doom 4.Overwatch.Tomb Raider.Battlefield 4.

All tests have been passed with the filters to the maximum unless we indicate otherwise. To have adequate performance, we have carried out three types of tests: the first is the most common at Full HD 1920 x 1080, the second resolution is making the leap to 2K or 1440 gamers (2560 x 1440) and the most enthusiastic with 4K (3840 x 2160). The operating system we have used has been Windows 10 Pro 64 bit and the latest drivers available from the AMD website.

What are we looking for in the tests?

First, the best possible image quality. The most important value for us is the average FPS (Frames per second), the higher the number of FPS the more fluid the game will go. To differentiate the quality a bit, we leave you a table to assess the quality in FPS, but we will also have the minimum Fps in the tests that were thus possible:

FRAMES BY SECONDS
Frames for Seconds. (FPS)	Gameplay
Less than 30 FPS	Limited
30 - 40 FPS	Playable
40 - 60 FPS	Good
Greater than 60 FPS	Fairly Good or Excellent

Synthetic benchmarks

As we have been doing in our analysis of graphics cards we have reduced to three synthetic tests, since what really matters is the performance in games. The chosen tests are 3DMARK FireStrike Normal (1080p), 3DMARK FireStrike in 4K quality and Heaven 4.0.

As we can see it has a performance similar to the Nvidia GTX 970. But do not be disappointed and wait for the overclock section, since you will get a big surprise;).

Game Testing

We have decided to make the leap to checking various games manually. The reason? Very simple, we want to give a much more realistic vision and cover tests with current games. Since we make an effort, it is consistent with the level of the website and that of our readers.

Testing in Full HD games

Testing in 2K games

Testing in 4K games

Radeon WattMan: the new and advanced overclocking tool created for Polaris

It is time to talk about the possibilities of overclocking in the new Radeon RX 480 and with this we have to make a mandatory stop in the new Radeon WattMan application. Thanks to this new tool we will have finer control over GPU parameters such as voltage, core clock frequency, and memory frequency, fan spin speed, and temperature reached by the card.

MSI Afterburner does not support adjusting voltage or frequencies on the AMD RX 480. So far we are required to use Radeon WattMan to get the most out of it.

AMD Radeon WattMan allows us to regulate the GPU voltage in each of its states in a much simpler way, in this way we can achieve better levels of overclocking and a greater optimization in the operating voltage and therefore the temperature and consumption of energy. We can also create custom profiles of the fan rotation speed for better cooling as well as adjust the maximum allowed temperature and the target temperature.

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Overclocking: Stable at 1340 MHz in Core

Note: Remember that overclocking or manipulation carries a risk, we and any manufacturer are not responsible for improper use, use the head and always do so at your own risk.

We have increased the overclocking capacity to 1340 MHz in the core (It was the maximum it allowed us), 2050 MHz in the GDDR5 memories, automatic voltage and the fan line readjusted so that the card does not suffer.

As you are seeing the rise is +80 MHz but the performance exceeds the Nvidia GTX 980. What a scale this AMD Radeon RX 480 8GB has! Imagine when the custom models come out, with a good cooling system and with a higher voltage to apply. We can see a more devastating card.

Now we go into more detail about its gaming performance by applying the same overclocking. The game chosen is Doom 4 in the three most common resolutions: Full HD, 1440 and 4K. The most important scaling is found in Ultra HD (4K) resolution with +17 FPS (42 FPS) . Turning it into a quite fighting card in this resolution, although it seems that it is more focused on 2560 x 1440 at 60 Hz.

Temperature and consumption

The temperatures of the AMD Radeon RX 480 are quite good compared to other reference models that AMD launched not long ago. At rest we have obtained 42º C and a maximum of 84º C playing (without touching the curve). If we readjust it, it does not exceed 77º C playing and 35º C at rest.

Regarding consumption, we get 80 W at rest and 248 W playing with an Intel i7-6700K processor . When we overclock it goes up to 85 W at rest and 273 W playing at the top.

Final words and conclusion about the AMD Radeon RX 480

The AMD Radeon RX 480 is positioned in the market as AMD's most important mid / high range, as it has everything you need to play in Full HD, Virtual Reality and 2K: Power, enough memory, good drivers, quite quiet and a devastating price. Currently we can find two models, the 4GB and the 8GB. We recommend buying the first one, since before spending the memory we will run out of power.

Both AMD Crimson and AMD Radeon WattMan integrated overclocking software deliver great user performance. Many AMD drivers have been criticized but this time we took our hats off… The system is great, we just have to touch parameters, clean interface and totally stable games. Can we ask for more? Well, possibly more regular driver updates.

We recommend reading the best graphics cards on the market.

As we have seen the scaling in stock values ​​to overclock is beastly. We have gone from 11871 points in 3DMARK Normal to 13424 overclocked points with just 30W difference in maximum performance. That is, in stock values ​​it competes with the GTX 970 while overclocking it beats the 4GB GTX 980. It would be interesting to test its performance on CrossFireX against other superior models.

As reported by AMD, the recommended retail price is 219 euros for the 4GB model, while the 8GB model will launch for 260 euros. If these prices are really confirmed, we are in front of the best quality / price graphics card on the market.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ ONLY 1 PCI EXPRESS CONNECTION OF 6 POWER PINS.	- STANDARD IS ENOUGH HOT.
+ CLEAN DRIVERS.	- A PROFILE MUST BE CREATED ON THE FAN TO KEEP IT COOL.
+ PERFORMANCE IN GAMES.
+ GREAT OVERCLOCK CLIMBING.
+ IDEAL PRICE.

And after carefully evaluating both the evidence and the product, Professional Review awards you the Gold Medal and Recommended Product Badge.

AMD Radeon RX 480

COMPONENT QUALITY

DISSIPATION

GAMING EXPERIENCE

SONORITY

PRICE

8.9 / 10

IDEAL FOR 2K AND VIRTUAL REALITY