Asus rx 480 strix review (full review)

Today we bring you the national exclusive review of the Asus RX 480 Strix 8GB, DirectCU III heatsink and Polaris core. And it is that a month ago the launch of the AMD Radeon RX 480 reference, which left us with a very good taste in the mouth but its temperatures were not too good.

Asus RX 480 Strix technical features

Unboxing and design

The packaging reminds us a lot of the new STRIX versions of Asus. A full-color cover, with the heatsink in the foreground and the graphics card model.

While in the back we find all the most important technical characteristics of the product.

Once we open the box we find:

• Asus RX 480 Strix 8GB.CD with installation drivers. Quick guide. World Warships code redemption brochure. 4 pick up cables from Asus.

The Asus RX 480 Strix is designed by AMD Polaris (GCN 4.0) architecture with Global Foundries 14nm Fin-FET process. This new manufacturing process has allowed the creation of a very powerful GPU with a very small size of only 232 mm2. While the dimensions of the graphics card are 29.8 x 13.4 x 4 cm.

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 Asus RX 480 Strix 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.

As many were waiting for, it incorporates the new DirectCu III heatsink. It is a huge heatsink consisting of a dense monolithic aluminum radiator, several nickel-plated copper heatpipes and three Cooltech fans with PWM control and 0dB operating mode. With all this, it promises to keep the Polaris core at a much lower operating temperature compared to the reference model with very low noise.

Plus, fans include Asus Wing-Blade technology to generate up to 105% more air pressure. This heatsink has the peculiarity that it keeps the fans off until the GPU reaches a certain temperature, with all this, it promises a great cooling capacity.

Detail of the back area of ​​the graphics card with its great backplate.

The rear “ROG” logo lights up and is fully customizable in various AURA color ranges.

As power it has an 8-pin connector, enough to give the maximum of this new architecture.

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 we show you the rear connections made up of:

• 1 DVI connection, 2 DisPlayPORT connections, 2 HDMI connections.

PCB and internal components

To remove the heatsink we must unscrew a total of 6 screws. As we can see, it brings 5 excellent heatpipes and a thermalpad for its 6 + 1 power phases.

Without a doubt it is one of the best PCBs in AMD graphics cards that we have seen in a long time. As expected, it incorporates Super Alloy Power II components that help improve the efficiency of the card, minimize energy loss and the whine coil at full load. And it also reduces by more than 50% the temperature of all components, extending the life of the graphics card.

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	Asus RX 480 Strix.
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;).

WE RECOMMEND YOUUS announces the E9 and P6 Series

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

Overclocking and looking for the sweet spot

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 1390 MHz in the core (It was the maximum it allowed us) and keeping the clocks in the memory at 2000 MHz in the default GDDR5, voltage and fan memories.

The rise gives us some margin as we saw in the reference model with enough FPS in Doom 4 with 42. Which makes it an impressive card. Rumors had been heard that they would reach 1.45 GHz or more… but if this Strix does not, I doubt that the rest will do it (without going through LN2) and modifying the voltage via hardware or software.

Temperature and consumption

The temperatures of the Asus RX 480 Strix are quite good compared to other reference models that AMD launched not long ago. At rest we have obtained 32º C and a maximum of 61º C playing. With overclock the temperatures hardly rose in full performance: 64ºC.

Regarding consumption, we got 89 W at rest and 268 W playing with an Intel i7-6700K processor . When we overclock it goes up to 95 W at rest and 292 W playing at the top.

Final words and conclusion about the Asus RX 480 Strix

The Asus RX 480 Strix is one of the best (if not the best) RX 480 that we are going to find on the market incorporating the Polaris core , 8GB of GDDR5 memory and a very low TDP.

Among its most important characteristics we must highlight its high overclocking capacity (up to 1390 MHz), its DirectCU III cooling system and its innovative ROG Aura lighting that allows us to choose between 16.8 million colors .

We recommend reading the best graphics cards on the market.

In our tests we have obtained great results, seeing that it is an ideal card for use in Full HD and 1440p games. While for some titles in 4K it is playable, but it lacks a little more power (like all RX 480).

In short, if you are looking for a custom RX 480 and you have the Asus RX 480 Strix at your fingertips . Without a doubt it is one of the best options. Your selling price? They are not yet known, but we hope they are very competitive, since with the Asus GTX 1060 Strix already on the market there will be a nice duel.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ DESIGN.	- NONE AT THE MOMENT.
+ OVERCLOCK CAPACITY.
+ TEMPERATURES AND LOW CONSUMPTION.
+ PERFORMANCE IN GAMES.
+ RGB LIGHTING (AURA).

And after carefully evaluating both the evidence and the product, Professional Review awards him the Platinum Medal:

Asus RX 480 Strix

COMPONENT QUALITY

DISSIPATION

GAMING EXPERIENCE

SONORITY

PRICE

9.2 / 10

POSSIBLY THE BEST RX 480 CUSTOM