Radeon RX 480 "Polaris" Launched at $199

[Mtom]

XFX reveals Radeon RX 480 Black Edition performance

Spot on 1060 performance. This was the performance expected from the AIB cards.

 

[SiDeards73]

XFX reveals Radeon RX 480 Black Edition performance

Spot on 1060 performance. This was the performance expected from the AIB cards.

And thats not even a decent 480 custom either, i expect the Nitro+, Devil, Strix and the Toxic to be even quicker than this card.

I dont rate XFX's cooler on this card either, their DD cooler on the 290 cards was horrendously bad, this one looks arguably as bad.

 

[Supernova]

Yeah I have the XFX 290 and it is terribly hot for such a large cooler. Not sure how they managed to achieve it. I'd be looking at anything but an XFX 480.

 

[Bantu]

Yeah I have the XFX 290 and it is terribly hot for such a large cooler. Not sure how they managed to achieve it. I'd be looking at anything but an XFX 480.

I have to join the bandwagon here. I have the XFX 380 and the cooler doesn't do a good enough job in keeping the card cool or running quiet. Was quite disappointed. Am hoping that the combination of slightly cooler card and Nitro+ is a better bet.

 

[SiDeards73]

The best cooled 290's were the Tri-X, Vapor-X and the PCS+, so thats 2 Sapphire cards and a Powercolor card.

My money is on the powercolor card being the coolest and best clocker out of the box for the 480, with the Sapphire stuff close behind.

Would not suprise me if the Powercolor can be pushed over 1400, would not suprise me either if the powercolor card beats a 1060 once both are OC'd.

 

[Gregster]

The best cooled 290's were the Tri-X, Vapor-X and the PCS+, so thats 2 Sapphire cards and a Powercolor card.

My money is on the powercolor card being the coolest and best clocker out of the box for the 480, with the Sapphire stuff close behind.

Would not suprise me if the Powercolor can be pushed over 1400, would not suprise me either if the powercolor card beats a 1060 once both are OC'd.

You can add in the MSI Gaming Twin Frozr to that as well. My 290X did a good job of keeping the card cool and was nice and quiet.

 

[pandem0nium]

The best cooled 290's were the Tri-X, Vapor-X and the PCS+, so thats 2 Sapphire cards and a Powercolor card.

My money is on the powercolor card being the coolest and best clocker out of the box for the 480, with the Sapphire stuff close behind.

Would not suprise me if the Powercolor can be pushed over 1400, would not suprise me either if the powercolor card beats a 1060 once both are OC'd.

with the 290s though, powercolor did cheap out on the ram (elpida) making the sapphire cards a better choice.

The devil 13 looks excellent though and a tri fan cooler for the same cost as a dual fan is usually an easy choice.

I'd expect the Sapphire cards to run semi-passively though based on previous nitro models whereas I don't think any powercolor cards do.

 

[pandem0nium]

You can add in the MSI Gaming Twin Frozr to that as well. My 290X did a good job of keeping the card cool and was nice and quiet.

I was also very impressed by the MSI cooler on my 390Xs. The sheer size of them did cause problems running crossfire though.

 

[JDHansen]

You can add in the MSI Gaming Twin Frozr to that as well. My 290X did a good job of keeping the card cool and was nice and quiet.

not sure if it's just me but the twin frozr 280 is terrible in my opinion, it gets up to 85 degrees easy and is loud! i really want to get rid of it. i don't know about how the 290's to be fair, the cooling on that could be better for some reason? but yeah, not happy with the twin frozr 280.

It usually is set to 1,000mhz as well, so it's not like i push it hard.

 

[Gregster]

I was also very impressed by the MSI cooler on my 390Xs. The sheer size of them did cause problems running crossfire though.

Yer, they are not small things by any standard but found them overall to be sweet. I had a couple of GTX 680 Lightning cards and ran them for a couple of weeks in the summer in SLI and temps were silly good on those cards. Also had the 970 Gaming and again very impressed. I have the Gigabyte Gaming this round and great temps but not the quietest when fans ramp up but not obtrusive either.

not sure if it's just me but the twin frozr 280 is terrible in my opinion, it gets up to 85 degrees easy and is loud! i really want to get rid of it. i don't know about how the 290's to be fair, the cooling on that could be better for some reason? but yeah, not happy with the twin frozr 280.

It usually is set to 1,000mhz as well, so it's not like i push it hard.

Hmmm that is odd. I know MSI had a few bad batches of cards and the cooler was a little ill fitting to say the least. You could possibly have one of those and you shouldn't really be seeing those high temps assuming you have a good case and air flow.

 

[JDHansen]

Yer, they are not small things by any standard but found them overall to be sweet. I had a couple of GTX 680 Lightning cards and ran them for a couple of weeks in the summer in SLI and temps were silly good on those cards. Also had the 970 Gaming and again very impressed. I have the Gigabyte Gaming this round and great temps but not the quietest when fans ramp up but not obtrusive either.



Hmmm that is odd. I know MSI had a few bad batches of cards and the cooler was a little ill fitting to say the least. You could possibly have one of those and you shouldn't really be seeing those high temps assuming you have a good case and air flow.

Not sure. i only bought it 1 and a half years ago.

Yeah dunno. i mean it's not in every game, but in a few games it can get loud and hits roughly between 79 and 85 depending on usage, i think around 80% usage gives around 79. Fan speed usually goes to around 50% to 60% which is quite loud.

The case i use is a Fractal Design Core 2500, 2 fans in the front (doesn't make a difference what speed the are at) and 1 in the rear. i use to have 1 in the bottom but found it made just a little too much noise (also didn't make much of a difference to temps from what i found.)

 

[TheRealDeal]

with the 290s though, powercolor did cheap out on the ram (elpida) making the sapphire cards a better choice.

The devil 13 looks excellent though and a tri fan cooler for the same cost as a dual fan is usually an easy choice.

I'd expect the Sapphire cards to run semi-passively though based on previous nitro models whereas I don't think any powercolor cards do.

Both my 290 pcs+ have had Hynix Vram. I thought they all did. Maybe they mixed and matched some.

 

[Gregster]

Not sure. i only bought it 1 and a half years ago.

Yeah dunno. i mean it's not in every game, but in a few games it can get loud and hits roughly between 79 and 85 depending on usage, i think around 80% usage gives around 79. Fan speed usually goes to around 50% to 60% which is quite loud.

The case i use is a Fractal Design Core 2500, 2 fans in the front (doesn't make a difference what speed the are at) and 1 in the rear. i use to have 1 in the bottom but found it made just a little too much noise (also didn't make much of a difference to temps from what i found.)

Your case cooling sounds fine. Might pay to remove the cooler, properly clean off the TIM and re-apply some new. Might just be a bad case of paste application (fingers crossed) but your temps are too high.

[H] Tested the 280 Twin Frozr

The MSI R9 280 GAMING OC idled at 35c with fans running at 18%. When we increased the system to full load, the MSI R9 280 GAMING OC's temperature increased to 68c, with fans running at 51%. With our highest manual overclock, the MSI R9 280 GAMING's temperature increased to 70c with fans only increasing to 54%. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 idled at 36c, and increased to 77c under full load. Keep in mind the MSI R9 280 is running the Twin Frozr IV cooling system, while the GeForce GTX 760 is using a default radial blower fan.

 

[Chrisc]

i think ill hop on to! i have the 280DD 3gb version and with the heat yesterday i found my card continuously crashing mid game. the only time i got any stability was when i manually put the fans onto 90%. Only then could i play as normal.

 

[JDHansen]

Your case cooling sounds fine. Might pay to remove the cooler, properly clean off the TIM and re-apply some new. Might just be a bad case of paste application (fingers crossed) but your temps are too high.

[H] Tested the 280 Twin Frozr

Could be, i'm waiting for the Nitro 480 though, should be decent enough, i decided i were going to get a new GPU anyway, and in the lead up to it, i bought a new monitor. I upgraded from 1080p TN to 1440p IPS. what a difference that made.

Just thinking now, before the upgrade i were using 2 1080p monitors could that be affect temperature pushing those extra pixels? i have a feeling it wouldn't really, since only 1 of them were being used for gaming and so on.

Just looking at temps now with the 1440p + 1080p with chrome open and a youtube vid on the 1080p i am hitting 54 degrees with the fan at 23%

 

[pandem0nium]

Yer, they are not small things by any standard but found them overall to be sweet. I had a couple of GTX 680 Lightning cards and ran them for a couple of weeks in the summer in SLI and temps were silly good on those cards. Also had the 970 Gaming and again very impressed. I have the Gigabyte Gaming this round and great temps but not the quietest when fans ramp up but not obtrusive either.

Yeah, heat an noise were very good. I did have to under volt and underclocked to 1 ghz to stop them overheating and throttling on skylake. X99 / x79 would be fine though with better slot spacing.

 

[pandem0nium]

Both my 290 pcs+ have had Hynix Vram. I thought they all did. Maybe they mixed and matched some.

OK cool, I stand corrected then. Was anecdotal from what I could remember from the 290x threads when they came out.