The Polaris RX 480 Owners Thread.

MattyD242 · 11 Aug 2016 at 16:59

I've just installed an XFX GTR card myself. I was a bit dubious after ordering that I'd made a mistake and it wasn't going to be worth the extra cost, but the temps I'm getting are about 10c lower than those being reported in Nitro benchmarks and it's completely silent at idle which has made a huge difference to the general noise in my office. The card is very large however and I had to move one of my SSDs to a different bay so it would fit in my case.

I haven't had an AMD card since the dreadful Catalyst Control Centre so I'm struggling to find my way around the settings at the moment otherwise I'd tell you if mine is also throttling.

Overlag · 11 Aug 2016 at 17:01

The power throttling is by design. Not much you can do about that.

Default voltage varies depending how good the core is. For instance my core defaults to 1150 because it's got a low asci quality. Some default lower than that.

GizF1 · 11 Aug 2016 at 18:29

Erasmuz said:
I am the proud new owner of an XFX RX 480 Black 8GB edition, reference design but factory overclocked to 1328Mhz.

I now have it relatively stable after a few issues to start, but I'm still having an issue with thermal throttling. I thought I'd post here in case someone with the same card could help.

I found straight out of the box the card was a little unstable, and would struggle to pass 1100Mhz in bench marking. After a little tinkering I found it NEEDS the power limit raised in WattMan (I just stuck it on 50%). After that it was a lot more stable and it will sit on boost 1328Mhz - until it thermal throttles.

It does a good job of staying above 1200Mhz even when thermal throttling which is nice, but is there anything I can do?

I tried to under-volt but I noticed my default's under 'Voltage Control' are actually lower then what a lot of people were setting theirs too a month ago. I suspect (I could be wrong) AMD's latest drivers to fix the power draw issues probably under-volted, or more appropriately volted their cards meaning there's less play now to under-volt.

I can of course crank the fan speed above 3000 but crickey! Sounds like a tornado then. Should I just be happy with 1200Mhz+? Fire Strike scored 11,484 (graphics score of 13 735) with fans set to Tornado

Hi

If like me you have a poor air flow case thermal throttling is hard to avoid. I wouldn't worry too much about the default voltages, my nitro came default of 1150 but will do stock (1342) at 1117. I currently have it set to 1300 at 1055 so I'd imagine 1200 should be doable with less than 1000.

I'd find the fan level you are comfortable with then find the speed your card can do at that level of cooling - that's what I'm doing. At least I always know I have reserve if I have a less demanding game or I improve my case

Edit - oh yeah you can also save some heat by under volting memory as well mine is currently at 2125 with 0.850

Your firestrike scores are fine

Giz

Erasmuz · 12 Aug 2016 at 02:47

GizF1 said:
I'd find the fan level you are comfortable with then find the speed your card can do at that level of cooling - that's what I'm doing.

Thank you Giz! This is the conclusion I've come to as well.

Out of the box it was a little unstable and wouldn't get much above base clock. However as I mentioned above I'm assuming that the XFX Black is essentially an over-clocked reference model and needs the extra power, however the updated AMD drivers are dialing all this back to fix their power issues which is in-turn crippling the card. Cranking the power limit up to +50% makes the card stable & runs near boost 90% of the time in bench marks.

My voltage controls if I hit "manual" are automatically set to:

State 5: 1031
State 6: 1081
State 7: 1150

My ASIC Quality is 80.1%, is that good?

Any changes seems to crash the bench mark. So this is when I came to the same conclusion as you, it's just about getting the fans set to the max I'm happy with.

I set the fans to unlimited and let Fire Strike run, it did return better results, but the fans on max are almost a bit of a joke they're so loud. So I dialed it back to 1500 min and 2800 max, it's probably a fraction louder then I like under load but OK and sits at boost as I said around 90% of the time.

I decided it was time to stop benching and start playing, and I had a completely different experience. This card is amazing, Doom, WoW & Shadow of Mordor all run on Ultra settings 60-90fps and look just amazing. Smooth as silk, and they don't seem to stress the card as much as bench marking so the card didn't appear to throttle. Synthetic bench marks really don't give the full story. Very very impressed at the price of this card and how well it runs these games.

Just to be clear though the games had glitches & were not quite as smooth pre-tinkering with the card, it definitely needs the above changes made before use (on my configuration anyway)

The last issue I'm having is that occasionally my PC will start, but with no display. I can hear Window's loads but I get nothing on the screen, it takes a few reboots to fix. I'm going to switch to DP (using an adapter at present) and figure out how to turn the on-board graphics off and see if that helps.

GizF1 · 12 Aug 2016 at 09:02

Any changes at all crash the benchmark? (I presume 3dMark?)

As far as I know the turn up the power limit trick was a thing before the voltage controlling driver - its just the way Polaris is designed

I can't remember exactly what my state 5 and 6 voltages are but they look similar

Yeah its an awesome card in games - its just getting it to run efficiently and at its best ability that's the trick!

Giz

miller745 · 12 Aug 2016 at 19:31

Arrived today

Got a 6.8 on the SteamVR test, going to give DCS a try soon.

HRL · 12 Aug 2016 at 19:33

I was curious about that ASIC thing myself. My Nitro is 84.6% whatever that means.

z10m · 12 Aug 2016 at 19:42

HRL said:
I was curious about that ASIC thing myself. My Nitro is 84.6% whatever that means.

ASIC Quality depends on stock voltage.
Lower stock voltage = higher asic quality = better

My reference RX 480 runs at stock voltage of 1056mv and asic quality is 88.3%

bigSadFace · 12 Aug 2016 at 19:54

MattyD242 said:
I've just installed an XFX GTR card myself. I was a bit dubious after ordering that I'd made a mistake and it wasn't going to be worth the extra cost, but the temps I'm getting are about 10c lower than those being reported in Nitro benchmarks and it's completely silent at idle which has made a huge difference to the general noise in my office. The card is very large however and I had to move one of my SSDs to a different bay so it would fit in my case.

I haven't had an AMD card since the dreadful Catalyst Control Centre so I'm struggling to find my way around the settings at the moment otherwise I'd tell you if mine is also throttling.

Is this the GTR black?

What are your load temps? Also do you mind if I ask how loud the fans are under load?

los · 12 Aug 2016 at 21:29

miller745 said:
Arrived today Got a 6.8 on the SteamVR test, going to give DCS a try soon.

I only got 4.7 on that, but for some reason my core clock is stayig low (as in below 1000) even with 100% usage for some reason.
What drivers are you using?

MattyD242 · 12 Aug 2016 at 22:55

bigSadFace said:
Is this the GTR black?

What are your load temps? Also do you mind if I ask how loud the fans are under load?

Yes, it's a GTR Black.

Idle temp seems to peak at the mid 40s without fans and when they do come on from watching youtube or whatever I can't hear them over my case/PSU fans and only know they're spinning from checking Wattman (around 600rpms or less).

Under load, most of the games I have aren't that recent and barely seem to touch the temp or fan speed. The only ones that make the fans noticeable so far are BF4, peak temp around 64c with just about audible fan noise, and Doom which puts the fans into high gear and peaks at the low 70s. I can definitely hear the fans in Doom but they are like a breathy whisper compared to my previous GTX 670 FTW which was often at or close to max RPMs and sounded like a 747 taking off in my office.

I don't know how this stands up to more recent cards but it's made a huge difference for me at least.

bigSadFace · 12 Aug 2016 at 23:15

MattyD242 said:
Yes, it's a GTR Black.

Idle temp seems to peak at the mid 40s without fans and when they do come on from watching youtube or whatever I can't hear them over my case/PSU fans and only know they're spinning from checking Wattman (around 600rpms or less).

Under load, most of the games I have aren't that recent and barely seem to touch the temp or fan speed. The only ones that make the fans noticeable so far are BF4, peak temp around 64c with just about audible fan noise, and Doom which puts the fans into high gear and peaks at the low 70s. I can definitely hear the fans in Doom but they are like a breathy whisper compared to my previous GTX 670 FTW which was often at or close to max RPMs and sounded like a 747 taking off in my office.

I don't know how this stands up to more recent cards but it's made a huge difference for me at least.

Sounds like you're getting good thermals and acoustics. If Doom is low 70s, you might have room to adjust your fan curve a little lower.

MattyD242 · 13 Aug 2016 at 00:37

Just finished downloading Crysis 3 again, very high settings and vsycnh at 60fps, and that performed similar to BF4, temp average around 64c and fans barely audible, in the lower end of 1K rpm. I was genuinely surprised how quiet it was considering that game. The first grass level felt a bit unresponsive but I can't tell whether that was due to input lag from the vsynch or the card struggling to maintain 60fps.

bigSadFace said:
If Doom is low 70s, you might have room to adjust your fan curve a little lower.

I honestly don't think it's necessary right now. I use headphones and can't the the noise, and I don't need the headroom for higher boost clock speeds because I'm getting plenty more FPS than my monitor can display.

I dare say as the card starts to age I'll be forced to increase the overclock and put the fans into hair drier mode to compensate :mad:

docsonic · 13 Aug 2016 at 08:16

Didn't get a chance to post this yesterday but here's my submission!

One Radeon RX 480 GTR Black Edition

bigSadFace · 13 Aug 2016 at 08:33

docsonic said:
Didn't get a chance to post this yesterday but here's my submission!

One Radeon RX 480 GTR Black Edition

Looks great. What size are the fans?

EGuitarStar · 13 Aug 2016 at 14:21

My 4GB arrived today.

Kaapstad · 13 Aug 2016 at 17:04

Welcome and TROH updated.

The Roll of Honour.

Date 13/08/2016, Make Sapphire Nitro+ OC 4gb, EGuitarStar, Link
Date 13/08/2016, Make XFX GTR Black Edition 8gb, docsonic, Link
Date 12/08/2016, Make PowerColor Red Devil 8gb, miller745, Link
Date 10/08/2016, Make Sapphire Nitro+ OC 8gb, Joe_Easy, Link
Date 07/08/2016, Make Sapphire Nitro+ OC 8gb, bigSadFace, Link
Date 06/08/2016, Make PowerColor Reference 8gb, los, Link
Date 04/08/2016, Make Sapphire Nitro+ OC 8gb, bayo000, Link
Date 31/07/2016, Make Sapphire Nitro+ OC 4gb, Blackjack Davy, Link
Date 30/07/2016, Make Sapphire Nitro+ OC 8gb, MichaelM, Link
Date 29/07/2016, Make Sapphire Nitro+ OC 8gb, JustEner, Link
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Date 11/07/2016, Make XFX Reference 8gb, orbitalwalsh, Link
Date 09/07/2016, Make Asus Reference 8gb, Gripen90, Link
Date 05/07/2016, Make Sapphire Reference 4gb, Boomstick777, Link
Date 02/07/2016, Make Sapphire Reference 8gb, FredFlint, Link
Date 02/07/2016, Make XFX Reference 8gb, swanseajack, Link
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Date 01/07/2016, Make Sapphire Reference 8gb, KonfuciousK, Link
Date 30/06/2016, Make Sapphire Reference 4gb, Tute, Link
Date 30/06/2016, Make Sapphire Reference 8gb, Overlag, Link
Date 30/06/2016, Make Gigabyte Reference 8gb, MDPlatts, Link
Date 30/06/2016, Make XFX Reference 4gb, Bantu, Link
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Date 30/06/2016, Make Sapphire Reference 8gb, montymint, Link
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To get on the Roll of Honour all you have to do is post a pic with your user name on it of your RX 480.

Gibbo · 13 Aug 2016 at 19:10

Hi there

Setting power limit to plus 50 or highest setting can help prevent throttling.

MattyD242 · 13 Aug 2016 at 22:50

bigSadFace said:
Looks great. What size are the fans?

90mm each. They can also be removed without a screwdriver which I believe the Nitro requires.

GizF1 · 14 Aug 2016 at 07:40

Gibbo said:
Hi there

Setting power limit to plus 50 or highest setting can help prevent throttling.

Can confirm

Turn that power limit up people

Moaaaaarrrrr powwwwweeeeerrrrrr