Best RX480 brand

Casterina · 16 Dec 2016 at 18:28

Hi all

I'm looking at buying the RX480 but not sure which brand to go for in terms of cooling, which one will provide low temps and fan noise?

Boomstick777 · 16 Dec 2016 at 18:56

1) MSI RX480 Gaming X 8GB.

2) XFX fan swap-able thingy.

Forget the rest xD

Panos · 16 Dec 2016 at 20:15

Sapphire

Casterina · 16 Dec 2016 at 20:23

Panos said:
Sapphire

I have read online that the Sapphire Nitro is the worst in terms of cooling out of all the AIB.

DRSEire · 16 Dec 2016 at 20:25

Xfx GTR swappy fan

nashathedog · 16 Dec 2016 at 21:06

Casterina said:
I have read online that the Sapphire Nitro is the worst in terms of cooling out of all the AIB.

I've read that too, I think the XFX GTR is the best 480, There's the XXX and the Black edition which appear to be the same except for a slightly raised boost clock speed on the Black edition. The fan swapping thing is an overpriced gimmick, they should have gone with rgb lighting instead of asking for an extra 20 quid for each set of coloured fans, It's disgraceful.

Aretak · 16 Dec 2016 at 21:07

Casterina said:
I have read online that the Sapphire Nitro is the worst in terms of cooling out of all the AIB.

It's not great. Sapphire usually make amazing coolers, but went real cheap with the RX 480. As nice as the card looks, the heatsink underneath is tiny compared to a lot of the other models.

I guess it's understandable, given how poorly cards like the Fury Nitro sold, despite having perhaps the best air cooler ever created strapped to it.

hornetstinger · 16 Dec 2016 at 21:10

nashathedog said:
I've read that too, I think the XFX GTR is the best 480, There's the XXX and the Black edition which appear to be the same except for a slightly raised boost clock speed on the Black edition. The fan swapping thing is an overpriced gimmick, they should have gone with rgb lighting instead of asking for an extra 20 quid for each set of coloured fans, It's disgraceful.

Don't care about rgb lighting. What does it matter the gpu has stupid LED's on it

TheMorningStar · 17 Dec 2016 at 06:33

Well, not pleased with MSI, both of my cards have loose heatsinks and this is probably why my temps are ****. I'll have to RMA them at some point. Seems I just got 2 from a bad batch though as everyone is reporting their's are rock steady, while I have 2-3mm of play on each

wedrum · 17 Dec 2016 at 07:12

So are xfx back.to being good then.
A while back their rep was poor.

Davanius · 17 Dec 2016 at 10:13

Every Sapphire card I have had in the past had coil whine.

Don't know about xfx.

My brother just bought a Msi rx 470 gaming x which has zero coil whine even during the heaven bench credits. Incredible.

Also the temps on that thing are ridiculously low. 60c and less during load. I can't imaging the 480 being far off.

wedrum · 17 Dec 2016 at 10:28

I tend to stick with evga for my cards now.

nashathedog · 17 Dec 2016 at 10:59

hornetstinger said:
Don't care about rgb lighting. What does it matter the gpu has stupid LED's on it

You've totally missed my point, It's not about rgb lighting and whether it has it or not, it's about trying to get more money by making removable fans that cost 20 quid a set when all they do is add what could have been done via rgb at no additional cost. The reason I mentioned it was because several posts before mine where suggesting he get the card with removable fans as if it was a cool design when it's just a gimmick designed to get more money for cards that are already on the high side of what they should cost.

nashathedog · 17 Dec 2016 at 11:06

Aretak said:
It's not great. Sapphire usually make amazing coolers, but went real cheap with the RX 480. As nice as the card looks, the heatsink underneath is tiny compared to a lot of the other models.

I guess it's understandable, given how poorly cards like the Fury Nitro sold, despite having perhaps the best air cooler ever created strapped to it.

Why? Sapphire's an AMD only brand and I imagine the 390 and 390x Nitro's sold well, They did something wrong this time around but I doubt it has anything to do with how well the Fury Nitro sold.

Nasher · 17 Dec 2016 at 11:47

The XFX GTRs aren't just for fancy fans, they have good VRMs etc on them as well. You can undervolt them quite a lot.

DRSEire · 17 Dec 2016 at 12:00

Nasher said:
The XFX GTRs aren't just for fancy fans, they have good VRMs etc on them as well. You can undervolt them quite a lot.

We understand that

nashathedog · 17 Dec 2016 at 12:02

Nasher said:
The XFX GTRs aren't just for fancy fans, they have good VRMs etc on them as well. You can undervolt them quite a lot.

As I said, there one of, if not the best 480 available.

Elevon · 17 Dec 2016 at 15:01

I have just ordered the XFX GTR RX480 Black edition, wanted to try a different brand, normally I stick with Sapphire, MSI, Gigabyte to name a few.

As to the Sapphire Nitro RX480, it has had good reviews if you check the net even with the slightly smaller heatsink which could be a plus point for those with smaller cases, it dose have removable fans via one screw, ballbearing fans.

Anyway I hope my XFX lives up to the hype

.

Every Sapphire card I have had in the past had coil whine.

My Sapphire 280X OC does not have any coil whine, never had coil whine in the past, I do use a good quality PSU ie Seasonic made Corsair 850w PSU.

Getting back to RX480s, I think MSI, XFX, Asus , Sapphire,and even HIS(looks like XFX 480 cards) are all good cards, it's all down to what you exactly want, ie size, cooling, price, overclock ability etc...They are all miles better then the bog standard reference model.

MyBrainz · 17 Dec 2016 at 15:07

These comments about Sapphire are ridiculous, those making these comments on how bad they are, do you actually own one?

My Nitro+ 480 never goes above mid 60c's (and thats usually while running 3DMark anyway) normally it is sitting between 50c and 60c while gaming.

Let me post a video i made just last night, running 3DMark Firestrike to prove that the cooling isnt as bad as what a fair few here are saying..

And that is with using this fan profile..

Nothing wrong with the Sapphire cooler on the 480, maybe if some of you guys went by user benchmarks instead of some of the official reviewers that used the 0db crap, you would be telling a different story..

Right now my 480 has a 12% fan speed (583rpm) and is at 25c.

My 1:1 fan curve kicks in at 60c.

DRSEire · 17 Dec 2016 at 20:53

MyBrains said:
These comments about Sapphire are ridiculous, those making these comments on how bad they are, do you actually own one?

My Nitro+ 480 never goes above mid 60c's (and thats usually while running 3DMark anyway) normally it is sitting between 50c and 60c while gaming.

Let me post a video i made just last night, running 3DMark Firestrike to prove that the cooling isnt as bad as what a fair few here are saying..

And that is with using this fan profile..

Nothing wrong with the Sapphire cooler on the 480, maybe if some of you guys went by user benchmarks instead of some of the official reviewers that used the 0db crap, you would be telling a different story..

Right now my 480 has a 12% fan speed (583rpm) and is at 25c.

My 1:1 fan curve kicks in at 60c.

Great card.Enjoyed that bench.
Thanks