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SAPPHIRE RX 480 NITRO NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER AT OVERCLOCKERS UK (WORLD FIRST) !!!

drunkenmaster said:
I switched the order to the Powercolor when I saw the pictures showing the overhanging fan and showing the narrow heatsink. It instantly made me think that it basically wasn't a good enough design. I prefer a card with bigger fans compared to smaller fans, but the heatsink needs to match the shape/size of the fan otherwise extra airflow isn't being used. It just looked like a poor design. I'm completely agnostic on looks in terms of I buy what performs. I personally think the Powercolor looks messy and a bit daft but it performs how it performs.

The length of the Powercolor put me off a bit, not because it will be a problem in my case(figuratively or literally), I do think a 30CM long card in a midrange card is a difficult sell for second hand thinking about selling in a years time or whenever.

I'm entirely not at all surprised that it turns out the Nitro is 10dba louder at all. It's also only got 2 heatpipes, much of the airflow is wasted, there is no reason for the pcb to be so wide and area available is higher than people think. Spec wise the Devil specs say it's 8mm wider... despite the top being in line with the top of the bracket while the Sapphire clearly extends 2-3cm past the pci-e bracket height. My real issue is they've put in a pcb extension bit, made the shroud significantly wider and used absolutely none of that extra width to put in a wider heatsink. If the existing pcb/shroud used a 40% wider heatsink cooling would be excellent. As it stands they've made the card about 20-30% larger than it needs to be, they could shrink the width, the shroud and not change the pcb or heatsink at all.
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Thanks. I'm looking to replace a 670 2gb but i might just wait for some more aftermsrket designs to hit the shelfs first.
 
GizF1 said:
Its my case...... it gets very hot

It's also right next to closed French doors with sun shining in as I'm going for a worst case situation

Giz
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Extension cables? My solution for a pair of 290 references was £5 with of usb extension cables. In one of these flats with a huge open plan living room/kitchen and it has a door to hallway and spare bedroom. So I have computer in spare bedroom, desk near there, keyboard/mouse/monitor cables under the door. Can barely hear computer even with 290s with fans ramped way way up.

I did that like a decade ago but switching CDs/dvds so often became too irksome to be worthwhile but now it's a non issue. Leave computer so you can turn it on by keyboard and barely ever need to go to the actual computer.
 
Freddie1980 said:
Thanks. I'm looking to replace a 670 2gb but i might just wait for some more aftermsrket designs to hit the shelfs first.
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As DM said in an earlier post, there are cards like the MSI gaming that sit between Sapphire's "form over function", and Powercolor's "won't fit in your case" insanity. MSI probably has better cooling than the Sapphire, but not as good as Powercolor, but will fit in cases where the Powercolor won't fit. There's only so many AMD partners out there, and I think we've seen them all by now.
 
DotcomL said:
Almost all Nitro reviews say that there were issues with the target temperatures and mad fans. But apparently some have got it working so no idea.

They should hurry and beta launch the Trixx or something.
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I seem to have fixed it by just clicking the Speed (rpm) toggle switch on and leaving it as is and turning the temp target to 80 and +25% power
 
JustEner said:
I am quiet sure that there are some anomaly in driver or in Wattman. Yesterday I tried some OC, vent profile, etc...
At stock speed (1342) with +25% powet limit and increased vent. speed the cooler could not cool the GPU down under 81-82 Celsius at 60% vent. It was very loud for me so I changed the vent. profile back to default... And the temperature went back to 77 Celsius at ~50% vent.... Strange.
Also I got 75 Celsius at 1385/2200 + 25% power limit during Fire Strike while I got 78 Celsius at default clocks... I dont get it. Right now I consider Wattman as "not usable".
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There is certainly something amiss with the fan speed. I swear it just does what it feels best while thinking about the settings you use.

Just had 2 BSOD by lowering the OC! I think the new drivers may be a big buggy (and of course no memory OC now :( )
 
motiv said:
There is certainly something amiss with the fan speed. I swear it just does what it feels best while thinking about the settings you use.

Just had 2 BSOD by lowering the OC! I think the new drivers may be a big buggy (and of course no memory OC now :( )
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And i'd say you're not the only one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ekdte9UoGyE

I crashed earlier in Dark Souls 3, just randomly and yesterday with SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
 
Has anybody else had any screen flicker issues.

In fact im not sure if I would even call it a flicker. Its as if the screen goes black for a millisecond.

:/ It also seems to keep reverting back to 60hz
 
The more I look at the Nitro vs Devil, the I favour the Devil more and more.

Going by ComputerBase tests the Devil card in Silent mode aka Reference speeds uses 1W more than the GTX 1060 Founders Edition, and the Devil in OC mode runs at a max of 34.5 dBa while using a system total of 231W.

The Nitro by comparison in Quiet mode uses 55W more power at a max system draw of 250W and runs at 39.5db.

So at both with Silent mode
Nitro = 39.5dBa - 250W - 79 Degrees

Devil = 33dBa - 195W - 68 Degrees

OC modes
Nitro = 44dBa - 269W - 78 Degrees

Devil = 34.5dBa - 231W - 79 Degrees

So while the Nitro runs 16Mhz more in OC modes, it uses a lot more power, and is louder. Although the card is shorter.

With the Devil's massive cooler, I think you could easily get it to 1350Mhz and simply up the fan speed a bit. Then it's faster than the Nitro+ OC card, and still quieter.

The main issue by far is simply the card being so darn long, so if your chassis can take it, I think it looks like a much better buy out of the two.
 
I have my target temperature set to 40, yet the fans only kick in once it hits 50. That seems odd to me. Anyone know how it should work?

Fan is set to 3200RPM for both target and max.

Edit: the fans kick in at 53 and stop at 47 degrees.
 
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motiv said:
I have my target temperature set to 40, yet the fans only kick in once it hits 50. That seems odd to me. Anyone know how it should work?

Fan is set to 3200RPM for both target and max.

Edit: the fans kick in at 53 and stop at 47 degrees.
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LIkely a case of starting voltage required to get it to turn.

IE take a 40 to 90c scale and apply a fan map to it. so at 40C the fan decides it only needs to run 800rpm and tries giving it lets say 5v, but it turns out that specific fan needs 7v to get it to turn over then will happily keep running at 5v. Ultimately that is the issue, one of my case fans that I never bother doing anything about as it's pretty much pointless won't turn on start up because for whatever reason that plug won't give it enough juice to start up but if I give it a little shove it will spin and keep spinning till I turn the computer off.

So I'd guess that at the lowest fan speed it's going for it's just not giving it enough juice to start up where as a blower fan will start up at the same fan speed. They have less resistance/weight and likely start up at lower voltages. A lot of the current issues are Wattman is designed for reference and doesn't seemingly have profiles defined by the various manufacturers of custom cards. Sapphire/others seem pretty lax in their overclocking utility support out of the gate tbh, not impressed by any of them.
 
Im only looking for a 4GB model as i cannot justify the extra 4GB for another £50. Currently have an MSI R9 270 2GB, its ok but looking forward to replace with a 4GB 480 of some sort. Case is an Akasaa Eclipse from a while back but its big so airflow iant an issue.

Wondering if just a ref card with blower style will be good enough or get a Nitro 4GB.

Will be on an MSI Gaming 3 z97 and 4790K.

Ideas guys?
 
I was always concerned about the 480 Nitro cooler as soon as I saw the orientation of the heatsink fins, they're parallel to the PCB passthrough which means only 3-4 of the fins are dissipating heat that way and the longer length of the fins is bad ( although marginally ). I wasn't really surprised that it didn't perform that well in reviews, they really need to improve on their old designs like the Tri-X Vapor-X as those were pretty damn good.
 
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