AMD RX 400 series (Polaris) MegaThread! FAQ & Resources

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Indeed. Oddly enough the newer Tomb Raider seems to perform much better than the older one on either GPU.
 
It sounds like modern versions of Windows: the newer ones perform better on the same hardware! 🙂
 
Ok, so I found the Sapphire RX480 4GB in stock, at £205; I bought it.

A friend is assembling a PC this weekend at my place with a 1060 6GB.

I will have some subjective impressions by then for you all.

Cheers! 😛
 


I would be absolutely certain that at 1080p 60htz (which is where these cards are aimed) that you will be hard pushed to tell which card is in which system

 
Here is a review of the "HIS Radeon RX 480 IceQ X2 Roaring Turbo 8GB". That's quite a mouthful.

http://videocardz.com/review/his-radeon-rx-480-iceq-x2-roaring-turbo-8gb-review

It seems to be a good overclocker. 1430MHz was achieved. Although it passed the synthetic benchmarks, in games they had to dial it back to 1410MHz for stability.
I know this is a lot less than has been achieved with a custom bios, but for day to day use you really don't want to go much higher anyway as the power draw and temps start to run away if you crank things up much higher than that.

Nevertheless, this clock speed gives it some of the best results so far in fps terms. In DOOM 2016 it is faster than GTX 1070 at stock clocks. That's not by a huge margin, but it's still an impressive performance for a humble RX 480.

The only downside (to some anyway) is the odd looking choice of blue for the fans!
 
The aesthetics are FUBAR, but not all of us have windowed cases so it's a minor gripe. What I'm worried though is that it seems like this is yet another very loud card. With RPM's reaching 2.7k there's no way this card is even remotely silent.
 
If the cooler would've been made with direct contact pipes, then it would have been performing way way better.

And it looks bad. 3rd parties should take design cues from Sapphire as of late. Their 480 is the best looking one out there and they've been doing a good job with cooling since forever as well.

Cheers!
 


that semi transparent blue fan have been some kind of trademark for HIS IceQ series. heard in the past they are one of the good one when it comes to AMD exclusive partner. but right now outside saphire maybe most of them only decent? XFX for example used to be remarkable. especially when they still producing nvidia cards. remember that double lifetime warranty? back in 2008-2010 they got recommended a lot because of such thing. very good customer service as well. there is one guy that burned his XFX 9800GT. but since nvidia already discontinue the 9000 series XFX give him GTX260+ as replacement instead. and right now XFX mostly only about decent among AMD partners.
 


May be trademark, but they still look cheap and ugly.

My XFX R9 280's were some of the last cards covered by that lifetime warranty, they eliminated it with the R9 3xx series. Their customer service was hit or miss for me, when I questioned them why my "Unlocked voltage" (printed on the front of the box) R9 280 was in fact still locked, the guy was a jerk about it telling me who cares it voids the warranty. Turns out only the "Black Edition" is guaranteed to have unlocked voltage, not the standard, but they all have the same stupid box.

Anyway I went with XFX again anyway for my RX 480 partly because they were the only 4gb I could get, but in the end I do like their design and build quality. Their stuff just seems higher end in how its made.
 
after my experience with His a couple years back, i will never buy from them again nor suggest that anyone else does. don't like their business practices and it only takes one time to screw me over before you earn a lifelong negative review. they will never again see another dime of my money nor any dime of any of my clients money !!!

 
Well, if we're talking about those sort of bad experiences, I have 2 with XFX:

1.- An old GeForce 4200ti (yes, that old) that suffered a thermal death because the sink fell of. Yes, the stupid sink fell of the video card while gaming xD
2.- A friend got a 7970Ghz reference-ish from XFX against my advice. The sink, somehow, stopped making contact with the GPU, frying it at some point. After 10 years, the same death to 2 different video cards XD!

For both, upon close inspection, the bolts to the cards simply gave up and, for the 4200, made the sink fell, but for the 7970 made it have a "gap". As weird as it sounds, and knowing how much it consumed, it doesn't take much to convince anyone of it's death. Or way of dying.

No way in hell I'm recommending XFX for the life of me, ever. And if I do, a HUGE warning.

Cheers!
 
The power color devil is the best looking card in my eyes by a long way.

I do like the nitro though , it's understated maybe but it'll fit in with just about any build you care to mention cosmetically.
Black with a configurable led is always a safe choice

I do wish Galax/kfa2 made amd cards though - I absolutely love their quality & design ,all their cards have aluminium shrouds & heatainked steel backplates.
 
So I got my RX480 4GB today and it's currently installed and under use.

Using Windows 7 64bit with an i7 2700K running at 4.6Ghz and 16GB of RAM pushing a 1080p@120Hz display, I don't notice a big difference in performance for most DX9 titles I play, except when I see the FPS numbers ("feeling" vs "numbers"). For example, in GuildWars2, I saw a massive improvement in the new maps, where they use more shinny effects (from stuttering to no-stuttering; most welcome change) and everywhere else, the FPSes were higher: 50-60 to 90-100, but you really don't notice it that much. Testing out American Truck Simulator (don't ask xD) I saw almost no change, so I am guessing the engine must have a bottleneck somewhere; for this one, I have to go downstairs and use my G27! Well, more of that over the weekend xD

I am yet to test DOOM and the other titles I have, but so far the increase in performance over my 7970Ghz is good.

In terms of visual appearance, I have to say it's one handsome card. My Vapor-X was good looking, but standing next to the Nitro+ looks bad. The pictures don't make the card justice, really. The black is matte and the backplate is not extra shiny. Plus the fine-job on the corners of the cooler is just great.

Oh, and one thing I didn't notice until I actually held it: the 8pin is at the back of the card, not at the top (side top?). It might be a bother when you have little room on the back (between MoBo and HDD area for most cases), but the Vapor-X was longer (~1.5 inches longer) than the Nitro+, so even with the 8pin on the back it fits fine.

All in all, holding its value for now.

Cheers!
 
It is good to hear positive feed back on the RX-480, AMD needs some decent models to get back more market share. Stock on the new AMD models is getting better, catching up with the Nvidia.

As far as AMD partners, HIS always seem like a really cheap low-end brand. I don't know if that is true or not. I've carried them off and on for years and never seen a rep or any marketing info on their products. Compared to say ASUS they come in so often I thing we should give them their own desk. Last time XFX was here they were asking us to help them clear out their Nvidia entry level cards like the 8400, 610... even thought they were switched to AMD they still had lots of stock. I've had very little issues with ASUS, GIGABYTE, MSI, Sapphire. Power Color seemed like a lower-end brand too, but they always had a little extra and they seemed to have improved their quality. But HIS I just don't feel comfortable with that brand as much as the others, and I'm not sure why.
 


How does the card feel? My XFX RX 460 feels a little cheap, the plastic. But it's a cheap card so what can you expect.
 


i have a few of their cards in my house (from experience a few years ago) and i actually like the cards. they run cool and quiet out of the box. (i have a 270, 270x and 280 from them) my problem is their business practices. they came out strong a couple years ago with some nice rebates around the holidays and then they went out of their way to refuse to honor the rebates. newegg had a hell of a time with them so much that if you look they do not even carry His cards anymore!!! the rebates were on newegg and amazon if i recall right and i read a ton of reports all around the web of His denying the rebates for all kinds of stupid reasons. the 3 cards i bought plus another dozen or so i got for clients during the holidays were almost universally denied rebates. my 3 cards totaled $130 in rebates denied and another $400 or so for clients denied. i believe only 2 managed to get their rebate honored.

that type of business practice is unacceptable and no matter what i tried they would not acknowledge what they did. hence my lifetime negative review for them. if i was maintaining a list of amd cards like i do for the nvidia ones, i would not even include the company on the list!!! the fact newegg won't even carry their cards anymore should be all ANYONE needs to know about the company as a whole. i'd avoid them like the plague in the future no matter what.
 
Things must be looking up...today is day 3 of NewEgg having 4gb 480 Nitros for $229...without selling out! This means that they have plenty on hand...so availability has def improved.
 
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