Be nice to see the AIB cards from both camps actually selling for the MSRP or below. Right now the $199 reference 480 is still selling for $270...out of stock prices being meaningless if you can't buy them .... hopefully the presence of new AIB cards will drive these down.
As for the overclocking performance, not going to find that here in THG.
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/RX_480_STRIX_OC/26.html
Unfortunately, seems we are still looking at the same single digit performance increases from OC on AIB 4xx cards as we saw with 3xx and 2xx
79.0 fps AIB OC / 74.5 fps stock reference = 6.2%
Compared with the 1060 which gives ya 3 times that
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1060/29.html
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_1060_Gaming_X/27.html
101.1 AIB OC / 85.5 stock reference = 18.2%
Relative performance if reference cards in TPUs test suite at 1080 p was 100% (1060) to 90% (480) So from what we have seen so far .... looking at the 1080p results at TPU
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1060/29.html
100% x 1.182 = 118.2%
90% x 1.062 = 95.58%
118.2% / 95.58% ... So... the 6GB AIB 1060 ($289) tested at TPU is 23.7% faster than the 8GB AIB 480 ($259*) tested at TPU.
* Anticipated
$289 / $259 = 11.6%
At 23.6% performance increase for a 11.6% increase in price, I think most will take the performance. For the 1st time, we not seeing an x80 card being the obviously superior AIB choice over a xx60 card. OTOH, if folks can drop their attachment to having more VRAM than they can realistically use at 1080p and go with the 4 GB model then the price bump for the 4 GB 480 to the 6GB 1060 is only 20.9% which makes the 1080p competitive in this space. Of course, for those who are not inclined to OC, the superior overclock ability of nVidia's design and AIB improvements becomes a non-factor.
There's till a blunder here on both sides..... at least from consumer perception PoV.
On one hand, the lack of an SLI option on the 1060 will give many pause.... but when ya look back, two 960s were slower and more expensive than the 970 which rendered twin 960s a unsupportable choice. If those performance issues continued with the 1060s we'll never know but unless twin 1060s were > 30% faster than a 1070, it would not make a supportable choice.
On AMDs side, they did maintain CF support, but when using two cards, presumably for resolutions larger than 1080p, you'd want 6 - 8GB. However, with performance falls short of the cheaper 1070, it's very hard to justify.
In short.... I see the 4 GB AIB 480 as a viable choice for those staying at 1080p for the next couple of years tho I think a price cut must follow. The 8 GB version is hard to justify w/o a substantial price cut due to the 1060s superior out of the box performance and OC abilities. As for CF ... despite early claims about besting the 1080, twin 480s don't even catch the 1070
Can't leave w/o complimenting Sapphire om the removable fans tho. No reasons why GFX cards had to have their shrouds removed to replace fans.