Sapphire Launches Nitro+ RX 480 With Removable Fans

[N.Broekhuijsen]

Sapphire packs its Nitro+ Radeon RX 480 cards with removable fans, RGB lighting, dual-BIOS, and healthy factory overclocks.

Sapphire Launches Nitro+ RX 480 With Removable Fans : Read more

 

[Calculatron]

Are you sure it is not a 6+2 phase VRM?

 

[elbert]

I would love to see some OC tests. Its said this card can OC to 1.5~1.6GHz to match AMD's Fury.

 

[Bloob]

Everyone's launching *hit, but not much is available (at least in Finland).

 

[Kourgath223]

Everyone's launching *hit, but not much is available (at least in Finland).

They are supposed to be available starting next week so whatever and apparently "Launch" doesn't mean the same to these companies as it does to the consumer.

 

[littleleo]

Is it just me or does this card look a lot like the XFX Double Dissipation Edition models.

 

[Bloob]

Everyone's launching *hit, but not much is available (at least in Finland).

They are supposed to be available starting next week so whatever and apparently "Launch" doesn't mean the same to these companies as it does to the consumer.

Sure, these are supposed to available next week, but my statement holds true for even the reference 480, not mention 1060 and its AIB boards.

 

[elbert]

Wow the sapphire Nitro 480 4GB outperforms the 1060 in all 1060 dx12 benchmarks. Even the small bump in speed the custom Nitro offers is more than enough to beat the 1060. This with just a small 10 watt high draw than the stock rx480. Bumping the Nitro to 1405 and 15% memory OC flips a good number of dx11 results.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

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.

 

[elbert]

That is a link to an Asus which the OC isn't even as high as the factory speed of the Sapphire Nitro. The Nitro OC'ed over 1.4 in this reveiw. http://www.pcworld.com/article/3098825/components-graphics/sapphire-nitro-rx-480-review-polaris-rethought-and-refined.html?page=9

 

[madmatt30]

The nitro 4gb is on preorder price of £199 in the UK.
The cheapest 1060 is at £239.

Nuff said there , absolutely no competition at those pricepoints.

 

[IceBergs]

That open hole in the back plate would piss me off

 

[redgarl]

Wow the sapphire Nitro 480 4GB outperforms the 1060 in all 1060 dx12 benchmarks. Even the small bump in speed the custom Nitro offers is more than enough to beat the 1060. This with just a small 10 watt high draw than the stock rx480. Bumping the Nitro to 1405 and 15% memory OC flips a good number of dx11 results.

All of them.

 

[EduFrazao]

Can I use this Card with a Corsair CX750M Power Supply? It haves two 6+2 PCIe slots.

 

[elbert]

Wow the sapphire Nitro 480 4GB outperforms the 1060 in all 1060 dx12 benchmarks. Even the small bump in speed the custom Nitro offers is more than enough to beat the 1060. This with just a small 10 watt high draw than the stock rx480. Bumping the Nitro to 1405 and 15% memory OC flips a good number of dx11 results.

All of them.

Yup as the Nitro allows a 200Mhz OC on core and 15% on memory which more than over comes the small lead the 1060 has over stock in a few cases.

 

[elbert]

Can I use this Card with a Corsair CX750M Power Supply? It haves two 6+2 PCIe slots.

Depends on if you only want to use 2 in crossfire. Trifire maybe not a good ideal unless their all stock 480's.

 

[Virtual_Singularity]

Links to interesting info re the 480's performance gains in Doom using Vulkan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyuoQIuEZj0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXijkS_qIzA (More in depth analysis). This reviewer's channel has grown on me, aside from the interesting vids, I find the thick Irish brogue refreshing.

And an interesting 1060 review at hardocp which has plenty to say re the 480 as well.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2016/07/19/nvidia_geforce_gtx_1060_founders_edition_review/10#.V5KRSvkrIuW

The 480 Nitro looks sleek, also decently priced. Should be seeing 480 custom specs from MSI, XFX, and Gigabyte soon too. The Asus model also looks really nice, though not entirely confident with its cooling solution tbh

 

[sloshyclown04]

Will these be released this monday. and is there any news of msi aftermarket rx 480

 

[iam2thecrowe]

Wow the sapphire Nitro 480 4GB outperforms the 1060 in all 1060 dx12 benchmarks. Even the small bump in speed the custom Nitro offers is more than enough to beat the 1060. This with just a small 10 watt high draw than the stock rx480. Bumping the Nitro to 1405 and 15% memory OC flips a good number of dx11 results.

So then what happens if you OC the 1060.........

To be honest, for around about the same price point, i would just take the overall faster card, the 1060. The rx 480 needs its price dropped or it is not going to sell sitting on the same shelf as a 1060.

I'm right in the running for one of these cards myself, and can't think of any reason to chose the rx 480 over the 1060 at the moment. I have even considered the r9 390 even though its power consumption is high, I can get one for $50-100 less than the 480 or 1060 and i could go get one tomorrow, and its overall faster than the 480. But i will just wait for the 1060's to become available, the price/performance and efficiency are just too good to pass up.

 

[Carl_34]

Will either get this card or the powercolor devil, wouldn't touch a 1060 as its better to support amd as ultimately this will benefit all gamers in driving prices down and increasing performance, also the 480 can be oc'd to 1500?
Another big thing is the option to go crossfire whereas the 1060 you can't sli. Also the 480 performs better in dx12 and Vulcan.

 

[soniccaner1]

Need an actual release date.If not monday might buy a ps4

 

[Lomskij]

Cool, so in the UK we have a nice choice between Sapphire RX 480 4GB for £199 ($261) and MSI 1060 6GT OC for £238 ($312).
The first one is the best value for money available at the moment, the second is slightly faster (~8% in 1080p aggregated on ~20 most popular games from several review sites), and overclocks better. Both the red and green teams got an amazing card each, which would satisfy everyone, except probably the most fanatical fans.
The point is - who would buy a 480 8GB card then?

 

[elbert]

Wow the sapphire Nitro 480 4GB outperforms the 1060 in all 1060 dx12 benchmarks. Even the small bump in speed the custom Nitro offers is more than enough to beat the 1060. This with just a small 10 watt high draw than the stock rx480. Bumping the Nitro to 1405 and 15% memory OC flips a good number of dx11 results.

So then what happens if you OC the 1060.........

To be honest, for around about the same price point, i would just take the overall faster card, the 1060. The rx 480 needs its price dropped or it is not going to sell sitting on the same shelf as a 1060.

I'm right in the running for one of these cards myself, and can't think of any reason to chose the rx 480 over the 1060 at the moment. I have even considered the r9 390 even though its power consumption is high, I can get one for $50-100 less than the 480 or 1060 and i could go get one tomorrow, and its overall faster than the 480. But i will just wait for the 1060's to become available, the price/performance and efficiency are just too good to pass up.

That is just it as how do you know the 1060 is the faster card? Most all the 1060 reviews were of the founder addition or higher clocked customs. The rx480 review but this one was a base model that couldn't even do 50Mhz higher than boost. Custom rx480's can do upto 1.5~1.6Ghz depending on chip and cooling used.
This isn't even counting the 1060 is going to be $299 for some time until custom cheaper versions arrive. See the rx480's custom costlier versions are just arriving.

 

[kyle382]

"Sapphire will simply send you a new fan rather than require you to send the entire graphics card in for repair."

Thats great news, I get really attached to my 2-3 year old PCB's. I have been waiting years for GFX card manufactuers to figure out how to only replace my fans.

 

[DotNetMaster777]

Removable Fans excellent !!