XFX RX 480 GTR XXX or GTR Black Edition?

[Adi925]

Hey,

I've recently upgraded from crappy dual core AMD Athlon 64 x2 6000+ to an Intel i7-6700 and I'm happy so far.

Although, the archaic Palit GTX 550 ti is still there and requires an upgrade.
I've decided to buy 480 from XFX but have doubts if 30$ difference between GTR XXX and GTR Black Edition is worth it.
The only difference is 1288MHz base clock vs 1338MHz, which, from what I know, can be achieved without any problems by OCing the weaker model.

The resolution I'm playing on is 1680x1050. PSU is sufficent for any upgrade (750W semi-modular from XFX).

Why not MSI or ASUS? I've checked the cooling solutions of all available cards, and I believe one of these XFXes is the best choice.
I'm on a tight budget currently and the card has to be bought this or next week as it may not be available for quite some time.


Hope we can get some suggestions.

 

[RCFProd]

MSI Gaming X, Asus ROG Strix and XFX GTR are the best RX 480's available. So get the ones that fits your budget the best.

Also It's the XFX XXX, not GTR XXX. There is only the XFX GTR.

 

[Adi925]

In the nearby shop in my country there are 2 variables of XXX - one is RS with worse cooling and GTR with the same cooler as in Black Edition. Perhaps they've messed something up with the naming of the cards.

 

[Eximo]

So I googled XXX, bad things happened...

 

[RCFProd]

In the nearby shop in my country there are 2 variables of XXX - one is RS with worse cooling and GTR with the same cooler as in Black Edition. Perhaps they've messed something up with the naming of the cards.

Hmm, maybe It's correct then. Anyways any XFX GTR model is good. XFX RS is quite a bit worse.

 

[TJ Hooker]

Yeah, it's weird, there seems to be two versions of the GTR. One of them is the Black Edition
http://www.xfxforce.com/en-us/products/amd-radeon-rx-400-series/rx-480-gtr-black-8gb-dd-led-rx-480p8dba6
The other is the Triple X edition
http://xfxforce.com/en-us/products/amd-radeon-rx-400-series/rx-480-gtr-8gb-dd-led-rx-480p8dfa6

Other than the Black Edition having a 50 MHz higher clock speed, they seem to be the same.

 

[Adi925]

Forgot to give an account.

XFX RX 480 GTR XXX serves very well, the cooler is quiet and temperatures stay below 75 degrees.
http://imgur.com/a/Ckugi


1288MHz is enough for a while, but I'm definitely going to check if I can reach 1300-1350MHz while keeping reasonable temps.

 

[TJ Hooker]

You can also try undervolting your card.

I just got an MSI RX 480 Armor 4G OC. I undervolted at stock clocks (1291 core, 1750 memory), and when I ran Unigine Valley on "Extreme" for 20+ minutes I stayed below 70 C and the card was pretty much inaudible.

I also got it to 1400 MHz core pretty easily, temps around 76 C and not too noisy after tweaking fan/temp targets.

And that's one of the cheapest 480's you can buy.

 

[Adi925]

Running below 80 degrees with 1338MHz core and 2100MHz memory without touching the voltage and fan speeds.

1350MHz core and 2200MHz memory run stable (with slightly increased voltages), however, the fan speeds need adjustments as the card runs 79-82 degrees under the heaviest load which may require them to run a bit louder.