Will liquid cooling really do the trick? Partner cards will come with better cooling anyway to handle overclocks...the ref card only has a 6 pin connector..I don't see any more performance from what we've seen thus far even when that gets thrown under water. The power delivery limitation makes this an unnecessary buy.

Unless of course one's a stickler for lower temps...from the reviews seen, it's not unbearably noisy like the ref 290/290X

from what i can see nvidia has unleashed their troll army in every post concerning the 480.. good job people, good job.

on topic: i dont think the people buying this card would go for a w/c solution because of the price.

theoneandonlymrkI'm on the soon as list for 2 of these ,and a second 480 next month (arives sat),yeah my Fx will bottleneck the cheap out of them but I'm jibering over the folding performance /efficiency.

do you think that it will bottleneck them substantially?

Guru3D review says 480 is between 970 and 980 and in some games it's very close to 980 DX12. Here it says otherwise.. What to believe ? Wish I can see some unbiased reviews

chief-gunneyRX480 out performs the gtx 970 at half the price and does so on day 1 with virtually no cooling with a 6 pin power connector and a beta driver and no overclock, LoL.
Most definitely Number 1 in it's class ATM. Can only get better.
Waterblock may be a better idea on the after market cards to come with modified boards and 8 pin connectors,
looking forward to the results.

Yeah but kinda pointless at this time until AIB's add a 6+2 or another 6 pin connector.

GhostRyderThat's one game...Not the average...So the truth actually is...

It is better than the 970. Its exactly where everyone has been saying it is, in between the 970 and 980 performance wise (Or for AMD, between the 390 and the 390X). Its also on a pretty premature driver as this is the first card from this generation so performance will as with any card regardless of the company go up as time moves on.

Actually the truth is what games you play not total games as i know i will not play a bunch of them.

saikamaldossGuru3D review says 480 is between 970 and 980 and in some games it's very close to 980 DX12. Here it says otherwise.. What to believe ? Wish I can see some unbiased reviews

I have also seen reviews that say that Polaris will shine at DX12, OpenGL, and Vulkan, but so much in DX11 games.

chief-gunneyRX480 out performs the gtx 970 at half the price and does so on day 1 with virtually no cooling with a 6 pin power connector and a beta driver and no overclock, LoL.

You can get GTX 970's for $20-50 more. Nice try. Once AIB's come out that price difference evaporates.

AsRockYeah but kinda pointless at this time until AIB's add a 6+2 or another 6 pin connector.



Actually the truth is what games you play not total games as i know i will not play a bunch of them.

True, but I prefer an overall so long as they are not all biased to one side because that at least gives us a good average. Most users though should look at the games they play and pick based on that but an average will at least give you a better over time look at the card.

As far as the waterblock goes though, I have seen people water cool a GTX 750ti before so anything is possible. But either way I bet some people will as people on the budget market can be just as enthusiast as we are and build an awesome water cooled rig on a budget.

Everyone to their own :), i know there is at least 6 on that list i will never touch, percentages change a lot due to it. Not as if all the games that i do play can be or are on that list.

EsseYou can get GTX 970's for $20-50 more. Nice try. Once AIB's come out that price difference evaporates.

It could fail tomorrow too.

HD64GAgreed! RX480 on water will reach stock 980Ti probably...

.......its a nice card.....but don't know if LN2 and a lightning bolt can get it to that level..... looking forward the AIB partners to really see this card shine. My first "real" graphic cards was a 6870, which i later cross-fired. At this price I might put this in my wifes machine...just for some fun. I haven't truely water cooled anything yet. Fraid to risk losing the parts. This price point is easier to stomach than a 5 to $600 gpu.

$ReaPeR$from what i can see nvidia has unleashed their troll army in every post concerning the 480.. good job people, good job.

on topic: i dont think the people buying this card would go for a w/c solution because of the price.

And every AMD thread appears to not accept any critique of the card.

FWIW, XSPC have announced a 'budget' block for the 480 which makes more sense for a budget card. And as I said, water-cooled has the biggest impact on noise these days, not performance.

pecheim pretty sure will be custom PCB's with Extra connectors....

Yeah, and there GPUs will come with good aftermarked air cooling, and will not be identical to reference so this waterblock migh not even fit them.

Face the facts, reference cards cant OC and already use too much power for PCI-E to handle, why would anyone invest half it's price for a water block? Especially when 480's main point is low price? This thing is useless.

HD64GAgreed! RX480 on water will reach stock 980Ti probably...

Thanks for letting me start my day with a laugh.

newtekie1With the amount of power the reference PCB pulls through the PCI-E slot, I wouldn't want to overclock it at all, so this block is kind of pointless...

I can only guess that people want their computers to catch fire so they can claim from insurance and/or start a class action lawsuit against AMD. Then they can use that money to buy a better graphics card from NVIDIA.

PumperYeah, and there GPUs will come with good aftermarked air cooling, and will not be identical to reference so this waterblock migh not even fit them.

Face the facts, reference cards cant OC and already use too much power for PCI-E to handle, why would anyone invest half it's price for a water block? Especially when 480's main point is low price? This thing is useless.

I have to agree with this one. If you want cheap high performing card, RX480 is a good option. But considering it's already on the very edge of power limit at stock, spending more on water blocks for reference design doesn't make any sense because you can't deliver more power to it. Maybe with powerful PSU and delivering more than 75W through 6pin which is less risky than through PCIe slot.

Only way to make sense overclocking this thing is to actually firstly be lucky to have a sweet GPU and then undervolt it to gain power headroom which can be then invested in higher clocks. Or simply wait for a single 8pin/dual 6pin version with better non-reference cooling.

EdInk4 or 8GB variant?

Getting 8GB ones, ill loose 10 fps possibly in xfire but not too bothered since I fold mostly.

chief-gunneyRX480 out performs the gtx 970 at half the price [...]

Daydreaming much? :roll:

Aftermarket cards will probably address almost all problems the reference RX 480 is plagued with. Perf/watt will still be 60-70% behind Pascal, but I doubt this will be a deciding factor since the power draw has come to a point where even SFX-(L) PSUs can easily handle the task. This minor downside will easily be overshadowed by the positives, if, and only if, pricing of authorized board partner cards is kept at a sane level. I really hope we will see custom RX 480s with 8GB @ 230-250€ a few weeks after release. I hope AMD's AIBs will release mini-ITX variants as well. Would be an awesome addition to any HTPC :rockout:


Since 3.440x1.440 panels that support HDR and high refresh rates are still nowhere to be seen, I might buy a custom RX 480, which will help tide me over until the release of Vega, GP100/102 or even Volta, depending on how long it'll actually take till such panels will surface.

geon2k2I think they were also fooled by the AMD performance claims.
Otherwise, I don't see the point of this block.

Who would pay 200$ on a card and 100$ on a cooler, considering the overclocking is not even that great?

A guy who can afford 2 card whold definitely consider to buy them

rein_psiko4A guy who can afford 2 card whold definitely consider to buy them

Then why not just buy a single GTX 1070? All the performance with none of the multi-GPU issues.

DethroyDaydreaming much? :roll:

Aftermarket cards will probably address almost all problems the reference RX 480 is plagued with. Perf/watt will still be 60-70% behind Pascal, but I doubt this will be a deciding factor since the power draw has come to a point where even SFX-(L) PSUs can easily handle the task. This minor downside will easily be overshadowed by the positives, if, and only if, pricing of authorized board partner cards is kept at a sane level. I really hope we will see custom RX 480s with 8GB @ 230-250€ a few weeks after release. I hope AMD's AIBs will release mini-ITX variants as well. Would be an awesome addition to any HTPC :rockout:


Since 3.440x1.440 panels that support HDR and high refresh rates are still nowhere to be seen, I might buy a custom RX 480, which will help tide me over until the release of Vega, GP100/102 or even Volta, depending on how long it'll actually take till such panels will surface.

People who buy RX480 class graphic cards don't care about heat or noise. All they know is how fast games work. And they want them to work faster. That's all they care. The noise is usually one of the very last things they care, unless things changed recently and I wasn't around to notice it.

RejZoRPeople who buy RX480 class graphic cards don't care about heat or noise. All they know is how fast games work. And they want them to work faster. That's all they care. The noise is usually one of the very last things they care, unless things changed recently and I wasn't around to notice it.

People who are not as acquainted with hardware as we are, are much more prone to bias and more likely to follow the herd. And that's why most of 'em will keep buying Nvidia GPUs, especially since the GTX 900 series was so successful. Nvidia's market-share is a testament to that statement.
The only ones left, that might not care about noise and heat, are enthusiasts. But enthusiasts won't buy a RX 480 to begin with.

the54thvoidAnd every AMD thread appears to not accept any critique of the card.

FWIW, XSPC have announced a 'budget' block for the 480 which makes more sense for a budget card. And as I said, water-cooled has the biggest impact on noise these days, not performance.

oh please spare me the bullshit hypocrisy, where were this "critique" when the 1080 thermal throttled? and had driver issues, and all that while having a price-tag from another planet. if you expected a 230$ card to be better than a 600$ one you are truly delusional.
Are we seriously discussing a 4dBA delta? yeah.. what an earth-shuttering difference my god how are we going to solve this HUGE problem.. -_-
oh and i forgot the 1 degree delta with the 1080fe.. yeah.. soooooooo much heat... -_-
i dont mind the criticism, its the bs and the double standards that i mind.



the 1080 temps for the people with short memory..

saikamaldossGuru3D review says 480 is between 970 and 980 and in some games it's very close to 980 DX12. Here it says otherwise.. What to believe ? Wish I can see some unbiased reviews

just watch as many as you can and take the average, the truth is always somewhere in the middle.

A block for the RX480 kinda makes sense!

You guys check this out:

$ReaPeR$Are we seriously discussing a 4dBA delta? yeah.. what an earth-shuttering difference my god how are we going to solve this HUGE problem.. -_-

A 4dBA delta means, that the RX 480 custom cooler is roughly 1.5 times as loud as Nvidia's. I wouldn't call that insignificant.

$ReaPeR$oh and i forgot the 1 degree delta with the 1080fe.. yeah.. soooooooo much heat... -_-
i dont mind the criticism, its the bs and the double standards that i mind.

You are right, the difference is negligible. What's not negligible is the fact, that the GTX 1080 hits the same temps at roughly 1.8 times the perf while being roughly 1.5 times quieter as well.

Having said that, what's the point of comparing reference cards regarding heat and noise again? Right, there is none! (as long as they use different cooling solutions)

350W for the whole system as per OC3D commentary above? My system peaked at around 330W. 5820K at 4.5 GHz, 32GB RAM and overclocked GTX 980. Hm. Things aren't adding up here.