AMD Radeon RX 480 8GB
AMD strikes back
THIS IS THE YEAR of the sub-16nm transistor. The year of manufacturing processes transcending the limitations of 28 nanometers. Nowhere has this achievement been seen more clearly than on AMD’s Polaris architecture, GCN 4.0, the latest and greatest addition to AMD’s arsenal. Designed to accentuate the very best gaming experiences, at the very best performance-per-watt, it’s a generational jump beyond anything we’ve seen in the last 15 years.
The AMD RX 480 is at the very forefront of this technological standard, with its brothers the RX 470 and 460 very close behind. It’s a killer deal—with performance sitting eagerly between both the GTX 970 and 980, it nails that 1080p 60 frames per second sweet spot that we all love, without so much as a hiccup. And at a price as low as $260 if you shop around, it’s insanely difficult to compete with this card, or even recommend an alternative.
Of course, we have to address the power draw issue at launch. It plagued the cards and worried consumers across the grid, because it was drawing too much power through the PCIe slot, consistently above the recommended spec set out by PCI-SIG (ironically, the same organization that approved this card in the first place). It has since been fixed through a compatibility mode implemented in AMD’s Crimson settings suite, but unless you’re running three or more of these cards on a motherboard that’s more than five years old, you have very little to worry about. That said, if you do opt for the compatibility mode, you’ll notice frame rates around half a frame slower than when it was first launched— pretty snazzy, in our opinion.
So, it’s a cool, quiet card, it nails 1080p gaming on the head, overclocks reasonably well, comes in both 4GB and 8GB variants, has CrossFire for expandability down the line, and is available (at the time of writing) for around $260. Need we say more?
VERDICT8
AMD Radeon RX 480 8GB
RADICAL Strong 1080p performance; good value; has CrossFire; power draw abated; fair overclocker.
REPUGNANT Power issues at launch. $260, www.amd.com