The Radeon RX 480 is a seriously impressive package. It's not the fastest graphics card on the market, but then it wasn't designed to be. AMD has targeted its Polaris technology debut at the mainstream gamer, the idea being to deliver exceptional 1080p gaming performance and VR readiness at a price that simply can't be ignored. Let's put this into perspective: Nvidia's GeForce GTX 970 is by far the most popular gaming GPU on the market today. The RX 480 is just as fast overall - if not faster - and AMD has priced it at just $199.
The card we're reviewing today comes direct from AMD and it's the reference version, based on a standard 'blower' design. We expect to see two distinct SKUs from each major add-in board manufacturer - cards with 4GB of GDDR5, and a more expensive version with 8GB of VRAM. There's a subtle distinction here between the two - opt for the more future-proofed 8GB design, and you get more bandwidth: 8gbps vs 7gbps on the lower capacity card. Core clocks are unchanged though, as are all other elements of the design.
The reference card itself is well-built, a triumph of function over form. You'll need to get a custom card if you want a more striking design, but this rather plain-looking version gets the job done admirably. One area where AMD has spent a great deal of focus is the RX 480's acoustic performance. The product is very, very quiet, although it can get a little hot. There's the sense that AMD has balanced thermals vs reduced fan noise here in favour of the latter here, a fact borne out by the blower really needing to kick in hard when overclocking. The RX 480 was a 150W TDP, and takes power using just one six-pin PCI Express connector.
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