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Review: Sapphire Radeon RX 480 Nitro 4GB and 8GB OC

by Tarinder Sandhu on 29 July 2016, 14:01

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qac4xz

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Test Methodology

Sapphire Radeon RX 480 Nitro OC 8GB Specification


GPU Comparisons

 
GPU
Memory
Miscellaneous
Cores
Base
(MHz)
Boost
(MHz)
Size
(MB)
Clock
(MHz)
Bus
(bits)
Power Config
Driver
Sapphire Radeon RX 480 Nitro OC 8GB
2,304
1,208
1,342
8,192
8,000
256
8
16.7.3
Sapphire Radeon RX 480 Nitro 4GB
2,304
1,208
1,306
4,096
7,000
256
8
16.7.3
AMD Radeon RX 480
2,304
1,120
1,266
8,192
8,000
256
6
16.7.2
Sapphire Radeon R9 Fury X
4,096
-
1,050
4,096
1,000
4,096
8+8
16.6.1
Sapphire Radeon R9 390 Nitro
2,560
-
1,010
8,192
6,000
512
8+8
16.6.1
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition
2,560
1,607
1,734
8,192
10,008
256
8
368.39
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Founders Edition
1,920
1,506
1,683
8,192
8,008
256
8
368.39
MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming X
1,280
1,569
1,785
6,144
8,008
192
8
368.64
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 Mini ITX OC
1,664
1,076
1,216
4,096
7,012
256
8
368.81
Asus GeForce GTX 960 Direct CU II
1,024
1,253
1,317
2,048
7,200
128
6
368.39

HEXUS Graphics Test Bench

Hardware Components Product Page
Processor Intel Core i7-6700K (overclocked to 4.4GHz) intel.com
CPU Cooler Noctua NH-D15S noctua.at
Motherboard Asus Z170 Pro asus.com
Memory Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4-2400 crucial.com
Power Supply be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 850W bequiet.com
Primary Storage 256GB Samsung 950 Pro samsung.com
Secondary Storage 512GB SK hynix Canvas SC300 skhynix.com
Chassis Fractal Design Define R5 Windowed fractal-design.com
Monitor Philips Brilliance 4K Ultra HD LED (288P6LJEB/00) philips.co.uk
Operating system Windows 10 (64-bit) microsoft.com

Benchmark Suite

Synthetic Benchmarks
3DMark Fire Strike, Fire Strike Extreme, Fire Strike Ultra, Time Spy and Time Spy Stability Tests
Gaming Benchmarks and Settings
Dirt Rally DX11, 4xMSAA, Ultra Quality
Doom OpenGL and Vulkan, TSSAA (8TX), Ultra Quality
Fallout 4 DX11, TAA, Ultra Quality
Hitman DX12, SMAA, Maximum Quality
Rise of the Tomb Raider DX12, FXAA, Very High Quality
Tom Clancy's The Division DX11, FXAA, Ultra Quality
Total War: Warhammer DX12, MLAA, Ultra Quality
General Benchmarks
Power Consumption To emulate real-world usage scenarios, we record system-wide mains power draw both when idle and while playing Dirt Rally.
Temperature To emulate real-world usage scenarios, we record GPU core temperature both when idle and while playing Dirt Rally.
Noise A PCE-318 meter is used to record noise levels when idle and while playing Dirt Rally.
Overclocking Maintaining out-the-box voltage, we increase the card's power target and aim for an optimal balance of core and memory overclock. With the heightened frequencies in place, the 3DMark, Dirt Rally and Rise of the Tomb Raider tests are re-run at 4K UHD settings.

Notes

To minimise the impact of any CPU bottlenecks, our test platform is configured with a quad-core Intel Core i7-6700K processor overclocked to 4.4GHz across all cores and 32GB of Crucial Ballistix Sport LT DDR4 memory set to run at 2,400MHz using the built-in XMP profile.

For our high-end benchmark suite, we have an array of games tested at FHD (1,920x1,080), QHD (2,560x1,440) and 4K UHD (3,840x2,160) resolutions. Where applicable, any vendor-specific enhancements such as PhysX and TressFX are disabled to help even the playing field. In-game benchmark results are recorded as minimum and average frames per second.

We've added Doom Vulkan and 3DMark Time Spy to our existing suite. A few of our previously-tested cards have been culled from the upcoming graphs for easier viewing. And do take note of how the 16.7.3 driver works in Rise of The Tomb Raider.