Is the RX 480 good enough for 1080 or even 1440 gaming?

[Valex16]

Hello. This is my first post on Tom's Hardware so... How ya doin?
Ok... So since the RX 480 was announced I was hyped, and I still am, but the majority of people say that it is not worth it, that it does not even beat a GTX 970, but from what I have seen in the most benchmarks, it is slightly better than a 970. I'm planning on buying a gaming PC in the near future ( the sooner the happier I am ), I hope I will finnaly get rid of this piece of turd I own right now. My question for you guys: Is the AMD RX 480 worth for 1080p or maybe even 1440p gaming? I would most likely play games like GTA 5, Hitman, Far Cry (from 3 to Primal), Call of Duty Franchise etc. Here are the parts I would like to buy along with the 480 : http://pcpartpicker.com/user/Valex16/saved

Hopefully it will show the parts, if not:

i5 6600 non k
16 gigs of RAM
msi b150m mortar mobo
seasonic sII 520 watt
Seagate hybrid SSHD 1TB
Deepcool Kendoman case
Deepcool gammaxx 300 cpu cooler

That's pretty much it.

Hopefully you guys will help me out, because from where I live, in Romania, everybody thinks is an expert and have different opinions and I am really confused if I should buy this card or not.

 

[RobCrezz]

Yeah if we say its equal to a 970, then yes its good for both 1080p and 1440p, you just have to be a little more conservative with the graphics settings in 1440p.

 

[DanielSpaending]

Every benchmark so far points at the 480 as a excellent choice for 1080p or even 1440p. It is true that 970 is better in some games, but in other games the 480 is the winner.

I would take the cheapest card i could buy between GTX 970 or RX 480 since the performance is very similar. However if you are a overclocker, right now it seems like 970 is a better choice, at least until custom 480's hit the market...

The R9 390 is also very closely matched, but your PSU is not really powerful enough, so thats not a real option.

 

[1N07]

It would seem that it is perfectly capable of 1440p, but as with most GPUs the fact that it can run a game at a certain resolution hardly tells you much.

It would depend a lot on how new games we're talking about. Games from a few years back will probably run at 1440p at close to max settings, but new upcoming titles probably wouldn't.
Not at max settings anyway. At medium-high 1440p or about max 1080p? Probably.

 

[Valex16]

I am not interested in overclocking!

 

[guanyu210379]

It depends on where you live.
Here, where I live, Galax GTX970 EXOC is €10 cheaper than the cheapest available RX480.
R9 390 is about €10 cheaper than Galax GTX970 EXOC.
R9 390, GTX970 and RX480 are all on the same performance level.
If you can squeeze a bit more budget, you can try finding R9 390x for about €50 more than Galax GTX970 EXOC.
For me, RX 480 is totally uninteresting.

Note:
Galax GTX970 EXOC is a factory OCed card, you do not have to do anything if you do not plan to OC it manually.
I am using 2 of this cards since October 2014...but...yes..I OC the cards further, manually.

 

[Valex16]

Like I said, I live in Romania.
Here, the RX 480 is almost 350 dollars, the cheapest 970 is almost 400 bucks and the 390 is about the same price as the 480, maybe a little more expensive with like 10 dollars, it really depends on the producer.

 

[Nerijus_1]

I might be wrong but, this card RX 480 is a little bit better than gtx 970 (I own one, very good overclocker) and it is 2 years old, give or take. So I feel at some point maybe next year it will begin to struggle with 1080p, so price might be good for RX 480, but will it last for two years? I don't think so. Unless it is for moderate gaming. My choice would be gtx 1070 when the price goes down, or something similar from AMD (that would be better for 1080p).

 

[ema21del9]

I might be wrong but, this card RX 480 is a little bit better than gtx 970 (I own one, very good overclocker) and it is 2 years old, give or take. So I feel at some point maybe next year it will begin to struggle with 1080p, so price might be good for RX 480, but will it last for two years? I don't think so. Unless it is for moderate gaming. My choice would be gtx 1070 when the price goes down, or something similar from AMD (that would be better for 1080p).

I don't think AMD have anything to offer against 1070 or 1080 without going CF which is a totally different terrain.

 

[BurgerandChips66]

Hmm, I'm not in the camp that thinks the RX 480 reference is a let down. I think it's great value for the price you pay and a great card for 1080p.

But my advice is wait for the custom cards. I never buy reference cards and I never will. They are only useful for comparison benchmarks when a new GPU is initially launched imho. (Oh, and small form factor builds perhaps!)

What I've noticed is that in many of the comparisons so far, reviewers have used a factory overclocked GTX 970 - NOT the reference card.

In one case it was the GTX 970 SSC edition which is 'on a par' with a reference GTX 980. The interesting thing was that the reference RX 480 was close to the GTX 970 SSC in many and even ahead of it in certain benchmarks.

Where I found benchmarks comparing the RX 480 to a reference GTX 970... it was in fact ahead in all but one of the tests.

The websites and Youtube channels that I trust the most (including the one that used a GTX 970 SSC for a comparison) actually show the RX 480 in a rather favourable light.

Those who are a bit disappointed have maybe not seen/read all the reviews/comparisons yet. There are a great number of them, they vary pretty wildly in some cases. (Example: Guru3D vs Tech of Tomorrow.)

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_radeon_r9_rx_480_8gb_review,1.html

https://youtu.be/5CJBaZ9V2Eo

 

[ema21del9]

Hmm, I'm not in the camp that thinks the RX 480 reference is a let down. I think it's great value for the price you pay and a great card for 1080p.

But my advice is wait for the custom cards. I never buy reference cards and I never will. They are only useful for comparison benchmarks when a new GPU is initially launched imho. (Oh, and small form factor builds perhaps!)

What I've noticed is that in many of the comparisons so far, reviewers have used a factory overclocked GTX 970 - NOT the reference card.

In one case it was the GTX 970 SSC edition which is 'on a par' with a reference GTX 980. The interesting thing was that the reference RX 480 was close to the GTX 970 SSC in many and even ahead of it in certain benchmarks.

Where I found benchmarks comparing the RX 480 to a reference GTX 970... it was in fact ahead in all but one of the tests.

The websites and Youtube channels that I trust the most (including the one that used a GTX 970 SSC for a comparison) actually show the RX 480 in a rather favourable light.

Those who are a bit disappointed have maybe not seen/read all the reviews/comparisons yet. There are a great number of them, they vary pretty wildly in some cases. (Example: Guru3D vs Tech of Tomorrow.)

While I agree in what you've just said, I must also say that in my country for example GTX OCed 970 is cheaper than reference RX 480 so I think there's no reason at least for me to consider the RX 480 other than red vs green, the AMD card is just slightly better and do have in count the overload PCIe issue that has been found.

 

[TheNewPCGuy]

Cards like the 970, R9 390, and now 480 are perfect for 1080p. As for the best option, it really depends on where you are from because the price differences between these cards can vary greatly. In the US the 480 seems to be a really great deal, however in many places across Europe they can get a 970 or 390 cheaper than they can get a 480.

 

[Valex16]

So far, the tech store I want to buy the PC from have already brought in stock the MSI, GIGABYTE, SAPPHIRE and ASUS versions of the AMD RX 480. Only one little big problem: THE FRICKIN' PRICE. Everything here in Romania is twice as expensive as something in the States for example. So the price in US dollars was 200$ for the 4GB version of the GPU and around 240$ for the 8GB, right? Well, in Romania, the most expensive 480 card is the ASUS one, which in US dollars is 400 bucks !!! The cheap ones are the MSI and GIGABYTE for now, they sit at around 340 dollars. But I'm still thinking of buying one when I will get the Computer. I just wanted to share this with you guys, like a little comparison, to show you what I'm dealing with here. I would buy the PC from Amazon, but if something will be damaged or go in flames or something, I would have some issues with the warranty.

 

[guanyu210379]

The next option is to wait and see how the prices will progress.
I think there is some chaos in demand and production, which causes the prices to go higher as they should.
GTX1070, GTX1080 and the new RX480 should be effected.
See also how the prices for GTX970, R9 390 and R9 390x in a few weeks or months.
Let things stabilize themselves first.
It is not the best time to get a new GPU in my opinion.

If prices in Romania is 2x more expensive than the US, you can simply fly to other EU countries, have a vacation there and buy your parts there.
There are tons of direct flights e.g. between Timisoara and Münich.

 

[Valex16]

I'm not intending to buy the PC like right now, hopefully late july maybe august, so I hope the prices will be stabilized by that time for the 480.

 

[pete_101]

So far, the tech store I want to buy the PC from have already brought in stock the MSI, GIGABYTE, SAPPHIRE and ASUS versions of the AMD RX 480. Only one little big problem: THE FRICKIN' PRICE. Everything here in Romania is twice as expensive as something in the States for example. So the price in US dollars was 200$ for the 4GB version of the GPU and around 240$ for the 8GB, right? Well, in Romania, the most expensive 480 card is the ASUS one, which in US dollars is 400 bucks !!! The cheap ones are the MSI and GIGABYTE for now, they sit at around 340 dollars. But I'm still thinking of buying one when I will get the Computer. I just wanted to share this with you guys, like a little comparison, to show you what I'm dealing with here. I would buy the PC from Amazon, but if something will be damaged or go in flames or something, I would have some issues with the warranty.

All of those cards are reference cards, no custom cards are out yet. At this stage the only difference between all of them is if they have a back plate or not. In about a months time there will be custom cards.

Here is what the Asus ROG Strix will look like.

 

[mattcrow]

This looks exactly the same as 1080 STRIX I want to buy... Amazon's out of stock, pretty much since after second day they were out... And 3'rd party sellers are going bonkers with prices, trying to sell them for nearly 700GBP, where the original price was below 600GBP...
I'm going to be building a PC for my son, for X-mas, think I will go ahead with one of the custom rx480's.

 

[rnewton8]

Your best bet is to look at benchmarks that have the games you play listed and check the FPS and see if those numbers would make you happy at the resolution you play. The RX 480 is a great 1080p card, and also a lot of the benchmarks show it is pretty good at 1440p as well. its strong enough to do high settings at 1440p for new AAA titles.

Supposedly, it will run Doom on Ultra 1440p and get 60fps. I will know in a few days as i have an RX 480 on order. Personally if i had the choice between a GTX 970 R390 or RX 480 all at simliar price, I would go with the 480. The 480 has 8GB Vram which will help at 1440p.

 

[floodmayhem]

I bought an xfx Rx480 8g on launch day. Most people went with the 4g version. And you are seeing a lot of complaints from people about those cards not stacking up against the 980s or 1070s. That isnt the case with my card. I only tweaked with the gpu frequency -5% and power consumption -10% and I actually saw an increase in performance AND efficiency. I enjoy all my games in 1440p or even higher resolutions with average fps above 50 at all times. Yes the stock settings of the card come slightly overpowered, but thats a good thing, even at stock settings it runs really well even though a bit hot. So a bit of playing around with the WattMan settings(Very excellent UI and easy to use!) goes a long way. I DO NOT REGRET getting this card at about 250$ after shipping. Even if you are unsatisfied with just one rx480, the beauty of the card is it is cheap enough to crossfire, and benchmarks of CFd 480s are starting to show it is well worth it to CF them instead of paying about the same for a 1080FE!! Avg FPS are actually higher than the 1080s at 4k resolution!!

 

[RobCrezz]

Can you link us that? All benchmarks I saw the 1080 was faster than 480 in nearly everything except aos.

 

[floodmayhem]

Can you link us that? All benchmarks I saw the 1080 was faster than 480 in nearly everything except aos.

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/7770/amd-radeon-rx-480-crossfire-beating-geforce-gtx-1080-4k/index7.html

 

[maks kuznia]

What is the best answer? I'm too lazy to read all of that

 

[RobCrezz]

Short answer, yes the RX 480 can game at 1440p.

 

[guanyu210379]

RX480 can be used for 1440p just do not try to max everything on new heavy AAA games. A mixture of medium and high is still doable with RX480/GTX1060/GTX970/R9 390/R9 390x/GTX980 to reach over 50 fps on 1440p.