AMD Radeon RX 480 Graphics Card Roundup

Power, Sound & Temperature Benchmarks

Power Consumption

We begin by comparing the power consumption of each card in our gaming loop, stress test, and at idle. Depending on the power targets specified by each manufacturer, we sometimes measured substantial differences. We're ignoring the decimal places in our bar graphs, since those values are too small and would be within measurement tolerances.

We also found that some cards with lower power targets started to throttle during our stress test, resulting in lower power consumption numbers. This did not, however, have a negative impact on general gaming performance for any of the tested cards, as the stress test merely represents a worst-case scenario.

Sound

In the following comparison, we summarize the maximum results in our gaming loop as a bar graph - check out the frequency spectrum on the individual product pages, too.

Since these cards employ a semi-passive mode, their fans don't spin at idle. Consequently, there was no reason to collect measurements in that state.

Temperature

In two galleries we compare temperatures on the open test bench and inside a closed case. We start with measurements from the GPU:

The VRMs are just as important as the GPU since they play an even more active role in heating the PCB. Again, you'll find more detail on the individual products pages.

MORE: Best Graphics Cards

MORE: Desktop GPU Performance Hierarchy Table

MORE: All Graphics Content