Well for a while there it seemed like all I was covering were cards from all of AMDs launches. I took a break and took a look at a few GTX 1060’s and a few other things around that office. But I’m now back at it again. Today I get to take a look at our first aftermarket RX480 and it’s an exciting one, the RX480 8GB Nitro+ from Sapphire. This is one of the cards that people have been especially excited for. Given how well the Nitro RX470 performed in my previous review I don’t blame them for being excited. So today I’m going to check out the card and see what it has going, then run it through our benchmark suite and see how it performs. While I’m at it I’m also going to take a look at the recently introduced revision to the Trixx software that adds proper lighting controls for the card. Let’s go!
Product Name: Sapphire RX480 8GB Nitro+
Review Sample Provided by: Sapphire
Written by: Wes
Pictures by: Wes
Amazon Link: HERE
| Specifications | |
| GPU |
2304 stream Processors 14 nm FinFET 4th generation Graphics Core Next (GCN) Up to 1342 MHz Engine Boost Clock |
| Interface | PCI-Express 3.0 |
| Memory |
256 bit Memory Bus GDDR5 Memory Type 2000 MHz Memory Clock 8192 MB Size |
| Displays | Maximum 4 Outputs |
| Output |
1x DL-DVI-D 2x HDMI 2.0b 2x DisplayPort 1.4 |
| API |
OpenGL® 4.5 OpenCL 2.0 DirectX® 12 Vulkan™ 1.0 Shader Model 5.1 |
| Feature |
AMD CrossFire (bridgeless) AMD PowerTune AMD ZeroCore Power Technology AMD FreeSync Technology AMD Eyefinity AMD Tress FX technology AMD Liquid VR technology AMD TrueAudio Next technology AMD HD3D Technology Universal Video Decoder (UVD) XConnect™ technology Dolby® TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio™ Support High Dynamic Range (HDR) support 16K Hours Capacitor Black Diamond 4 Chokes Intelligent Fan Control III 10 mm Heat Pipe Dual BIOS NITRO Glow RGB LED lights NITRO Boost VR Friendly |
| Cooling |
Dual-X 95 mm fans Two ball bearing NITRO Free Flow redesigned airflow NITRO FanSafe and Fan Health Check SAPPHIRE Fan Service SAPPHIRE Quick Connect system |
| Form Factor |
2 Slots Occupied, ATX 240 X 120 X 42 Dimension /mm |
| Power Consumption | 225W |
| OS |
Windows 10 Windows 8/8.1 Windows 7 |
| System Requirement |
500 Watt Power Supply (Suggestion) 1 x 8-pin AUX Power Connector CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive for installing software |
Before diving into testing, I did want to include a copy of the GPUz from the card. With issues popping up this year with manufacturers sending review samples that are turned up to their optional OC clocks I want to make sure we keep everything transparent. GPUz shows us the same 1342MHz base clock that Sapphire has in their specifications for the SKU I am testing today. So we everything looks good to go.
