Power Usage and Final Thoughts
When running two video cards it is also important to keep in mind the extra power usage, this is especially true when you have a card like the Sapphire 480 Nitro that pulled a lot more than the Reference RX 480 in my testing. With the two cards together the pair ended up pulling 455 watts when in game. Oddly enough this is a touch less than the RX 470 Crossfire results, but that was done with two aftermarket overclocked cards where for the RX 480 I had one overclocked card and then the reference card. As you can see this is significantly more than the GTX 1070’s pulled in SLI and a LOT more than the GTX 1080 that has similar performance in our testing.
So what do I think of Crossfiring two RX 480’s? This ends up being an interesting one because currently going Crossfire is the only way you can get faster performance to compete with the GTX 1080 in AMDs new lineup. Normally I would suggest going with the biggest single card option you can afford now and leaving the SLI or Crossfire option as a way to upgrade later, but AMD fans are more likely to go this route while waiting for other options. In the tests and games that support Crossfire you do see similar performance at 1080p and 1440p as you would a GTX 1080, but you do have to remember that Crossfire support is a little limited and with games that don’t support it you won’t see any benefit or sometimes even less performance. Because of that, I wouldn’t suggest it for people who play a little of everything, but if the games you play everyday support it this is a good way to get high-end performance at a better price.
Live Pricing: Sapphire RX 480 8GB Nitro and AMD’s Reference RX 480 8GB
