Overall and Final Verdict
Today I set out to take a closer look at Gigabytes G1 Gaming RX 480 8GB and to find out how it compares to the other RX 480 options on the market. While doing that I was also curious to see if driver changes, as well as price, had changed AMDs RX 480 location in the market. For starters, the G1 Gaming is very similar to the rest of Gigabytes Windforce cards with the exception of a higher overclock. Its overclock ended up being relatively good though it was hard to ignore that the Sapphire card I tested a while back did have a higher overclock and this showed in the performance results. The G1 Gaming performed great, especially when testing at 1080p and other than a few exceptions that I think are driver related, it outperformed the reference cooler RX 480. Unlike the Sapphire, Gigabyte didn’t run an extreme power profile to get their overclock so when doing power testing the G1 Gaming performed well. The two fan design ran quieter than any of the other RX 480 options. The card could use a little work on its fan profiles however, the cooler was more than capable of cooling the card but the fan profile ended up hardly running cooler than a reference card.
In the end, the G1 Gaming seems to be a good option but it left me wondering if I wouldn’t be better off getting the Gigabyte Windforce card for $10 less and just overclocking it myself. Even the price of the G1 Gaming, however, wasn’t bad compared to the rest of the market. There are a few cards (like the Windforce) selling for a little less with lower overclocks, but it was still cheaper than the Sapphire. It is a better choice than going with a card with the reference cooler, that’s for sure. I do still think the Sapphire 480 is the best card on the market, but the G1 Gaming seems to be a happy medium for people who don’t want to trade another 30+ watts for 50 MHz.
Live Pricing: HERE
