Review: MSI Radeon RX 480 GAMING X

Discussion in 'Frontpage news' started by Hilbert Hagedoorn, Aug 1, 2016.

  1. Undying

    Undying Ancient Guru

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    Well, well... he actually have one. Who is triggered now, Noisiv? :D

    btw, use latest 16.7.3, gives a little boost (if that is your card).
     
  2. Noisiv

    Noisiv Ancient Guru

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    I am using 16.7.3.
    Bug in AMD installer results in displaying it as 16.7.2
    Now find some other thread to look silly :wanker:

    [​IMG]
     
  3. Hilbert Hagedoorn

    Hilbert Hagedoorn Don Vito Corleone Staff Member

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    Article has been updated:

    - Updated Tomb Raider - RX 480 results with the new 16.7.3 driver
    - Added Doom - Vulkan TSSAA 8tx results compared to OpenGL 4.5
     
  4. JonasBeckman

    JonasBeckman Ancient Guru

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    Well what do you know, it almost reaches the Fury GPU's performance in Rise of the Tomb Raider (DX12 now with those optimizations, impressive. :)
    (Catching up to the 1060 as well at higher resolutions.)

    EDIT: DOOM is seeing some improvements as well via Async though higher resolutions tax the GPU which results in smaller gains.
    (A decent gain of 6 - 7 FPS on 1080p although the GPU is already running the game at 120+ FPS at that res though it tanks after that down to 80 at 1440p and then 40 at 2160p though at 1080p it might be able to retain those 120+ framerate figures now even on more demanding levels although probably not all the time but still good for people using 120hz monitors and at 1440p 60+ should be viable too though above that framerate might drop to around 30-ish at 2160p which is a bit low for a fast paced shooter like this.)

    EDIT: 8 GB VRAM should allow for "Nightmare" texture quality too although shadows might tax the GPU a bit more.
     
    Last edited: Aug 2, 2016

  5. Mannerheim

    Mannerheim Ancient Guru

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    does fury get any benefits with newer drivers?
     
  6. Undying

    Undying Ancient Guru

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    Thank you, HH. I know it was annoying but these are now valid results.
     
  7. Ryu5uzaku

    Ryu5uzaku Ancient Guru

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    You are awesome. That 480 is rather fast in Tomb Raider now...
     
  8. JonasBeckman

    JonasBeckman Ancient Guru

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    Nothing listed but there could be some smaller undocumented optimizations and fixes, well there usually is as seen partially by checking any changed or updated game profiles in newer drivers.

    Runtimes can also be changed without being listed such as 16.7.2 and newer switching to Vulkan 1.0.17.0 from I think it was 1.0.11.0 or some such.
    (And CCC/CNext seems to be running on a daily compile or something, obviously it needed to be updated for Wattman functionality for the 480 GPU but even when AMD does a hotfix release some day or two after a driver update it'll include a newer version of that software, I guess there's a reason behind that though and the ACP driver or what it's called behaves much the same.)

    EDIT: AMD did trail behind Nvidia pretty heavily in Rise of the Tomb Raider though which well Nvidia worked with Nixxes this time on the PC version so they'd have an advantage but now with DX12 (And in a recent update also async.) added well AMD has caught up a bit from their problematic DX11 overhead issues and other problems. :)
    (Much as with Vulkan over OpenGL, of course the raw speed of the 1070 and 1080 GPU's still have a lead and Nvidia might expand that further as they start focusing on Vulkan and DX12 support too as more and more games move to at least support these API's.)
     
    Last edited: Aug 2, 2016
  9. Hilbert Hagedoorn

    Hilbert Hagedoorn Don Vito Corleone Staff Member

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    No, this is only relevant to the 480. Prior to 16.7.2 all cards shifted almost 5% to 10% due to I guess some async or overhead optimizations. At that time the one card that did not show the perf increase was the RX 480 (which just launched). Somewhere in the driver stack AMD realized they didn't make a Polaris 10 specific optimization and now enabled the extra perf for the 480 (and 470) in the 16.7.3 (and upwards) drivers.
     
  10. __hollywood|meo

    __hollywood|meo Ancient Guru

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    boss, you have the patience of a saint.
     

  11. Picolete

    Picolete Master Guru

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  12. majinsnake

    majinsnake Guest

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    I am not sure how true this is, but I read reviews on this MSI gaming x 480 8 GB graphics card. I own the card, so I was seeing what other people who own the same card were saying. This review was on Amazon from someone who had purchased it and returned it.


    Quote "The heat sink pictured in the description, and on MSI's website for this card, is actually the 6 heat pipe heat sink from the 1070/80. This card uses a smaller 3 heat pipe heat sink that it shares with the 1060. In addition, this card does not have active VRM cooling. This would not be a problem for a stock PCB 480's VRM, good up to 125C. However, there are no spec sheets available for critical components on this card's PCB. There is some anecdotal evidence to suggest that the card throttles when VRM temps reach 92C. I returned my cards for these very reasons."


    I contacted MSI who did not understand my first message to them. I asked them why only three heat-pipes on the card, when Nvidia has 6 heat-pipes on there 1070/80 series? MSI told me it was the design by their R & D Department.
     
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2016
  13. sykozis

    sykozis Ancient Guru

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    To answer your question... Yes, MSI used a heatsink with 3 heatpipes. However, 2 of the heatpipes pass under both fans. It doesn't really matter what cooler design is used on the GTX1070 and 1080 as they are completely different cards. All that matters is whether or not the cooler can effective cool the card it's mounted on.

    The VRMs do in fact have active cooling. There is a fan mounted directly over top of the VRMs. "Active cooling" means that air or liquid is passed over a component to cool it, which is exactly what MSI is doing with the TwinFrozr coolers.

    You have to keep in mind, a lot of reviews are written by clueless idiots.
     
  14. majinsnake

    majinsnake Guest

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    @sykozis

    I was hoping I did not make a bad purchase upon receiving this graphics card.


    I understand on people making bad reviews on products.
     
  15. cvearl

    cvearl Guest

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    I bought the MSI Gaming X RX 480 4GB after reading this great review. Thanks for the work on this Guru. One of the more balanced reviews out there back in August and still relevant. I have been nothing but completely happy with this card. One click and I was at 1340 core. No changes at all to fans, power or anything. Took it like a boss. Every game solid.
     

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