AMD Radeon RX 480 Review - The fastest Polaris desktop card at launch

Polaris is AMD's first architecture manufactured in a 14 nm FinFET process. It is the 4th generation GCN (Graphics Core Next) architecture and offers the following improvements according to AMD:

• Enhanced geometry engines
• Improved shader efficiency (up to 15 % per CU at RX 480 vs. R9 290)
• LiquidVR API support with "Variable Resolution Rendering"
• Improved memory controller and Delta Color Compression (DCC) with full 2/4/8:1 support
• Doubled Level 2 cache
• Shader Instruction Pre-Fetch and improved buffering
• Improved Asynchronous Compute
• AMD TrueAudio Next (calculated via shader)
• H.265 Main 10 decode and 4K60 HEVC encode
• HDMI 2.0b, DisplayPort 1.3 HBR (5K60 with a single cable) / 1.4 HDR with HDCP 2.2
• HDR display support

These improvements are supposed to increase the performance per Watt up to the factor 2.8x (RX 470 vs. R9 270X).

Our test system for the following benchmarks consists of the following components:

Intel Core i7-4790K (not overclocked), 16 GB DDR3, Asus ZU97-Deluxe, Asus PB287Q 4K monitor, Intel SSD 530 (240 GB, system), OCZ Trion 100 SSD (480 GB, benchmarks), Windows 10 64-bit with all updates as of mid June. As a driver we used the press release of the 16.6.2 (pre launch of the card). The 16.7.2 should boost performance by around 3% according to Computerbase.

We use the synthetic benchmarks from Futuremark's 3DMark series as well as the products from Ungine to test the graphics performance. However, the results should be handled carefully, because all manufacturers optimize their GPUs and drivers for the 3DMarks in particular.

On average, the new Radeon RX 480 is ahead of the GeForce GTX 970 (-6 %) and Radeon R9 290X (-5 %) in our benchmarks, but is usually behind the GTX 980 (Notebook) (6-11 % faster) and R9 390X (4 % faster). The RX 480 can even just beat the GTX 980 in the old 3DMark 11 Graphics subscore, but the Unigine Heaven 4.0 performance is pretty weak in return.

The new Geforce GTX 1080 (Pascal) is – as expected – out of reach and manages an impressive advantage of 86 % on average.

The general gaming performance is obviously more important. During this test, we checked the performance of the RX 480 with 34 games and numerous settings. The average results in 1920 x 1080 and maximum settings as well as 4K with high settings are on par with the R9 290X, and slightly ahead of the GTX 970 (-2 %, but inside the MSI Gaming Dock and less benchmarks). The R9 390X is 5 % faster, while the GTX 980 about 5-15 % faster depending on the device (desktop or notebook). The Radeon R9 Fury (Pro) manages 17 % more frames per second on average (it is particularly faster in 4K).

The RX 480 performs excellent in the targeted Full-HD resolution and manages smooth frame rates in all tested games. Only Anno 2205 and XCOM 2 are on the limit, but high frame rates are not that important here.

The GTX 980 is actually beaten in some titles in Full-HD (Dragon Age Inquisition, GTA V, Rainbow Six Siege, Black Ops 3, Hitman 2016, and Overwatch), but it also manages a significant lead in other games (Rise of the Tomb Raider +25 %, Fallout 4 +19 %, Mad Max +16 %). It is 7 % faster on average.

More gaming benchmarks are listed at the end of this article. They are continuously maintained and upgraded.

The Radeon RX 480 is equipped with 36 Compute Units for general calculations. AMD pushes the open CL protocol, but DirectCompute is supported as well. The performance is actually decent in LuxMark (OpenCL) and ComputeMark (DirectCompute) and a bit faster than in games. Both the GTX 980 and R9 390X are a bit slower and the advantage of the GTX 1080 is also smaller compared to the gaming benchmarks.

Our short attempts with the new overclocking tool "WattMan" were not overly successful. With a 5 % higher core clock, the card managed up to 1330 MHz (stable) in The Witcher 3, and the performance was around 4 % higher (Full-HD, high details). We did, however, not validate the stability of these settings with long-term testing. A 10 % increase of the core clock immediately caused a crash as soon as we accepted the setting in WattMan.

All in all, the RX 480 was very reliable during our multiple-day testing. We did encounter 3x reboots while we tested one game and some games were unexpectedly stopped. Assassin's Creed in particular did not really like pour hardware. Besides a reboot, the game crashed repeatedly. Fifa 16 is a second example and did not want to launch with Fraps (could only be activated during when the game was already launched). Otherwise, the 32 tested games ran without any issues. Overall not quite as good as the GTX 1080 we reviewed, which only had problems with Hitman but did not cause any reboots. It is still a good performance for a new architecture ahead of the official launch though.

AMD advertises two RX 480 in a Crossfire configuration as an alternative to the GTX 1080. At a lower price, they are supposed to manage a comparable performance. AMD showed Ashes of Singularity during its press conference, which managed a comparable frame rate. We unfortunately did not have a second test sample, so we could not check this claim. We are pretty sceptical about Crossfire and SLI in general though. There are often problems due to missing profiles (no performance gains) or micro stutters. The situation might be a bit better with DirectX 12 games, but we do not really expect big improvements.

The AMD Radeon RX 480 is the first graphics card with the Polaris architecture manufactured in the new 14 nm FinFET process. Priced at 215 Euros ($199 USD without taxes) for the 4 GB version and 255 Euros ($239 USD) for the 8 GB version, they are right in the mainstream segment (roughly RRP of the R9 380), and therefore not competing with the new high-end chips GTX 1080/1070 from Nvidia. Compared to the 28 nm GPUs, the new RX 480 leaves an excellent impression. The power consumption is much lower under load and the performance is roughly on par with the GeForce GTX 970 (or slightly below the R0 390X, respectively). The 8 GB version of the RX 480 turns out to be perfectly suited for Full-HD gaming with the maximum settings. Only Anno 2205 and XCOM 2 drop below 30 fps on average. However, high frame rates are not really necessary for these games. 4K gaming is only recommended with simpler titles like Overwatch or World of Warships.

The new generation also convinces with features like HDMI 2.0b, DisplayPort 1.3/1.4 for 5K monitors, HDR support, and improved video engine. The reference card is well-built and conveniently quiet, despite the low price. We think the consumption while idling can still be improved and AMD already verified that there is a bug in the current driver that should fix that issue. Nvidia's more expensive GTX 1080 shows what is possible in this respect. The small stability issues will hopefully be fixed until the launch. 

Until Nvidia releases smaller model with the Pascal architecture, AMD's only competition are the old cards that are in the sale right now. Thanks to the improved efficiency and features, the price will have to be pretty tempting though. Until then, we can clearly recommend the RX 480. It is, however, questionable, if the 8 GB version is worth the additional price. The benefits right now are limited to a few playable settings (like Tomb Raider).

Update 14th July 2016: Added GTX 970 (MSI GamingX 4GB) benchmarks