ASUS STRIX GAMING RX 480 OC Graphics Card Review

Overclocking and Overclocked Performance

Usually, the overclocking process involves monitoring the core clocks to determine if there are any kind of power restrictions. In a strange turn of events, the graphics card couldn’t uphold the OC profile’s 1330MHz engine clock and tends to drop below 1300MHz. This resulted in an average reading of 1309MHz which is well under the OC profile’s theoretical maximum. I’m not entirely sure why the core clock isn’t reaching its desired maximum and wondering if some kind of power restriction is coming into play.

Despite this challenging situation, I went ahead and overclocked the graphics card to the absolute limit. Initially, I aimed for a core clock of 1410MHz, then 1400MHz but this wasn’t stable even at the highest voltage setting. Therefore, I decided to settle for a respectable 1390MHz and move on to the memory overclocking. As you can see, the memory boosted by 692MHz resulting in a final figure of 8296MHz. This is a pretty solid effort and much better than the XFX model reviewed a few days ago.

Here we can see a screenshot comparing the default clock (gaming mode) and manual overclock:

Deux Ex: Mankind Divided

Before I get into the overclocking results, please note the 1390MHz clock was the maximum figure and the core often dipped by a large degree leading to some unpredictable outcomes. During the Deus Ex: Mankind Divided benchmark, the graphics card just edged its nearest rival although the advantage is within a margin of error.

Far Cry Primal

Here we can see the overclock provides a good performance gain and brings the GPU closer to the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1060 OC.

Gears of War 4

Rather puzzlingly, the graphics card falls well behind the XFX RX 480 GTR Black Edition despite having a theoretically higher overclock. This performance deficit stems from the GPU struggling to maintain the 1390MHz figure and experiencing major fluctuations. In comparison, the XFX RX 480 GTR Black Edition doesn’t really dip below 1375MHz.