The RX 480 is AMD’s flagship graphics card in the Polaris range and able to provide a “premium VR” experience starting from a mere $200. This marks a huge shift from the current market and kind of performance you can expect on a budget. Of course, many enthusiasts overclock their graphics cards to achieve better frame-rates and compare synthetic benchmark scores with other people sporting different hardware. Not so long ago, NVIDIA showcased the GTX 1080 and its overclocking ability but many people have struggled to manually boost the cards to a figure which they expected. According to information by WCCFTech, the RX 480 will feature a base clock of 1080MHz, boost clock of 1266MHz and overclocking headroom beyond 1.5GHz on certain models. These “beast mode” 8GB cards will apparently retail for $299 and designed for users who want the best overclocks from the Polaris range.
To reach the astounding clock speeds, AMD is launching a new overclocking tool which contains voltage control. This is a major improvement on the current OverDrive utility and allows you to monitor voltages, set fan profiles, and much more which we’ll cover in the review. Leaked performance numbers so far vary dramatically so it’s not something I’m comfortable speculating about. Nevertheless, it’s clear that the RX 480 will offer unbelievable performance for the money.
The Beast card seems to be a filler-gap card as AMD has no answer to the 1070 and I think that they are willing to wait for Vega before competing head to head (also they most likely want to see what the 1080ti can do so that they can make Vega better then it on launch).
I personally will rather get 2×480 4GB, $100 more then the then the Beast Card and ~ the same price as a 1070 but with near 1080 performance (I don’t see the cards beating the 1080 in most games, I see them being 2-3 frames slower at 4K (both companies inflate their performance) but $200-300 cheaper).
Remember:
1) VRam stacks with DX12 (with DX11 games 2×480 4GB only have 4GB VRam but in a DX12 game they have 8GB).
2) Most new games support multi-gpu (not crossfire or SLI, this is the new DX12 tech).
3) Overclocking ANY CARD greatly increases the power consumed, noise and heat. Even the new NVidia cards heat up and make fan noises and use OVER DOUBLE their advertised power when OC’d. The only good way to OC with voltage change is to run on water and then that requires $ and you may as well buy a better card.