Price / Where to Buy:
US – Approx. $299 – ASUS ROG STRIX RX 480
PH – TBA
With the release of the AMD Radeon RX 480, the GPU wars of re-ignited but with custom cards immediately accompanying the launch of the GTX 1060 it left the reference RX 480 at a bit of a disadvantage particularly in temperatures. Custom cards were announced a few weeks after launch and we have one of the first models to be released for custom RX 480 cards with the ASUS ROG STRIX RX 480 8GB. This card debuts with the new ROG STRIX branding from ASUS and is one of the beefiest RX 480 out right now. Read on to find out more about this card!
About the Radeon RX 480
The latest iteration of the AMD GCN architecture, the fourth-gen chips codenamed Polaris, features an improved memory controller, delta compression, shader functions and new async compute functionality. This is by no means a completely new architecture but AMD is trying to hit significant goals with this 14nm chip without releasing a totally new architecture.
Specs-wise we’re looking at the new GPU manufactured in the 14nmFinFET process featuring 2304 stream processors rated for a TDP of 150w. A 6-pin PCIe power connector provides power to the reference design.
The Radeon RX 480 has a base clock of 1120Mhz and can boost up to 1266Mhz. AMD has dropped its heavily used “up to xxx mhz” to refer to the boost clock. And while this is still somewhat relevant and the card does indeed run with varied clock speeds depending on the game/application.
AMD decided to go with two variants for the RX 480, a 4GB model and 8GB model. Both cards are similar specs-wise with the memory bandwidth and amount the primary difference in reference design. The RX 480 uses GDDR5 memory instead of HBM seen in the Fury cards and is wired to a 256-bit bus and runs at 8000Mhz effective.
The ASUS ROG Strix RX 480 is the first AMD card to receive the ROG Strix treatment. ASUS has promoted the Strix branding to become a daughter-series to the primary flagship line-up of Republic of Gamers (ROG) products and will serve as the mainstream brand for ASUS’ gaming oriented offerings.
The ASUS ROG Strix RX 480 specs aren’t far off the reference card with a base clock speed 1330Mhz in OC mode and 1310Mhz in Gaming mode which can be toggled via the ASU GPU Tweak software.
Features
- Utilizes new AMD polaris architecture for Extremely efficient performance
- 1330 MHz boost Clock (OC mode) and intuitive 1-click overclocking
- AMD Radeon VR ready premium with dual HDMI 2.0 ports to simultaneously connect headset & monitor
- DirectX III with patented wing-blade fans delivers 30% cooler and 3x quieter performance.
- GPU TWEAK with included XSplit Gamecaster helps you monitor & control performance/cooling, as well as stream games on-the-fly
Closer Look
The ASUS ROG Strix introduces a new cooler design and it debuts with the triple fan. Unlike its predecessor, it does not feature the owl motiff but rather strongly goes with the new straight abstract lines that ASUS is going with in this generation of products. The ASUS ROG Strix RX 480 is uniformly similar to the other released models under the ROG Strix branding with a triple fan design. A black shroud covers the heatsink with a 2-slot profile and a stylized backplate shields the back. The ROG icon is used on the fan center with the new STRIX branding in some areas present as well. The new ROG Strix introduces ASUS’ first mainstream LED-illuminated models and are fully compatible with the ASUS AURA app for customization on the fan trims and backplate lighting.
One of the extra features of the ROG Strix series is the inclusion of 4-pin fan connectors on the rear of the card. This allows GPU controlled extra fans for GPU focused cooling like external fans or a 3rd part AIO cooler.
Performance Testing
How We Tested
The PC we used for testing is shown below:
Processor: Intel Core i7 6700K @ 4.0 GHz (Turbo disabled)
Graphics Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1060 6GB Gaming X, AMD Radeon RX 480 8GB, ASUS ROG STRIX RX 480 8GB
Motherboard: ASUS Maximus VIII Formula
Memory: Kingston Hyper X Savage 8GBx2 DDR4 3000 MHz
Power Supply: Thermaltake Tough Power 1000 watts
Case: DimasTech EasyXL
Monitor: ASUS VC239H
Driver: NVIDIA GeForce 368.81, AMD Crimson 16.7.2
Operating System: Windows 10 64-bit
Frame rates and frame times of a 60-second game play were recorded using FRAPS v3.5.99. The test results are the average of 3 benchmark runs. Since this is a GPU review, we benchmarked the area of the games that put heavy load on the GPU.
All our test runs are repeatable, click the links below for area and details. Read our benchmarking methodology.
- Crysis 3 – Post Human
- Grand Theft Auto V – Palomino Highlands
- The Witcher 3 – Woesong Bridge
- Rise of the Tomb Raider – Valley Farmstead
- DOTA2 – Shanghai Major Finals, Game 2, Team Secret vs Team Liquid (23:45)
The games and corresponding image quality settings used are shown below:
Crysis 3
Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Texture Resolution: Very High
Anti-aliasing: SMAA 2Tx
System Spec: Very High
Anisotropic Filtering: 16x
Motion Blur: Disabled
Grand Theft Auto V
Resolution: 1920 x 1080
FXAA Off
MSAA 4x
TXAA Off
Very High settings
Anisotropic Filtering: 16x
Motion Blur disabled
Advanced Graphics enabled
The Witcher 3
Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Frame Rate: Unlimited
Nvidia HairWorks: Off
Ultra Settings
Motion Blur: Off
Blur: Off
Anti-aliasing: On
Bloom: On
Sharpening: High
Ambient Occlusion: SSAO
Depth of Field: On
Chromatic Aberration: Off
Vignetting: On
Light Shafts: On
Rise of the Tomb Raider
DirectX11
Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Anti-aliasing: FXAA
Very High settings
Ambient Occlusion: On
Pure Hair: On
Vignette Blur: Off
Motion Blur: Off
Bloom: On
Tessellation: On
Screen Space Reflections: On
Lens Flares: On
Film Grain: Off
DOTA2
DirectX9 (default)
Resolution: 1920×1080
Best-Looking slider setting (non-Ultra)
FPS_MAX 240
Vsync OFF
Note: Some proprietary technologies of NVIDIA like PCSS, HBAO+, and HairWorks work on AMD GPU’s but we decided not to use them.
Test Results
Rise of the Tomb Raider
The reboot of the gaming phenomenon Tomb Raider puts players in Lara Croft’s hiking boots as we pick-up from the last game. Featuring upgraded graphics, DX12 support and new image quality improvements, this game challenges new hardware with its graphical offering.
The Witcher 3
CD Projekt Red’s latest installment in the Witcher saga features one of the most graphically intense offering the company has to date. As Geralt of Rivia, slay monsters, beasts and men as you unravel the mysteries of your past. Vast worlds and lush sceneries make this game a visual feast and promises to make any system crawl at its highest settings.
DOTA 2
The most popular game on Steam and the biggest competition in eSports; DOTA 2 is powered by the Source 2 engine. The game is fairly light on low to medium settings but maxed out with heavy action on screen especially during clashes can really stress most systems especially with Reborn update. This is a game where frame times matter as responsiveness is very important in high-stakes competition.
Grand Theft Auto V
The fifth and most successful installment to date in the highly controversial Grand Theft Auto series brings a graphical overhaul to the PC version of GTA V which many have lauded as a superior approach in porting a console game to PC. Featuring large areas and detailing, GTA V is a highly challenging application in terms of scene complexity.
Crysis 3
The most visually intense game to have ever been made during its time. Prophet is back to take on the Ceph and Cell after a long sleep and the world isn’t what it was when before he got frozen. CryEngine 3 is behind this beautiful beast that will put a lot of systems to their knees. The opening level shows off the exquisite particle and water rendering of the engine capable of still giving modern GPUs a workout to this day.
Power Consumption & Temperature
A 20-cycle Fire Strike Ultra Stress Test is our GPU load of choice in stressing our benchmark to capture typical power and temps for our cards. System power draw is recorded as well as peak temps. Power draw is taken for the entire system with only the GPU loaded plus the normal load of the components as listed in our test bench. Room temperature is kept at 25*C – 26*C.
Read more about FutureMark 3DMark
Power consumption is just a few watts above the reference card owing to some of the component changes and more fans. That in turn though makes this a cooler card with the significant reduction in load temperature versus the reference AMD design. ASUS has really made it a point to tame this card to sub-80*C and that triple fan setup is paying itself off with the results we’re seeing here.
Thermal Images
Thermal images of the ASUS ROG STRIX RX 480 under load showing us thermal readouts of the cards backplate and shroud. Most of the heat are concentrated in central area and are dissipated via the heatsink and the backplate does collect some heat also helping even out the board temps as we see in the charts above.
Conclusion
Let’s break it down for the ASUS ROG STRIX RX 480 8GB graphics card:
Performance. ASUS doesn’t go all out on the factory overclock, going for a small ~44Mhz base clock boost which isn’t enough to beat its head-on rival, the NVIDIA GTX 1060 even in its custom state. That said, ASUS does give the ability to bump the card a bit higher when overclocking is involved but we’ll cover that in a separate article. For now we’ll focus on the out of the box performance which should be even for everyone and as it is, the ASUS ROG STRIX RX 480 overs a touch better performance than the reference AMD graphics card. Performance-wise, the RX 480 is positioned well for most 1080p games with a most eSports titles going to run fine up to 1440p but for the bulk of the games out right now, the RX 480 is best fit for high-detail 1080p gaming.
Build Quality. ASUS improves on a lot of things from the reference card starting off with the cooler. With the reference card being plastic blower type, noise was a concern for some and ASUS’ triple fan cooler shows us excellent performance across the board allowing the card to really get off. ASUS’ wires an 8-pin power source rather than a 6-pin PCIe power connector to this card to give it more juice and the new ROG STRIX styling on both the shroud and backplate really put this card on a new league against its STRIX DCIII predecessor.
Functionality. The AMD Radeon RX 480 is aimed to provide VR experience for less but with the majority of card buyers still focusing on the traditional model of gaming, the RX 480 sits at the mainstream market range and competes head-to-head with the GTX 1060 from NVIDIA. While this card performs a bit below the GTX 1060, the advantage of having Freesync support as a cheaper variable refresh rate option together with Crossfire capability gives the RX 480 the ability to scale performance higher than the GTX 1060 which is squarely a single card solution.
Bundle. ASUS bundles an Xsplit premium subscription worth $99 with the ROG STRIX RX 480. Might not be everyone’s cup of tea but for those that want to start their streaming career this is an excellent launchpad.
Value. At $299, the ASUS ROG STRIX RX 480 is easily one of the most premium RX 480 custom cards out right now. While there is no signs of heavily customized card for release soon, the ASUS ROG STRIX RX 480 shows us a glimpse of potential models with its large cooling solution and heavily stylized feature set. As expected, its main rival is the ROG STRIX GTX 1060 itself and plenty of other cheaper options for the RX 480 range from other brands. What ASUS offers is a really robust piece of equipment with an excellent loadout of features and cooling performance.
ASUS didn’t settle for a dual-cooler for the RX 480 and went with their triple fan type which is similar to those with the GTX 1080 cards. While presumably unnecessary, it does give the RX 480 a sense of a premium product with its excellent build quality and cooling performance. While it doesn’t completely give us a powered-up RX 480, its cooling performance guarantees the cards perform at tiptop condition under load.
The toughest decision still stands: the GTX 1060 or the RX 480? Read our comprehensive RX 480 vs GTX 1060 analysis here but with no clear winner, we give you the factors to consider to help you decide. If you do decide to go for the RX 480 then this card is certainly a top-tier offering in that list.
The ASUS ROG STRIX RX 480 graphics card is an excellent option if you want the most robust RX 480 variant out right now. If you’re particularly interested more in a long-term solution that can scale with you with a future addition of another RX 480, the ASUS ROG STRIX RX 480 is the way to go.
Price / Where to Buy:
US – Approx. $299 – ASUS ROG STRIX RX 480
PH – TBA
ASUS backs the ROG STRIX RX 480 with a 3-year warranty. We give it our B2G Recommended Award!
7 Comments
meron na po ba kayo review for a rx 460 saphire? 4gb variant?
wala pa so far. RX 460 2GB meron dito, MSI 🙂
Will you be doing the Asus ROG Strix gtx 1060 too? Would like to be able to compare the two. 😀
yup, should be in the next weeks or so.
san to mabibili?
Check with ASUS PH FB page for updated list of stores that carry it. Best yung first-hand info 🙂
san to mabibili?