AMD Radeon RX 480 8GB CrossFire Review @ [H]

480 did surprisingly well on a large sample size of games. Good work [H]
This is what the mid-ranger wants. Capable and affordable NOW, with the option of adding a second card down the road when they can afford it.
Never saw the logic of high-end dual cards.
You need to get a higher resolution screen. :)

JS9000_First_Setup.jpg
 
knowing how game developers are i think that's going to be a huge mistake on AMD's part.. if there's nothing forcing the developer to use mGPU then they'll never use it. that was always the beauty of SLI and crossfire is that they could put half ass support in their game and force AMD/nvidia to fix it.

That's where marketing dollars come in (if a vendor wants to sponsor the additional work to do so) and it is a PR plus for a developer to do that, as games which offer those features get more enthusiast and vendor attention, which then increases sales. This is largely for the DX12 titles though.
 
That's where marketing dollars come in (if a vendor wants to sponsor the additional work to do so) and it is a PR plus for a developer to do that, as games which offer those features get more enthusiast and vendor attention, which then increases sales. This is largely for the DX12 titles though.
Agreed, and NVIDIA has been much better at this overall in the past, although AMD has certainly had its moments. So if mGPU works AMD in a DX12 title does it automatically work for NVIDIA in the same title? I think that is the thinking behind this, but I honestly do not know the answer to that question.
 
Great article. I was particularly interested in the 4K figures, of course.

I do have one question about the test setup: using the Z170 chipset means that the PCIe slots were running at x8/x8. Since AMD's Crossfire uses the PCIe bus, I wonder if using an X99 chipset with the slots running at x16/x16 might have made a difference? Perhaps you could elaborate on why you chose the Z170 setup in the article?

Like all great articles, this one begs further questions! In this case, how do three card setups perform? I remember reading many years ago that three card setups made things a lot smoother, and I wonder if that's true for the RX 480? This might be of particular interest should the GTX 1060 induce a price drop in the 480.
 
Those frame times on the xfire 480s....no.

The user experience is king, and that kind of latency really kills it. I know quite a few people who will pay the difference up to a 1080 to get a single card that does better on 90% of the benchmarks.

Damnit AMD!
 
Ashes of the singularity uses the Nitrous engine it is used in other games as Warhammer .
I'm 98% certain TW:Warhammer does NOT use Nitrous what so ever. It is just an updated iteration of the warscape engine from years ago. I wish it did use the Nitrous engine.
 
I do have one question about the test setup: using the Z170 chipset means that the PCIe slots were running at x8/x8. Since AMD's Crossfire uses the PCIe bus, I wonder if using an X99 chipset with the slots running at x16/x16 might have made a difference? Perhaps you could elaborate on why you chose the Z170 setup in the article?
That is a PCIe 3.0 bus and I would suggest that x8x8 is hardly if in any way hampering real world gaming performance. We used our standard desktop system that we do all of our GPU testing on.

We have spent some time looking at this in the past, so I am not just blowing smoke here.

Introduction - PCI Express 2.0 vs 3.0 GPU Gaming Performance Review



Like all great articles, this one begs further questions! In this case, how do three card setups perform? I remember reading many years ago that three card setups made things a lot smoother, and I wonder if that's true for the RX 480? This might be of particular interest should the GTX 1060 induce a price drop in the 480.
Dunno, and I doubt we will be visiting that any time soon. Maybe if we get a lot of dead time to fill. We have purchased 3 RX 480 cards now so we do have those on hand.
 
Wouldn't it also be possible that the GTX 1060 in mgpu explicit mode wouldn't require the use of a SLI bridge?
While there would be no SLI there could be mgpu modes.
From my understanding that would be absolutely correct. But I think that seeing NVIDIA back away from any control over SLI at this point says something about the future.
 
Kyle or Brent.....In a truly blind test can you say honestly you could detect which was running CF and which was running single gpu? (assuming the settings were already set up accordingly)
 
Any chance for 3440x1440 testing of 480 CF? There seems to be a hard divide between 1440p and 4K that 3440x1440 is right smack in the middle of.
 
I do have one question about the test setup: using the Z170 chipset means that the PCIe slots were running at x8/x8. Since AMD's Crossfire uses the PCIe bus, I wonder if using an X99 chipset with the slots running at x16/x16 might have made a difference?
To be frank, to get enough PCI-e lanes to get true x16/x16, you need a $600 CPU (the 5820K only does x16/x8), combining that with a $200-300 board and $100-200 for RAM, I doubt very much that anyone pouring that kind of money into their main components is going to pick up a pair of $200 GPUs :)
 
Hey Kyle, I just saw this news about a patch for Tomb Raider that enables mGPU in DX12 and Asynchronous Compute for AMD. Did you have this patch installed and could this be the one of the reasons why the Tomb Raider Benchmark so much different then the rest?

Rise of the Tomb Raider Gets Multi-GPU DirectX 12 Patch
From your link: Rise of the Tomb Raider was updated today to version 1.0.638.6, which is a bigger deal than its less-than-snappy name suggests. In DirectX 12 mode Multi-GPU support is now available.
From the test: 1.0.647.2 ... so yes.
 
Great journalism in testing out a claim and showing the results with empirical data. I do like the frame times for the mGPU tests. AMD looks ugly here but probably need a reference point to also a SLI system in the future.

Now to even out those frame times, particularly those very high spikes (half, quarter frames) with AMD, set the frame rate limiter to 1 hz above your monitor. This smooths out CFX and gives usually a much better smoother experience. Numbers are pointless if the experience is stutterly. Some would rather see a higher number vice a better experience for some reason.

Speaking of Rise Of The Tomb raider, I hooked up my 1070 with a 290x, one bench mark (out of many) the 290x performed abnormally high, smooth as butter with everything maxed out with SMAA at 1440p - average was 56fps :bucktooth:. The 1070 consistently with or without the 290x was at 72 fps for the same settings. The 290x would mostly get 38fps to 41fps except for the one run. Ran out of time and really don't know if EMA was working or not. There are no obvious switches or indication, in the game you can choose which monitor/gpu to run the game. It does look like this game DX 12 exploded the 290x performance as a note (looking good).

Anyways looking at the data I would say get a 1070 if you need that kind of performance now, if not but want options in the future get a 480. As for two 480's - no I do not think it is in the same class as a 1080 in performance (real game play experience).
 
This test makes the 1070 a no-brainer for my wife and I. We play on the same circuit so we'd be pulling almost 1000 watts from graphics cards alone if we want to play at nice settings at 1440.
 
This is why I dumped Sli as well. The performance gains when they happen are just not worth the headache, so here is to hoping AMD launches a true 1070/1080 competitor soon.
 
The trend is pretty much what I expected, though the degree was quite different.

Performance overall is pretty good, but doesn't paint a pretty picture about Crossfire itself.
 
As always, buy big if you can in the beginning then add another down the line. If you could afford a big card in the first place, you're not the target buyer for a rx480 and similar cards.
 
Is it really fair to compare frame time graphs from a single card to a multi card? I know amd claimed equal performance and stuff but this is a hardware review not an editorial.

Yes it is important to know about a negative aspect of crossfire. But to showcase it in this way without a sli to compare it to is also unfair. Is frame time also an issue for sli? This is not a crossfire vs sli review. That might be nice to see and would have been much more appropriate place for showcasing frame time.
It is absolutely, unequivocally mandatory - at least in my mind - to showcase / discuss frametimes in a review of multiGPU performance. I purchased AMD 5870 CF back in the day because the framerates were excellent in reviews. In practice, the microstuttering drove me insane and I had to push frame rates 20-30fps higher to get "smooth" performance vs my experience with a single 5870. Framerates don't tell the whole picture. And this is true of all multiGPU solutions. I've run 5870 CF, 580 SLI, 680 SLI, 290X CrossFire, and now a 980 Ti. All of the multi-GPU solutions had some degree of frametime issues, although NVIDIA solutions were generally smoother.

Interestingly, my 290X CF setup was actually quite smooth in terms of frametimes, but game support got worse over time which prompted my upgrade to the 980 Ti. I wonder if the RX 480 frame pacing is on par with the Hawaii solutions or if they have regressed.
 
It is absolutely, unequivocally mandatory - at least in my mind - to showcase / discuss frametimes in a review of multiGPU performance. I purchased AMD 5870 CF back in the day because the framerates were excellent in reviews. In practice, the microstuttering drove me insane and I had to push frame rates 20-30fps higher to get "smooth" performance vs my experience with a single 5870. Framerates don't tell the whole picture. And this is true of all multiGPU solutions. I've run 5870 CF, 580 SLI, 680 SLI, 290X CrossFire, and now a 980 Ti. All of the multi-GPU solutions had some degree of frametime issues, although NVIDIA solutions were generally smoother.

Interestingly, my 290X CF setup was actually quite smooth in terms of frametimes, but game support got worse over time which prompted my upgrade to the 980 Ti. I wonder if the RX 480 frame pacing is on par with the Hawaii solutions or if they have regressed.
I think I understand his point though. Solely based on this review, one might concur this was an AMD vs Nvidia thing rather than a CF vs single card thing. Maybe if just on bench had a single 480 as to speak to the aforementioned vs battle then it would have appeared differently.
 
I think I understand his point though. Solely based on this review, one might concur this was an AMD vs Nvidia thing rather than a CF vs single card thing. Maybe if just on bench had a single 480 as to speak to the aforementioned vs battle then it would have appeared differently.
I don't know how you can come to that conclusion when the premise of the article is laid out in the very first sentence of the article. That aside though, comparisons between GPU solutions at the same respective price point, including dual cards vs single cards at that price point, have been pretty common and I have regularly seen people advocate 2x cheaper GPUs in CF/SLI vs a more expensive single GPU solution before. I think it's a totally valid comparison.
 
I don't know how you can come to that conclusion when the premise of the article is laid out in the very first sentence of the article. That aside though, comparisons between GPU solutions at the same respective price point, including dual cards vs single cards at that price point, have been pretty common and I have regularly seen people advocate 2x cheaper GPUs in CF/SLI vs a more expensive single GPU solution before. I think it's a totally valid comparison.

The rx 480 is pretty compelling, but I'd never recommend anyone buy two to start.
 
IMO the only time multiGPU is worth it, is when you already have the high end cards. That way you get the best possible performance whether the game supports multiGPU or not.
 
IMO the only time multiGPU is worth it, is when you already have the high end cards. That way you get the best possible performance whether the game supports multiGPU or not.

Concur. On the high end with large resolutions, you can't get enough gpu lol.
 
Interesting comments, completely ignoring the frametime issues lol.
With those frametimes and the settings used in some of the games I'd argue a 1070 offers better actual gameplay despite the slightly lower fps numbers.
Im done dealing with crossfire and with frame stuttering. I really wanted AMD to put out a single gpu that could complete with the 1070 (because of Nvidia's shady business practices and how like if feels like they f'ed over their customers with the founder's edition) but 2 RX 480s and 1 GTX 1070 are apples and oranges regardless if the prices are comparable when you add in all of extra mess that you have to deal with crossfire and frame stutter. Personally I think sacrificing some theoretical performance to not have to deal with that PITA is well worth it. I am not an Nvidia fan boy by any means and your opinion may be different but that's my 2 cents.
 
"AMD RX 480 CrossFire is much less expensive and if you are concentrated on price, then RX 480 CrossFire is a win compared to both GTX 1080 and GTX 1070. Hands down that cannot be argued! But there are caveats that go along with that value. AMD RX 480 runs hotter and consumes a lot more power than GTX 1080 and GTX 1070, 60% more and 87% more respectively. Then only sometimes equals or bests GeForce GTX 1080 performance. RX 480 CrossFire did consistently outperform GTX 1070 however. There are many gaming situations that GeForce GTX 1080 still offers more performance, and it certainly offers better frametime consistency than CrossFire if you are sensitive to that"........[H]

As someone on the fence choosing between a 480 or 1060 this comment tilts me towards the 480 side since I don't care about (relative) hotness and power consumption with this generation of cards. Of course frametimes will compare poorly between sli/xfire and a single card so that is also not an issue for when I decide to max 1440p gaming.
 
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Kyle or Brent.....In a truly blind test can you say honestly you could detect which was running CF and which was running single gpu? (assuming the settings were already set up accordingly)

Absolutely yes. To me anyway, I experienced lag and stutter in Fallout 4, The Division, Witcher 3 that I could easily tell the difference between CF or single-GPU. In Tomb Raider, I probably would not be able to tell the difference, and BF4 was so fast the choppiness was negated.

Therefore, the answer is depends on the game. If you can feel the stutter or lag, you'll know it's multi-GPU.

Hey Kyle, I just saw this news about a patch for Tomb Raider that enables mGPU in DX12 and Asynchronous Compute for AMD. Did you have this patch installed and could this be the one of the reasons why the Tomb Raider Benchmark so much different then the rest?

Rise of the Tomb Raider Gets Multi-GPU DirectX 12 Patch

This patch was not installed, prior patch was used, testing was done before this patch was released.
 
The single GPU frametime was useful in this review so that we could see the massive difference in a single GPU frametime graph, i.e. what it looks like when the game is "smooth", vs what a bad frametime (mGPU) graph looks like. Just showing the shitty mGPU frametime graph by itself, some people would be like "wtf am I looking at".

And that was the point basically.

I wanted to make sure people saw what good frametimes are supposed to look like, versus CrossFire. You need a point of comparison, like you said. It made sense to use 1080 since that is also the performance comparison we were making, so it is all fair game.

To me at least, having more data than you need, is better than having not enough data, if the frametime information in this review bothers you for the comparison we made, just look past it, but just know you're arbitrarily throwing out an important piece of information to the buying decision.
 
Absolutely yes. To me anyway, I experienced lag and stutter in Fallout 4, The Division, Witcher 3 that I could easily tell the difference between CF or single-GPU. In Tomb Raider, I probably would not be able to tell the difference, and BF4 was so fast the choppiness was negated.

Therefore, the answer is depends on the game. If you can feel the stutter or lag, you'll know it's multi-GPU.

Your reviews are centred around gameplay.
I really wish this kind of information was in the review.
This is perhaps one of the most important elements when comparing with multi card.
We are all about the gameplay which is a large part of why we come here!
 
There may be hope for DX12 mGPU.


Microsoft Refines DirectX 12 Multi-GPU with Simple Abstraction Layer

Microsoft is sparing no efforts in promoting DirectX 12 native multi-GPU as the go-to multi-GPU solution for game developers, obsoleting proprietary technologies like SLI and CrossFire. The company recently announced that it is making it easier for game developers to code their games to take advantage of multiple GPUs without as much coding as they do now. This involves the use of a new hardware abstraction layer that simplifies the process of pooling multiple GPUs in a system, which will let developers bypass the Explicit Multi-Adapter (EMA) mode of graphics cards.

This is the first major step by Microsoft since its announcement that DirectX 12, in theory, supports true Mixed Multi-Adapter configurations. The company stated that it will release the new abstraction layer as part of a comprehensive framework into the company's GitHub repository with two sample projects, one which takes advantage of the new multi-GPU tech, and one without. Exposed to this code, game developers' learning curve will be significantly reduced, and they will have a template on how to implement multi-GPU in their DirectX 12 projects with minimal effort. With this, Microsoft is supporting game developers in implementing API native multi-GPU, even as GPU manufacturers stated that while their GPUs will support EMA, the onus will be on game-developers to keep their games optimized.
 
This review mirrors my expereince with Crossfire 290's from last generation. Playing BF4 and GTA5 @ 1440p.... even though the horsepower was there (along with boatloads of heat), the game experience was still overall crappy due to the frametiming issues. Yeah yeah, it's all a software problem apparently, but in the 3 or so years I had that setup, there was *always* some sort of issue going on with either crappy drivers, or crappy implementation from the dev. When AMD or a dev says "oh yeah we are working on that issue", I laugh, they've said the same line for years and years, nothing changes.

My requirement for next gen was a single card solution -- and I got exactly that in the form of a 1070. Words can't describe how much smoother everything is @ 1440p with a single card. G-sync is icing on the cake as well with my S2716DG. Sure, Crossfire 480's can get you close to the level of a GTX 1080, my first question though... why would you want to go that route and have so many other problems? (not to mention increased power, increased cooling needs, and heat thrown off into the room)

Maybe it's because I've been around the block more than few times with GPUs, but raw FPS horsepower means less to me these days vs a quality smooth experience. I'm the type of consumer that would actually rather spend more money for a single card solution and not have to deal with the many issues that still plague multi-GPU setups. The issues aren't limited to AMD, i know SLI has it's own set of issues as well.
 
Your reviews are centred around gameplay.
I really wish this kind of information was in the review.
This is perhaps one of the most important elements when comparing with multi card.
We are all about the gameplay which is a large part of why we come here!

I get you on including gameplay experience as the empirical data doesn't really describe how bad the situation is. These subjective descriptions are important since people get all googly-eyed when they see high FPS averages that mGPU can provide. It's very easy to "feel" this stuttering when you're playing, and a large frame variance completely nullifies any decent performance you may be getting.

I do know from my last experience with a 295x2, while the FPS averages were generally terrific in games where Crossfire was supported, most games just felt jittery (some worse than others). Witcher 3 was the absolute worst, felt horrible.
 
Your reviews are centred around gameplay.
I really wish this kind of information was in the review.
This is perhaps one of the most important elements when comparing with multi card.
We are all about the gameplay which is a large part of why we come here!

A short video in 60/120fps of the stuttering vs no stuttering might help demonstrate the effect to ppl that haven't experienced it before.
More work incoming!
 
but raw FPS horsepower means less to me these days vs a quality smooth experience. .

I do know from my last experience with a 295x2, while the FPS averages were generally terrific in games where Crossfire was supported, most games just felt jittery.

Thanks for the info guys, it's very helpful to have these anecdotes since I don't have any mGPU experience!
 
Hmmm, great review guys, and thanks for highlighting the frame pacing issues. Although the RX 480 cards are much cheaper than my R9 Nanos in Crossfire, it's shocking to see them perform more slowly and use the same, or more power.

I tested my twin R9 Nanos on my i7 4790k at 4.4 Ghz on an Asus Mark S board with 16GB of RAM and a single SSD, and the most this setup used according to my Kill-A-Watt was 470 watts.

Other than the price and 8GB of RAM, this seems like an (only) OK setup comparatively. I'll wait for 1080Ti or Vega late this year or early next.

And yes, when reading this review, I was thinking of HardOCP and Kyle's information put forth in an older article indicating that Polaris would run hotter and use more power than originally expected/anticipated. This put a half-smile on my face.
 
Kyle or Brent.....In a truly blind test can you say honestly you could detect which was running CF and which was running single gpu? (assuming the settings were already set up accordingly)

Your reviews are centred around gameplay.
I really wish this kind of information was in the review.
This is perhaps one of the most important elements when comparing with multi card.
We are all about the gameplay which is a large part of why we come here!
It is said in the review that what the data shows coincides with their experience while playing the game.

The Division 1440p
There is quite a big difference in The Division in frametime between AMD Radeon RX 480 8GB CrossFire frametime and GeForce GTX 1080 frametime. This coincides with what we felt in this game on CrossFire. It seemed that we needed to obtain higher framerates in order for the game to feel smooth in gameplay. The frametime reveals the game is actually very erratic in frametime on CrossFire. With the single GeForce GTX 1080 the frametime is very tight and consistent.
 
A short video in 60/120fps of the stuttering vs no stuttering might help demonstrate the effect to ppl that haven't experienced it before.
More work incoming!

Going to be hard to capture it on a 30hz or even 60hz camera.
 
It is said in the review that what the data shows coincides with their experience while playing the game.

The Division 1440p
There is quite a big difference in The Division in frametime between AMD Radeon RX 480 8GB CrossFire frametime and GeForce GTX 1080 frametime. This coincides with what we felt in this game on CrossFire. It seemed that we needed to obtain higher framerates in order for the game to feel smooth in gameplay. The frametime reveals the game is actually very erratic in frametime on CrossFire. With the single GeForce GTX 1080 the frametime is very tight and consistent.

Coincides, yes. Looking at the graphs one can see it. Also looking at the graphs it looks minor and that one wouldn't notice it much. That is far from the case with any multi-gpu solutions have ever used.

I quite simply find any multi-gpu setup a horrible last resort, when no single GPU is fast enough for the task.
 
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