Which RX 480 for my needs?

So I'm looking for A: quiet, and B: preferably cool. Don't care about clock speeds, will probably put the card on an undervolted, silent profile (if it has it), and not worry about it. This will basically be a card for WoW @1080p, with enough headroom to not upgrade for years. Overkill, like I said.

Right now I can get these options:

Powercolor Red Devil 8GB for $210 locally

MSI Armor OC 8GB for $210 shipped (with a $30 rebate I doubt will ever ship out)

MSI Gamer X 8GB for $230 shipped. (with a $20 rebate I doubt will ever ship out)

I can also do a Sapphire 8GB Nitro for $200 locally, but I heard those were loud and ran hot.


I can also do a 6GB Gamex X 1060 for $245 shipped.

All of these cards are overkill for my needs, I just want as quiet a computer as possible, while not creating an oven in my case. Cooler the case, quieter the fans, etc etc.

So... What do you guys think?

if you don't like hot and load, get the cheapest one ya can get, cause WOW all of the cards are overkill at 1080p Should be able to get 100 fps everything maxed out on any of the cards.

My votes went to the MSI. Good cooling and quiet operation on the gaming X.

As for which team to choose, green or red, that is up to you since the 1060 and rx480 perform about the same with current drivers. 480 will be cheaper yet draw more power and create more heat.

razor1 said:

if you don't like hot and load, get the cheapest one ya can get, cause WOW all of the cards are overkill at 1080p Should be able to get 100 fps everything maxed out on any of the cards.

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About 60FPS, with the engine improvements. That's what I'm hoping for, at least.

I posted in your other thread; I'd get the PowerCooler as it's the cheapest of the options listed.

Thanks, much appreciated. It's actually the same price as the Armor 8GB though.

My house is an anti-MSI zone or something. Nothing with that name on it lasts very long.

With that said, I've never had a PowerCooler card either so I can't speak to the reliability or lack thereof, other than the [H] reviews of the cards made by them.

Ended up ordering the XFX GTR 480 for $220. Hopefully I get one of the better binned ones.

I'll be joining the RX-480 8GB ranks today. Ordered myself a MSI ARMOR as a B-Day present to myself.

The day came when the trusty old HD7870 just was not cutting it for hi-res texture gaming at 1080p.
It will migrate to my son's PC and the 480 will go into mine.

Algrim said:

My house is an anti-MSI zone or something. Nothing with that name on it lasts very long.

With that said, I've never had a PowerCooler card either so I can't speak to the reliability or lack thereof, other than the [H] reviews of the cards made by them.

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This will be my first upper end MSI card (Armor RX480). I have a low end MSI Gforce card I run on my linux system mainly because Nvidia driver support is no fuss.
Sometimes, but not always that is.

I always bought XFX, until the last one I had needed to be RMA for dying. Had a Sapphire which I didn't like the quality. Next couple I've purchased were Gigabyte which were pretty solid.
The MSI grabbed me because of a low price and good reviews ($219 for 8GB version)

FOLLOWUP:
The RX480 arrived early and delivered last Friday.
COOL; spend a lot of the weekend gaming. After a clean driver install I first ran a couple graphic benches.
I wanted to compare the performance to the old. And since really all that matters to me is defect free images and a good FPS rate I ran
Unique engine Valley and Heaven benches. I game at 1080p so this was the results.
On the old 7870 was in the low to mid 30s FPS with medium-high settings. For testing the RX480, I maxed all the settings and got mid 70s FPS. More than double!
The Valley is more demanding, and with medium-high setting on the old HD7870 I got low 20s FPS. With the RX480, all settings max it scored a 56 FPS. Again, more than double.

The big test was running Fallout 4 with the high res texture pack. I installed all 54GB of it and ran it with all settings maxed. It was buttery smooth. The only negative was the load
times seem to double, but that has nothing to do with the card. Mind you the old HD7870 ran this game very smoothly with the original textures. But I wouldn't have tried it with the high-res
since it is only a 2GB card.

Ran a few other quick tests, bench on Metro Last night; similar results compared to the old card. More than doubled the FPS.
Yeah, yeah, I know that is some sloppy bench comparisons but it was mainly to see if I got my money's worth. I waited a long to time to upgrade because for a long time a much better
card was not all that much better performance wise for the money. The RX480 was money VERY well spent.

Awesome! I really like the RX 480 as well.

cybereality said:

Awesome! I really like the RX 480 as well.

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I was holding off of getting The Witcher Wild Hunt until I could get a higher end card. Nabbed the GOTY version for $25. All setting maxed in 1080p, it is smooth as glass. Beautiful visuals. The RX480 is the best card I've ever purchased.

7870 to a 480.

That's quite a jump!

Thanks for the numbers, I've been eying your exact card myself.

horrorshow said:

7870 to a 480.

That's quite a jump!

Thanks for the numbers, I've been eying your exact card myself.

Click to expand...

The MSI Armor is the one I purchased and the 8GB OC version can be had for $219.00

Spend a little extra for the 8GB version. You will be future proof for a lot of upcoming games that are very heavy on textures.
I ran the steam VR ready test and it (system in my sig) scored a "Very Good".
I've no intention of getting into VR any time soon. Too expensive. But it is good to know my relative old system is good to go.