AMD launched their RX 480 at the end of June and I was on hand to offer my analysis of the reference card at the time. Today we present our review of the new Asus RX 480 Strix Gaming OC, a custom solution featuring enhanced clock speeds, a modified triple fan cooler and ‘Aura’ RGB lighting. At £289.99 inc vat the Asus card hits the same price points as many Nvidia GTX 1060 solutions, so we have high hopes it can compete.
The new AMD Radeon RX 480 is built on the FinFET 14nm process. For Polaris, AMD selected Samsung and Global Foundries 14nm FinFET based process technology, the densest foundry process available. FinFET transistors are crucial to reduce power consumption while enabling operating voltages which are 150mV lower than the previous generation.
The AMD RX 480 will be available in two different memory capacities, 4GB and 8GB. We have heard retail prices of $199 for the 4GB card and $239 for the 8GB card with UK prices around £180 and £215 respectively. Pricing is a little higher in the UK, but I guess most of us are getting used to that now.
| GPU | Radeon R9 290X | Radeon R9 390 | Radeon R9 390X | Radeon R9 Fury | Radeon R9 Fury X |
Radeon RX 480 |
| Shader Units | 2816 | 2560 | 2816 | 3584 | 4096 | 2304 |
| ROPs | 64 | 64 | 64 | 64 | 64 | 32 |
| Graphics Processor | Hawaii | Hawaii | Hawaii | Fiji | Fiji | Ellesmere |
| Transistors | 6200M | 6200M | 6200M | 8900M | 8900M | 5700M |
| Memory Size | 4GB | 8GB | 8GB | 4GB | 4GB | 4GB/8GB |
| Memory Bus Width | 512 bit | 512 bit | 512 bit | 4096 bit | 4096 bit | 256 bit |
| Core Clock | 1000 mhz | 1000 mhz | 1050 mhz | 1000 mhz | 1000 mhz | up to 1266mhz |
| Memory Clock | 1250mhz | 1500mhz | 1500mhz | 500mhz | 500mhz | 2000mhz |
The Asus RX 480 Strix Gaming OC Aura will ship in ‘gaming mode’ with a clock speed set at 1310mhz. Our sample was hardcoded with the faster OC mode BIOS @ 1330mhz. We have tested previous Asus Strix cards at the fastest speed because this is how the majority of KitGuru readers will be using the hardware via the supplied GPU Tweak software package.
Our review sample has the latest BIOS installed.