AMD has long been considered the budget gamer’s best friend, offering great GPU for a modest price. With the R9380 and R9380X they showed us that one doesn’t need to pay premium to enjoy games at full HD resolution, and with Polaris they have now managed to one up themselves. The AMD RX 480 (8GB), featuring the brand new 14nm finFETT (Polaris) architecture is a true testament to value for money when it comes to gaming hardware.
Measuring in at a little over 10 inches in length and 2 inches in thickness, this little dynamo really managed to impress me with the numbers it put out in games at both full HD and 1440p. What it lacks in looks it makes up for in performance. With a maximum boost clock of 1267 MHz, it may not be the fastest card to have come out this year, but it still delivers in games consistently.
However the RX 480 isn’t perfect: One of the few issues is synonymous with AMD products and that is temperature. The card runs undeniably hot, reaching temperatures of 83 degrees under full load. This is more to do with AMD’s cooler design and will most certainly be addressed by the board partners when they release their custom PCBs to the market.
The most glaring issue with the card is one of power draw. Initially the card was drawing way more than the advertised 150W from the system and upon further investigation, it was revealed the increase is due to an abnormally high power draw via the PCI-e slot. This would have posed a problem for anyone looking to overclock the card as high power draw from the motherboard can lead to damage. However, after this issue was brought to AMDs’ attention, they resolved it with a driver update.
When it comes to games, I was stunned to see that this Rs 26,990 card beat the GTX 980 in DirectX 12 benchmarks by a margin of 3-5 per cent in games like Ashes of the Singularity and Rise of the Tomb Raider at Ultra settings and at 2K resolutions too. The 480 clocked in 27 and 21 frames per second (fps) respectively to the 24 and 18 fps of the 980’s in the aforementioned games. Moreover, it also gave a more than acceptable frame rate of 49 at 2K and 78 at Full HD in DOOM.
AMD’s new Polaris lineup means serious business and may well become a go to for most gamers who are looking for a budget friendly PC build. The RX 480 has launched and will be available in two variants, one 4GB with an MSRP of Rs 22,990 and the other 8GB for Rs 26,990. I hope NVIDIA are watching and taking note!
