Introduction

Radeon RX 480 Market Segment Analysis Radeon

R9 390 GeForce

GTX 970 Radeon

RX 480 ASUS

RX 480 STRIX Radeon

R9 290X Radeon

R9 390X GeForce

GTX 980 GeForce

GTX 1060 Radeon R9

Fury Radeon R9

Fury X GeForce

GTX 980 Ti GeForce

GTX Titan X GeForce

GTX 1070 Shader Units 2560 1664 2304 2304 2816 2816 2048 1280 3584 4096 2816 3072 1920 ROPs 64 56 32 32 64 64 64 48 64 64 96 96 64 Graphics Processor Hawaii GM204 Ellesmere Ellesmere Hawaii Hawaii GM204 GP106 Fiji Fiji GM200 GM200 GP104 Transistors 6200M 5200M 5700M 5700M 6200M 6200M 5200M 4400M 8900M 8900M 8000M 8000M 7200M Memory Size 8 GB 4 GB 4 GB / 8 GB 8 GB 4 GB 8 GB 4 GB 6 GB 4 GB 4 GB 6 GB 12 GB 8 GB Memory Bus Width 512 bit 256 bit 256 bit 256 bit 512 bit 512 bit 256 bit 192 bit 4096 bit 4096 bit 384 bit 384 bit 256 bit Core Clock 1000 MHz 1051 MHz+ up to 1266 MHz up to 1310 MHz 1000 MHz 1050 MHz 1126 MHz+ 1506 MHz+ 1000 MHz 1050 MHz 1000 MHz+ 1000 MHz+ 1506 MHz+ Memory Clock 1500 MHz 1750 MHz 2000 MHz 2000 MHz 1250 MHz 1500 MHz 1750 MHz 2002 MHz 500 MHz 500 MHz 1750 MHz 1750 MHz 2002 MHz Price $260 $265 $199 / $239 unknown $270 $310 $360 $249 / $299 $530 $600 $440 $1150 $379 / $449

AMD's Radeon RX480 Series was released in late June and is the company's first graphics card based on its new "Polaris" GPU architecture, and its first chip built on the 14 nanometer FinFET process. It is also the first AMD GPU made at GlobalFoundries, which is a deviation from the year-long relationship with TSMC.The silicon driving the RX 480, which is based on "Polaris," is codenamed "Ellesmere" and is externally referred to by AMD as "Polaris 10". Polaris 10 on the Radeon RX 480 comes with 2304 shaders enabled, 144 texture units and 32 ROPS that are connected to a 256-bit wide memory bus with 8 GB GDDR5 memory.In this review, we are taking a first look at a custom-design Radeon RX 480 version. This one is by ASUS. The ASUS STRIX series is well known and covers pretty much every segment of the graphics card market. ASUS uses a dual-slot, triple-fan thermal solution with heatpipes that make direct contact with the GPU.For this generation of STRIX cards, ASUS has included RGB lighting, which includes a backlit ASUS ROG logo they integrated into the backplate.We are reviewing the RX 480 STRIX OC Gaming today, an overclocked version of the regular RX 480 STRIX that's also available, which uses the same design but comes at reference clocks of 1266 MHz.Exact pricing is unknown. Graphs in the review use an estimated price of $259, which is $20 more than the 8 GB RX 480 reference-design price.