Great GPU, works fabulously with my Freesync 1440p 144Hz monitor. Games are smooth and immersive. I see a huge improvement over my previous R9 Fury, way more than I expected to be honest.
So far, (with the little time I've had), I have tested out Titanfall 2, Thumper, Star Wars Battlefront, Warframe, Mirror's Edge Catalyst, and The Witness. I was able to max out all of these and stay well within my Freesync range at all times. Frame pacing is very consistent. Just buttery smooth goodness all around. Minimum framerates seem to be noticeably high, and stutters are extremely rare.
The cooler is louder than I would like when under heavy load, but it's a blower cooler, so I knew this going in. Regardless, the sound isn't obnoxious at all in my opinion; it's a very easily ignored, (and almost pleasant), white noise. If you're hypersensitive to noise I'd recommend you either wait for a non-reference cooler or buy a water block for this one. (Or use the included power-save mode in Wattman.) I suspect I'll be able to make it quieter and cooler with a tuned custom fan curve and some undervolting, (apparently Vega undervolts quite well!), but I haven't gotten around to testing the limits of the card just yet.
There is little-to-none coil whine from this GPU depending on the game, unless you're pulling 3000FPS in title menus, in which case; ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
As for heat in the room, the heat output of the card is not nearly as much as I expected. I suspect the tales of rooms turning into infernal-fire-and-brimstone saunas may be somewhat exaggerated.
While the power needed to drive the card is somewhat higher than the comparable Nvidia card, the actual cost of electricity is so small that it would take *multiple years* of heavy gaming for it to add up to the cost of what I would have ended paying for a GTX 1080 and a Gysnc monitor.
The physical build quality of the card itself is extremely solid and classy, loving the minimalist design of the card. The GPU tachometer is neat, but not very useful in my opinion. I do appreciate the option to change colors or even turn it off entirely, props to AMD for that.
For what I paid, (499$), I would absolutely recommend this card. The current performance/price is more than acceptable to me, and there is also the possibility of future drivers improving performance. (*cough* Finewine™ *cough*). But as I just said, even if there were no further performance improvements, (which I strongly suspect there will be), I would still be very happy with this purchase.
TL;DR: It's gud. (If you can get it from a retailer that isn't price-gouging.)
| RAM | 8 GB |
|---|---|
| Memory Speed | 945 MHz |
| Graphics Coprocessor | AMD Radeon RX 480 |
| Chipset Brand | AMD |
| Graphics Card Ram Size | 8 GB |
