With all of these test results, they are raw and uncut, take all sound results as guidance, an open chassis will not deaden any of the sounds coming from the card.
If any of these cards are installed in a chassis, this may reduce in sound levels due to the acoustic dampening effect of the chassis itself. Though if your chassis has poor airflow, then the card will labour under load, and possibly increase the overall sound when gaming.
The Sapphire AMD Radeon RX 480 tops the graphics cards that do not have an idle spin down, meaning the fan is always on. It’s the quietest though, so you won’t really hear the card when surfing or doing something that required little or no GPU muscle.
Load on the other hand is average, with only the PNY GTX 770 coming out louder under load than the Sapphire AMD Radeon RX 480. The fan on the RX 480 in stock format is double-sided. Both sides of the fan have open airflow, just like the Nvidia GeForce GTX 295.
Overall, we’d loved to have seen a spin down idle configuration and though it’s not bad under idle conditions, we are speculating the aftermarket coolers will really make a difference with this GPU, the stock cooler is obviously average in looks and performance.
Sapphire AMD Radeon RX 480 8Gb Graphics Card Review
Package and Bundle - 7.5
Performance - 8
Price - 8.2
Consumer Experience - 7
7.7
AMD are excellent at aggressive price campaigns in general and against Nvidia, and the RX 480 is no different. It is cheaper than the R9 390X when it launched by some margin. The question remains as it did when we reviewed the XFX Radeon R9 390X 8GB DD Black Edition, should you upgrade. The answer this time is yes, for the price point, the modern revisions including FinFET 14 process technology, it’s got potential, features and value. The Nvidia GTX 1080 is just over twice the price, the RX 480 isn’t always half as fast.