Leaked benchmarks for AMD Radeon RX 480 hits minimum VR spec for $199

[JEMC]

shikamaru317 said:

JEMC said:

The 1060 already comes on top while running at stock speeds, overclocked 1060 cards sport a higher overclock than its 480 siblings, and some have already been able to push the 1060 to 2.0GHz, while few have managed to get the 480 to 1.4GHz.

Do you really doubt which one will benefit the most from overclocking?

Yes, 1060 can be clocked much higher, but it also has 1,024 fewer cores. Also, I've heard rumors that aftermarket 480's can hit 1.5ghz, maybe even higher. Don't forget that reference 480's have an overlocking handicap due to the fact that they have a TDP that matches the combined power they can pull from the single 6 pin connector and PCI-e slot, that leaves very little overclocking headroom. Aftermarket models have one 8 pin or two 6 pin connectors (two 8 pins for ASUS), giving overclockers more power to work with, not to mention better cooling solutions than the reference model.

There's a couple to keep in mind.

• Nvidia's Pascal (like Maxwell) architecture focuses on speed over "cores". Overclocking those chips only strengthens their advantage. That's why the 970 with only 1664 cores can compete (and beat when overclocked) the 390 with its 2560 cores. Also, the 1070 with 1920 cores destroys the 2304 cores of the 480. It's no longer as easy as "more cores = more performance".

• The rumors about Polaris achieving 1.5GHz appeared weeks before the card actually launched and came from wccftech, which is a good source of rumors, but you can't trust everything they post. Remember that those same rumors mentioned that achieving 1.4GHz was "easy", and that has already been proved wrong.

• Some AIB partners have already said that they have modified the power system of their cards. For example, Asus has stated that their Strix card with 1x8-pin power connector gets all its power from that connection and draws 0 from the PCIe slot (article here, read the "Power to the People part"). The 8-pin powerr connector can deliver 150W, and the reference 480 also uses 150W (75WxPCIe + 75Wx6-pin), therefore it has no extra power really push the card. Sure, not all the other partners will go as far as Asus, but they could have gone for a more cautious approach given what has happened with the reference card.