Not many can afford £350 - £600+ on a GTX 1070/1080 for 1440p, the mainstream RX 480/GTX 1060 is good enough for 1080p.
Visual improvements from High detail to Ultra detail settings isn't that great, the performance hit though is significant.

I concur with previous comment about framerates, 60FPS should be the minimum target for fast paced games, tweaking the detail settings a little to hybrid Ultra/High settings should work for most titles.

Always something better around the corner, unless you're an hardware enthusiast, hardcore gamer or just want the latest and greatest, why spend more?
£200~ every 2 years is fine with me, not paying £600+ for something that will probably struggle (1st gen DX12 cards) with latest cutting edge DX12 games on Ultra @1440p in 2+ years time. :wink:

Its almost always this price, has dropped to £219 at times
http://uk.camelcamelcamel.com/Sapphire-Radeon-GDDR5-Expess-Graphics/product/B01H01E4CQ

Might be worth waiting until "Cyber Monday" for tech deals

​​​I saw overclockers sell a cooler specifically listed for the RX480, hassle wise I'm unsure and a little cautious. from watching videos people by artic cooler coolers and ram heat sinks also.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/xfx-amd-radeon-rx-series-90mm-white-led-fan-x2-ma-ap01-wled-gx-23l-xf.html

I saw overclockers sell a cooler specifically listed for the RX480, hassle wise I'm unsure and a little cautious. from watching videos people by artic cooler cooler and ram heat sinks also.

picked up one of these 2nd hand. runs hot and loud. but at 1080p there's nothing I can't play at high to ultra. I'll be popping an after market cooler on it very soon!!

How would people rate this card against the GTX1060 6GB for higher resolutions? Does the extra VRAM help at all? I have a 4K screen and while I realise neither card will hit 60fps at that resolution, as I play on console too I am pretty well accustomed to 30fps (and even slightly lower) and am happy to turn off some of the enhancements like AA and AF (debateably pointless at 4K anyway).

I have both the GTX1060 and RX480 on order at Amazon through the various warehouse deals. Neither shipped yet but they will soon and I really can't afford (or need) both. The GTX1060 6GB was £187 and the RX480 (this sapphire card) was £171. At the moment I am leaning towards the 480 as it has the extra VRAM, is cheaper and slightly better condition (v good vs good) but is the GTX1060 is likely to outperform it significantly?

Is the RX480 8GB a good value buy at £171 or could I do better for similar money?

Thanks for the advice!

The performance difference between the fury and fury x is around 7-8% and that isn't applicable for all games since sometimes the fury infact performs better than the fury x and other times the fury x is 10-15% ahead. At the end of the day if buy the
sapphire tri-x: chance of bios flashing into a fury x and its also £25 cheaper but no warranty past the 30 days given by Amazon. Also im not 100% sure on this but it probably also OC's a bit better than the xfx fury.
XFX fury:2 year warranty it also oc's pretty well but unlikely to be flashable into a fury x

There's a sapphire tri-x fury card on Amazon warehouse deals for 225 after the 20%off - would you think that's a better deal, if it can be unlocked, than the 250 for the new xfx fury?

Hoping for a black friday deal on this or a 1060! I will be getting one with a better cooling solution though.

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/sapphire-radeon-rx-480-nitro-8gb-gddr5-239-99-ebuyer-2553955

The Nitro+ for £10 more

Well let's be honest. Games on High look just as good and you barely notice things on Ultra unless there's AA being used.

Gotta agree re ultra. I play on a 1440/165hz monitor and ultra is more often than a waste of resources when I have the means to display more FPS.

Not many can afford £350 - £600+ on a GTX 1070/1080 for 1440p, the mainstream RX 480/GTX 1060 is good enough for 1080p.
Visual improvements from High detail to Ultra detail settings isn't that great, the performance hit though is significant.

I concur with previous comment about framerates, 60FPS should be the minimum target for fast paced games, tweaking the detail settings a little to hybrid Ultra/High settings should work for most titles.

Always something better around the corner, unless you're an hardware enthusiast, hardcore gamer or just want the latest and greatest, why spend more?
£200~ every 2 years is fine with me, not paying £600+ for something that will probably struggle (1st gen DX12 cards) with latest cutting edge DX12 games on Ultra @1440p in 2+ years time. :wink:

That upgrade is not worth it, 280 to 480 is a small performance upgrade of like max 25%, keep your card man for 1080p its still a good card.

Yeah, good luck playing deus ex ,mafia, project cars,witcher on ultra and many more. Unless you like stutter festival at 30fps. Just trying to warn people not to get their hopes up. Older titles are fine, with the new ones even 980ti struggle sometimes
That doesn't change the fact that rx 480 is a good card, just not for ultra details.

Agree you can run Gears 4 above 100fps , forza 80+ , overwatch 144fps..... all the top games this year I hit the card with it plays them fine :/

For comparison, the RX480 is roughly equivalent to the nVidia 1060.
The 480 reference card (which this is) does tend to run quite hot, 80+ degrees C, so make sure your PC is well ventilated, or wait for an aftermarket version with additional cooling capabilities.

Temp sources: http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_radeon_r9_rx_480_8gb_review,6.html
http://www.techporn.ph/reference-amd-radeon-rx-480-8gb-review/

Well then, you must be trying to play games that only exist in the distant future and run on quantum technology. 0_0

Lol what are you talking about, of course a 480 can run this years games on ultra...

+1 well worth the extra £10.

I had sworn I saw that earlier at a higher price :S

+1

Probably worth the extra 10 for this
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapphire-Polaris-FreeSync-PCI-Express-Graphics/dp/B01IQS6NI0/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1479847563&sr=8-11&keywords=rx480

Custom overclocked version that is faster.

Agreed strongly, no decent upgrade for the £200 mark if you got a last gen card for that price.

Unless you're running above 1080p at a lower fps it's not worth getting the 8gb card, as even very demanding games like mankind divided are only using up to 3-4gb maxed out at 1080p. Also the standard card is noisier, overvolted and power restricted (think the nitro/gtr cards have upgraded bios). Or get the RX470 4gb which is like for like 10% cheaper and 5% slower once overclocked (less power restriction).

If these are most like the 1060's and you can get a 1060 for just £15 more, why's this getting so much heat?

not really a 'beast' now is it? Only a mid range card.

will this run most new games on ultra and 1080/60fps

Anyone buying reference Radeon 480s now would be crazy unless they get them at least £50 cheaper or plan to watercool them. They simply run too hot/noisy with reference coolers, imo. :wink:

Is this a 1080p card

​sapphire nitro coolers run hot, also the ram on 4gb cards are slower

Nope would rather have the extra ram but that ia just my opinion

Anyone think this might be a better option ? https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapphire-Polaris-FreeSync-PCI-Express-Graphics/dp/B01IQS6QE6/ref=sr_1_2?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1479823580&sr=1-2&keywords=rx+480

Only 4gigs of ram but better cooler I think. and £20 cheaper.

Don't get your hopes up i got one off OC UK recently too and it isn't a locked fury x, most of the xfx fury's cant even OC past 1050 mhz without issues mine does 1030(from 1000) and 525(from 500). Iirc the good chips are actually used for sapphires fury and those ones are often locked fury x chips.

And these AAA titles are from when 2010?there is no way this can run any current AAA title on ultra,except doom maybe

The stock card cooling is kinda crap imo. Pay a little more and get a better cooler.

If you scroll down on that page it shows that vanilla Sapphire RX 480s are included as well. I think pretty much every 480 will be included, it is just whether or not the retailer is participating.

AFAIK, Amazon aren't participating in the free Civ VI offer.

Plus, from what I've read, these Nitro cards run hot and noisy! You probably would've been better with the MSI 8GB at £240 last week.

I'm personally waiting for Black Friday, grabbing an MSI or XFX GTR (only a Sapphire if it's significantly cheaper)

not too much of an upgrade going from a 280 to a 480 imo

I received an email from Sapphire saying that you can get Sid Meier's Civilization VI for free with this card: http://sapphirenation.net/get-civilization-vi-free-sapphire-nitro-radeon-rx-480/

Potentially Civ VI free with this as well but I'm not sure how to find out participating retailers: http://www.hotukdeals.com/freebies/civilization-vi-free-with-a-new-amd-rx-480-amd-2552964 I think Amazon was apart of Nvidia's promotion but it may better to check with them first.

Its almost always this price, has dropped to £219 at times
http://uk.camelcamelcamel.com/Sapphire-Radeon-GDDR5-Expess-Graphics/product/B01H01E4CQ

Might be worth waiting until "Cyber Monday" for tech deals

There's an XFX R9 Fury (non X, but potentially unlockable) for 249 on amazon now. I bought one (waiting to ship) on the chance that I can unlock it to a Fury X. If I can't I'll probably send back.