AMD RX 480 Custom Cards Can Hit 1.4-1.6Ghz AIBs Report – Asus Announces RX 480 Strix & MSI RX 480 Gaming Leaks Out

The AMD Radeon RX 480 has just come out and news about custom variants of it has already hit the web. Asus hast just published a press release announcing its Strix RX 480 Gaming graphics card. The company did not reveal much but promised more details soon. The card features a three fan cooling design and customizable RGB lighting.

The Asus Strix RX 480 Gaming also feautres two PCIe power connectors rather than a single 6-pin like the reference design. The card will undoubtedly feature higher clock speeds than the reference design right out of the box. And with better power delivery and cooling it should also overclock considerably better.
MSI is also reportedly working on an RX 480 Gaming graphics card that'll be coming out soon. The company did not announce anything official yet. However an image of a red MSI RX 480 Gaming graphics card has already leaked out earlier today.

Custom AMD RX 480 Graphics Cards Can Clock To 1480Mhz-1600Mhz Add-In-Board Partners Report

Kyle Bennet, editor at HardOCP.com revealed earlier today that AMD's add-in-board partners -- AIBs - report that RX 480 graphics cards with "extremely good air coolers" are hitting anywhere from 1480mhz to 1600mhz depending on the silicon lottery. Which is 17% to 26% higher than the stock clock speed of 1266Mhz on the reference RX 480 design.

Kyle Bennet :
AIB partners are reporting to me this morning that with extremely good custom air coolers the 480 GPUs are seeing from 1480MHz to 1600MHz clocks, but tell me it is a "lottery draw" on GPUs.

Reviews for the reference design RX 480 just went live a couple of hours ago. Testing around the card's overclocking revealed that the extremely limited power delivery is the likely culprit behind its modest overclocking capabilities. With just a single 6-pin power connector the card's power delivery is limited to a maximum of 150W. 75W from the PCIe slot and 75W from the 6-pin PCIe power connector.

The reference RX 480 draws an average of 80 watts from the PCIe 6-pin connector. That's already 5 watts over the limit at stock clock speeds. Leaving absolutely no room for any serious overclocking. An issue that AIB partners are addressing directly with their custom RX 480 designs with the addition of more power connectors. This is very likely why AMD's AIB partners are reporting clock speeds of up to 1.6Ghz are actually achievable.  As so much of the GPU's overclocking potential simply can't be tapped with the reference design.

Credit : Tom's Hardware

So if you're looking at the RX 480 cards that are out right now don't be tempted just yet. At least if you're interested in higher clock speeds and enjoy overclocking or if you're simply looking for better cooling solutions on the RX 480 you will definitely want to hold out for the custom AIB designs.

ASUS ROG Press Release

The next-generation graphics card from AMD Radeon starts with the RX 480. You can certainly expect ROG Strix to join the party. ROG Strix RX 480 will be featuring the new Polaris 10 XT at the core based on a new 14nm FinFET fabrication node (previously 28nm) to bring you a new level of performance with less heat.  The GPU (grahics processing unit) is paired with 8GB of GDDR5 video memory operating at 8GHz on the 256-bit memory bus. 

The new GPU armed with DirectCU III cooling will result in a faster and quieter graphics card. The black metal shroud and backplate with new Aura RGB lighting can surely match almost any system. GPU Tweak II will provide eay one-click overclocking while a professional mode is still available for advanced users, with XSplit Gamecaster to stream or record gameplay.

A dedicated HDMI 2.0b port is available for VR, and AMD FreeSync will make sure you're getting smooth gaming when using supported gaming monitors such as MG248Q, MG28UQ or MG24UQ.

More details to come so stay tuned!

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