Originally Posted By: Allen
I see Newegg (where I ordered mine) is out of stock of all brands. So, I guess I did okay both getting a card and the manufacturer I wanted.

The only review issue I've come across for RX-480 Reference cards is that some reviewers don't like the Reference cooler. But, that's to be expected in a "reference" device -- its the cheapest version usually -- and AMD typically skimps on the cooler.

Anyhow, now I wait 4 to 7 days for it to arrive. Then, I'll see for myself how it handles what I play versus my HD7970s.


The reference cooler is pretty cheap, Its simply a small aluminum heatsink with copper contact plate, no heat pipes, no vapor chambers, and it only covers the gpu area, everything else is cooled from small cheap heat plate.

like I said,
If the mounting holes are the same, Id swap out the heatsink with a cooler on one of my retired Cards,

Or Mount a $30 AiO water cooler to the GPU, likely needing a shim, then some copper heatsinks to The ram and vrm modules cut a space or remove the top shroud plate and make a custom one to allow space for AiO hoses and use the centro fan to push air over the copper sinks w/o void warranty for cutting shroud cover..

I think they might be throttling in these benchmarks, specially when 3 sites repprted load temps of 85°c+


For me, the best case scenario is the heatsink mounting holes are the same size as previous ones,

I have a 7870XT Sapphire DualX Cooler, Sapphire 7950 DualX Cooler, and 3 MSI R7970 Lightning Twin Frozer Coolers (1 was an Extra i got on ebay for $5).

All of which will be replaced as I get new cards, so the 7870XT has a heatsink that's rated for well above anything the Polaris Chip will put out.


Last edited by SkateZilla; 06/29/16 07:41 PM.

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