SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 480 video card review

Test System and Testing Procedures

Latest working BIOS, updates and drivers were used at the time of the review. Each test was conducted at least three times for accuracy. All benchmarks were performed at a resolutions of 1920 x 1080, 2560 x 1440 and 3840 x 2160 unless otherwise specified.

Testing Software and Methodology

Graphics quality settings were not changed between the resolutions.

1. 3DMark Firestrike – One run Per GPU
   1. Standard, Extreme and Ultimate with no custom options.
2. Alien Isolation-
   1. Preset at Ultra. Built in benchmark used. Recorded with Fraps.
3. Battlefield Hardline
   1. Ultra Quality settings
   2. 5 minute game play run on Gator Bait level.
4. Bioshock Infinite
   1. Adrenaline Benchmark tool – Ultra Quality + DDOF
5.  Crysis 3
   1. System Spec – Very High
   2. AA- SMAA High (4x)
   3. Texture Resolution Very High
   4. Advanced Graphics – Very High
   5. AF 16x
   6. Motion Blur Amount-medium
   7. 5 Minute game play run after the introduction.
6. FarCry 4
   1. Graphics Quality Ultra
   2. 5 minute game play. From Arjay’s house on the cliff – fly across the river in the wing suit. Once we land, grab a car and head to Pagan Min’s palace.
7. Metro Last Light Redux
   1. Built in Benchmark.
   2. Direct X 11
   3. Quality Very High
   4. Texture Filtering AF 16x
   5. Motion Blur Normal
   6. Tesselation Very High
   7. SSAA and Advance PhysX were disabled.
8. Shadows of Mordor
   1. Graphic Quality Preset to Ultra
   2. Max FPS set to No Limit.
   3. 5 minutes game play after tutorial. Run through the large pit after jumping off the tower and kill as many enemies in the time limit.
9. TESV:Sky Rim
   1. Graphics Quality preset set to Ultra.
   2. 5 Minute game play after the dragon attacks and you gain control of the character.
10. Tomb Raider
    1. Adrenaline Benchmark tool- Ultimate Quality
11. Witcher 3
    1. Graphics Quality set to Ultra.
    2. 5 minutes of game play after getting to White Orchard. We explored the town and the map to find as many enemies in the time allotted.
12. DOOM – OpenGL 4.5
    1. Graphic Quality set to Ultra
    2. 5 minutes of game play in the Crucible level.
13. Hitman 2016 – DX11
    1. Graphic quality set to ultra 8x AF
    2. Built In benchmark used
14. Ashes of the Singularity DX11
    1. Graphic Quality set to crazy
    2. Built in benchmark used.
15. Rise of the Tomb Raider – DX11
    1. Ultra Graphics Quality 8x AF
    2. Built In benchmark
16. Overwatch
    1. Graphics Quality set to Ultra 8x AF – Frame limit turned off and resolution scale set to 100%.
    2. 5 Minutes of game play in Napal custom game with 1 player and AI
17. Star Wars Battlefront
    1. Graphics quality set to Ultra
    2. 5 minute game play in Tatooine survival single player.
18. Rise of the Tomb Raider SX11
    1. Graphics set to Ultra
    2. Built in benchmark used.

DirectX 12 and Vulkan testing – At this point in time, I don’t feel comfortable with the results that I got when benchmarking with DX12 and Vulkan. With these tests, I benched the card 3 times (standard) and the results varied wildly, sometimes up to 40 frames per second. I do my best to give accurate results and at this time I do not feel comfortable publishing the results with such a variance between runs. Included however, are the results for the DX12 API test in 3D Mark and the Time Spy demo.