Power Consumption, Temperature, Noise
The higher-than-default frequencies translate to higher power consumption. This is one area where Nvidia has AMD beat.
Both cards produce predictable results in the temperature tests.
Here's an issue that has gone back and forth between HEXUS and Sapphire. As we mentioned in the Asus RX 480 review, the AMD Control Centre (CC) takes charge of the fan speed on all partner RX 480s, irrespective of what the manufacturer has set the curve at. For some reason, the CC likes to ramp up fan speeds to high levels - 2,350rpm on the two fans in this instance, causing the aural ruckus shown in the above graph.
This problem is likely to be addressed via a driver update; it isn't fixed in 16.7.3. It could be solved by using the TriXX utility and setting a manual fan speed, but there's no RX 480-compatible version at present. Ironically, just to quieten the cards after benchmarking, we used the Asus GPU Tweak Utility and set a 33 per cent fan speed (35.1dB, 1,440rpm, 83°C) that way, so there's an option for any user considering these cards, though do understand that a manual speed means the fan is always on.
