One of the first ever custom cooled AMD Radeon RX 480 cards we saw was a hardware sample of the Sapphire Nitro Radeon RX 480 design. That was over a month ago. Today Sapphire has officially launched this very product. The AMD AIC partner has two versions of the NITRO+ RX 480 on offer that vary not just by the amount of memory fitted but by factory overclock GPU boost speed.
Below you can see the key features of the Sapphire NITRO+ RX 480 models, as sent to us by the firm today:
- NITRO+ RX 480 8GB boost clock at 1,342MHz for superior performance
- 4GB version boost clock at 1,306MHz for superb performance
- Improved Dual-X cooling with two 95mm fans
- Software-based Fan Health System for fan health monitoring
- SAPPHIRE Fan Service with Quick Connect for comfortable warranty-covered fan exchange
- NITRO Glow customizable RGB LED lighting system
- future-proof technologies with support for HDMI 2.0b and DisplayPort 1.4, and a full 8GB GDDR5 memory
Sapphire claims that its overclocked RX 480 cards are "designed for high quality 1440p gaming". While reference design RX 480 cards offer a peak GPU clock speed of 1,266MHz before any OC shenanigans, the 4GB and 8GB NITRO+ RX 480 models offer an out of box boost clock of 1,306MHz and 1,342MHz respectively.
As mentioned in the above bullet point spec list, these Sapphire cards employ the new Dual-X cooling system. This cooler is kitted out with 2x 95 mm dual-ball bearing fans that have a claimed 85 per cent longer lifespan compared to fans with sleeve bearings. Quieter fan blades promise to create 10 per cent less noise than the previous generation. The fans are easy to remove, clean, and replace, fastened with just a single screw. Last but not least, the cooling system is enhanced by Sapphire's Intelligent Fan Control III system to turn the fans off completely under low loads, and at temperatures under 52 degrees Celsius.
|
Model |
SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon™ RX 480 |
|
Graphics processor |
Ellesmere XT |
|
Manufacturing process |
FinFET 14nm |
|
Memory |
8GB GDDR5 256-bit / 4GB GDDR5 256-bit |
|
Stream processors |
2304 |
|
Compute units |
36 |
|
Engine clock |
1342MHz (8GB) / 1306MHz (4GB) |
|
Memory clock |
2000MHz (8GB) /1750MHz (4GB) |
|
Cooling system |
Dual-X, two 95 mm dual-ball bearing fans |
|
Outputs |
2x DisplayPort 1.4 ready, 2x HDMI 2.0b |
|
Interface |
PCI-Express 3.0 |
|
Special features |
Dual Firmware (UEFI BIOS), Fan Check, Quick Connect, Intelligent Fan Control III, NITRO CoolTech, NITRO Glow, NITRO Boost |
|
Technologies |
DirectX 12, Vulkan 1.0, OpenGL 4.5, OpenCL 2.0, AMD FreeSync, AMD CrossFire XDMA (bridgeless), AMD Eyefinity, AMD LiquidVR |
To make the most of your new Sapphire NITRO+ RX 480, and its capable cooler, essential enthusiast features have been implemented. The NITRO Boost (Dual Bios) switch increases the boost clock and power limit for higher performance. Sapphire has fitted an 8-pin power connector for greater OC headroom. Finally Sapphire has fitted these cards with its Black Diamond Chokes reducing coil temperatures.
Sapphire's shroud design features the new NITRO Glow RGB LED system. Five lighting modes can be controlled via the Sapphire TriXX 3.0 utility, or cycled through by pressing a red button on the back of the card (pictured above). Modes include; Fan Speed Mode, GPU Temperature Mode and rainbow mode.
Sapphire will ship its NITRO+ RX 480 cards before the end of July. The 4GB and 8GB versions have already been on pre-order at Overclockers UK for a while – albeit with an incorrect GPU boost clock listed for the 8GB version (at the time of writing).
In case you missed them – the PowerColor Red Devil RX 480, the Asus ROG Strix RX 480, and the Gigabyte RX 480 G1 GAMING graphics cards were all launched earlier this week.
