Gaming enthusiasts are always caught in the crossfire of choosing between brands when it’s time to upgrade. Two of the biggest brand names in graphics processing are undoubtedly AMD and NVIDIA. AMD released the RX 480 GPU back in 2016 as a way of targeting the next three to four years of virtual reality. Right around the same time, NVIDIA released the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti GPU as the latest addition to their gaming platform. Understanding benchmarks and performance comparisons can be difficult. Luckily, XOTIC PC can help. In this product comparison, we take an in-depth look at the benefits of RX 480 vs. 1080 Ti.
Radeon RX 480 vs. NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti
Both the RX 480 and the 1080 Ti graphics process units promise premium virtual reality experiences and advanced technologies to take gaming into the future. However, gaming enthusiasts face real dilemmas when trying to decide between these two long-standing rivals.
Clock Speeds: Core clock speed represents the speed at which a graphics processing unit can operate. Boost clock speed is still relatively new, but it represents the minimum value a GPU can boost if there’s any thermal overhead. The GTX 1080 Ti has a core clock speed of 1,607MHz and a boost clock speed of 1,733MHz. The Radeon RX 480, on the other hand, has a core clock speed of 1,120MHz and a boost clock speed of 1,266MHz.
Memory: VRAM plays an important role in GPU capability. The RX 480 has 5,120 MB more video memory than the GTX 1080 Ti, which means that Radeon is likely to be much better at displaying game textures at higher resolutions.
Power Consumption: As the processing power of graphics cards increases, the demand for electrical power does too. RX 480 consumes approximately 150 watts, while the 1080 Ti consumes up to 250 watts.
Video Composition: From Counter-Strike to Grand Theft Auto and Battlefield to World of Warcraft, the GTX 1080 Ti offers a big boost in FPS over RX 480. The 1080 Ti is also better at anisotropic filtering and operating at high screen resolution, but Radeon comes with asynchronous shader functionalities for time-critical workloads.
Our GPU Verdict
In conclusion, both the RX 480 and the GTX 1080 Ti are powerful enough to support today’s most demanding games at their highest settings. Yet, the graphical capabilities of NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1080 Ti are noticeably better than the capabilities of AMD’s RX 480. Overall, the 1080 Ti boasts higher clock speeds, better pixel performance, more memory, and higher texture rates than the RX 480. The Radeon RX 480 might take second place in most metrics, but it offers a significantly better video composition score and lower thermal design power. Nonetheless, budget gamers can pick up the RX 480 at a much more affordable price than the GTX 1080 Ti.
Remember that synthetic benchmark scores aren’t always the most reliable in terms of real-world performance. Some applications may prefer one form of architecture over another, so it’s important to compare benchmarks from a variety of games. We hope that this article provides enough information to help you decide between the RX 480 and 1080 Ti GPUs.
