MSI RX 480 GAMING X 4G

Ultra graphics settings

The Radeon RX 480 can be characterized very simply: it is a graphics card that allows you to run absolutely all modern games at ultra graphics settings at FullHD resolution. There is an RX 480, like other video cards of the Polaris family, in two versions - with a standard 4 GB and doubled to 8 GB of memory. The four-gig version costs significantly less and for FullHD this amount of video memory is still enough. But what will happen, say, in six months or a year, we do not undertake to predict.

The best offer in its class

An analogue of the RX 480 with a still moderate power consumption of 150 W from the old Radeon models is the hot 275-watt R9 390. Urgently changing the previously purchased R9 390 to a colder RX 480, of course, is not worth it, but if you buy a graphics card from scratch, then the choice is the benefit of the novelty is obvious, even if the R9 390 can now be found cheaper. The direct competitors of the NVIDIA RX 480 are the GeForce GTX 970 (3.5 GB of fast memory and another 0.5 GB of slow memory) and the 3 GB version of the GTX 1060 (it has a weaker processor than the 6 GB version). At the same price, the RX 480 looks better thanks to 4 GB of memory.

Factory overclock

Recently, MSI has changed the branding of its graphics card models. Now MSI's flagship black and red series is represented by three versions: Gaming with close to reference frequencies (formerly called Gaming LE), Gaming X with relatively low factory overclocking, and finally Gaming Z based on selected graphics chips that support strong factory overclocking. The most balanced in terms of price is, perhaps, the average version of MSI RX 480 Gaming X 4G. And if you're lucky, you can overclock it yourself to the level of Gaming Z.