RX 480 and GTX 1060 DX12 and Vulkan Overclocked Results

You all asked for it, and now I’ve got the results. This is taking the same run of benchmarks as in our previous RX 480 vs GTX 1060 in DX12 and Vulkan and applying a healthy overclock to both cards. If you wanted information on our testing methodology I recommend reading over the previous article linked HERE for that information. We’ll be keeping the writing in this one on topic in regards to the overclocking and results.

Intel Core i5 6600k Test System

CPU	Intel i5 6600k (4Ghz)
Case/PSU	EVGA Hadron and 500w PSU
GPU	XFX RX 480 8GB OC, NVIDIA GTX 1060 FE
HDD	2TB Seagate SSHD
Memory	16GB (2x8) G.Skill Trident Z 3200Mhz
Motherboard	EVGA Z170 Stinger
SSD	Crucial MX100 512GB

Drivers:
Crimson 16.8.1
Geforce 368.81

XFX Radeon RX 480 OC

Starting off with overclocking the RX 480 we utilized wattman. Following the included guide for increasing efficiency can also be used to overclock the RX 480. We settled on a stable core clock of 1350Mhz and a memory offset of +225Mhz. To get there we did have to boost the voltage to 1150mv and the power limit to +50%. I did have to set a custom fan curve to maintain this overclock but we still reached a toasty 89c at a few points with the fan screaming at nearly 4k RPM.

AMD RX 400 Series Specifications

Graphics Card Name	AMD Radeon RX 480	AMD Radeon RX 470	AMD Radeon RX 460
Graphics Core	Polaris 10 XT	Polaris 10 Pro	Polaris 11
Process Node	14nm FinFET	14nm FinFET	14nm FinFET
Boost Clock	1266Mhz	1206Mhz	1200Mhz
Peak Compute	5.83 TFLOPs	4.9 TFLOPs	2.2 TFLOPs
Memory	4/8 GB GDDR5	4/8 GB GDDR5	2/4 GB GDDR5
Memory Interface	256-bit	256-bit	128-bit
Memory Speed	8 GHz	6.6 GHz	7 GHz
Memory Bandwidth	256 GB/s	211 GB/s	112 GB/s
Power	150W	120W	75W
MSRP	$199 (4 GB) $239 (8 GB)	$179 (4 GB)	$109 (2 GB)

 

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition

Overclocking the GTX 1060 was admittedly an easier affair, but still required a voltage bump of 50% on the EVGA Precision X OC slider. Doing so allowed for us to push the core clock +225Mhz resulting in a peak overclock of 2126Mhz, but settling at 2088-2101 when under load. The memory could have gone +700Mhhz, but exhibited a bit of instability, so was backed to +500, resulting in the same effective memory clock rate of the RX 480. We’ve included our guide for overclocking the GTX 1060 using EVGA’s Precision X OC. Leaving the fan curve at its stock curve we reached a peak temperature of 78c with the fan only getting up to just over 2k RPM.

NVIDIA GeForce 10 Pascal Family

Graphics Card Name	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 2 GB	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 3 GB	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 5 GB	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080	NVIDIA Titan X	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti	NVIDIA Titan Xp
Graphics Core	GP107	GP107	GP107	GP106 / GP104	GP106	GP106 / GP104	GP104	GP104	GP104	GP102	GP102	GP102
Process Node	14nm FinFET	14nm FinFET	14nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET
Die Size	132mm2	132mm2	132mm2	200mm2	200mm2	200mm2	314mm2	314mm2	314mm2	471mm2	471mm2	471mm2
Transistors	3.3 Billion	3.3 Billion	3.3 Billion	4.4 Billion	4.4 Billion	4.4 Billion	7.2 Billion	7.2 Billion	7.2 Billion	12 Billion	12 Billion	12 Billion
CUDA Cores	640 CUDA Cores	768 CUDA Cores	768 CUDA Cores	1152 CUDA Cores	1280 CUDA Cores	1280 CUDA Cores	1920 CUDA Cores	2432 CUDA Cores	2560 CUDA Cores	3584 CUDA Cores	3584 CUDA Cores	3840 CUDA Cores
Base Clock	1354 MHz	1392 MHz	1290 MHz	1506 MHz	1506 MHz	1506 MHz	1506 MHz	1607 MHz	1607 MHz	1417 MHz	1480 MHz	1480 MHz
Boost Clock	1455 MHz	1518 MHz	1392 MHz	1708 MHz	1708 MHz	1708 MHz	1683 MHz	1683 MHz	1733 MHz	1530 MHz	1583 MHz	1582
FP32 Compute	1.8 TFLOPs	2,3 TFLOPs	2.1 TFLOPs	4.0 TFLOPs	4.4 TFLOPs	4.4 TFLOPs	6.5 TFLOPs	8.1 TFLOPs	9.0 TFLOPs	11 TFLOPs	11.5 TFLOPs	12.5 TFLOPs
VRAM	2 GB GDDR5	3 GB GDDR5	4 GB GDDR5	3 GB GDDR5	6 GB GDDR5	6 GB GDDR5/X	8 GB GDDR5/X	8 GB GDDR5	8 GB GDDR5X	12 GB GDDR5X	11 GB GDDR5X	12 GB GDDR5X
Memory Speed	7 Gbps	7 Gbps	7 Gbps	8 Gbps	8 Gbps	9 Gbps / 10 Gbps	8 Gbps	8 Gbps	11 Gbps	10 Gbps	11 Gbps	11.4 Gbps
Memory Bandwidth	112 GB/s	84 GB/s	112 GB/s	192 GB/s	160 GB/s	224 GB/s / 240 GB/s	256 GB/s	256 GB/s	352 GB/s	480 GB/s	484 GB/s	547 GB/s
Bus Interface	128-bit bus	96-bit bus	128-bit bus	192-bit bus	160-bit bus	192-bit bus	256-bit bus	256-bit bus	256-bit bus	384-bit bus	352-bit bus	384-bit bus
Power Connector	None	None	None	Single 6-Pin Power	Single 6-Pin Power	Single 6-Pin Power	Single 8-Pin Power	Single 8-Pin Power	Single 8-Pin Power	8+6 Pin Power	8+6 Pin Power	8+6 Pin Power
TDP	75W	75W	75W	120W	120W	120W	150W	180W	180W	250W	250W	250W
Display Outputs	1x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	1x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	1x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b
Launch Date	October 2016	May 2018	October 2016	September 2016	August 2018	July 2016	June 2016	October 2017	May 2016	August 2016	March 2017	April 2017
Launch Price	$109 US	$119 US-$129 US	$139 US	$199 US	TBD	$249 US	$349 US	$449 US	$499 US	$1200 US	$699 US	$1200 US

 

 

Ashes of the Singularity

Ashes of the Singularity has possibly been the longest go-to DX12 benchmark, mostly because it was one of the first. Most benchmark results you see floating use the “Crazy” preset for this game, but we’re using the “High” as we feel it’s fairly representative of what you would be running this game at if you owned one of these cards.

 

 

DOOM

DOOM, the first non-beta example of the Vulkan API running with full Asynchronous Compute support. We did make sure we ran this game with the settings that would take full advantage of this feature. One think I will say about this game is it really shows that you don’t have to use Direct X if you want to make a beautiful game.

2 of 9

 

 

Forza Motorsports 6 Apex

Apex has to be the first title to come out of the Windows Store using the UWP that didn’t perform like a sack of rotten potatoes on day one. This has been a title that has enjoyed very good performance across the board since day one. The hardest part of benchmarking this game was stopping and not continuing to the next lap!

 

Gears of War: Ultimate Edition

Remember what I said about performing like a sack of rotten potatoes, this is the game I was referring to. The Windows Store first big DX12 launch was an absolute disaster performance wise at launch. I’m happy to report that all of that is no longer the case, even though the game has swelled to over 50GB in size.

 

 

HITMAN

HITMAN 2016 is the latest in the series and is being released as an episodic adventure. This approach feels natural with this game, however with each update they tend to toss in performance ‘upgrades’ as well. Because of this the game needs to be retested regularly.

 

Rise of the Tomb Raider

RotTR had pretty bad performance when it first rolled out the DX12 patch. Thankfully that has changed significantly and has even released a recent update that allows for Async Compute capability.

2 of 9

 

Total War: Warhammer

If there’s any game series in history that could benefit from DX12 it’s this one. Total War has been a notoriously single threaded game in the past making it pretty much perform the same regardless of what high end GPU you have once the screen is full of units.

 

 

Conclusion

While I don’t recommend overclocking on the reference RX 480, these results show promise for the aftermarket RX 480s as this OC is just a hair faster than what they’re shipping at. It also shows that overclocking the GTX 1060 helps it out quite a bit in DX12 and Vulkan. There really isn’t a whole lot more to say at the end of this, both cards benefit a fair bit from overclocking and it doesn’t take much effort to reach these levels for the gain.