I have been tracking release of Polaris and Pascal for a while since I will upgrade in the near future,

Here are two interesting reviews of the Rx480

AMD Radeon RX 480 CrossFire - https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/RX_480_CrossFire/

and

AMD Radeon RX 480 Crossfire Benchmark Performance - GTX 1070 Killer? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMHJhP7Y7oM

Also, waiting for the Anandtech.com full review

Here my initial conclusion:

Rx480 in cross fire are faster than 1070 (not by a big league) and in some scenarios faster than a single 1080 for lower the price (not in Lebanon) + the Polaris (14nm FinFET) is very optimized in heat dissipation & power draw compared to last gen of r9 390/390x/380x remember this is a reference cooler on rx 480 custom will attain lower hear as usual and will be more OC. Out of 23 tested games 6 were optimized for cross fire I will wait for seem more reviews that roll over soon (with the latest optimized drivers , but the reviews have the latest drivers , most probably will be the same on the customer end)

However,

Frame Pacing with the 1% frame time (sudden shutters , dips and spikes) will be a concern with cross fire even if the max fps in rx480 in cross fire is higher than the 1070 , therefore a Free Sync Monitor is highly recommended.

Not all AAA Titles will have a cross fire profile thus scaling will be very low = as if one Rx 480

Single Card solution are still more optimized with frame pacing and games profiles.

In the MENA Region i bet the price will be USD 280 for the 8 GB Model , you are looking for at least 350USD (non reference) including VAT thus 350 +350 = 700USD for Cross fire , I will pay 100 USD more and grab a 1080 OC or 100 USD Less and grab a 1070OC.

Asynchronous Compute which is a minus for Maxwell in Direct 12 Titles and a major plus for AMD, Pascal balanced things up and eliminated that competitive advantage for AMD.

1060 is in the horizon , with promising performance too.

The r9480 is good for what it is and you are attaining some how high end gaming when you have a tight budget , but for me I will go for the maximum for a single card solution I can offer thus a single 1070 OC or a 1080OC.
I wouldn't really recommend anyone crossfire 2 cards to save 200$ on a 1080, because the 2 cards will consume a lot of power, and that money will probably go towards you upgrading the power supply etc... It is also not as future proof as getting a 1080 now and then sli another 1080 in the future...
Tech Guru wrote1060 is in the horizon , with promising performance too.
Yeah, apparently the GTX 1060 will be somewhere between the GTX 970 and the GTX 980 performance wise.
Wouldn't be so quick to judge tbh, as with all AMD cards we'll have to wait a few weeks for new drivers, AMD cards get better as drivers mature, so we may (read: will) see it equal the performance of a 980 in a while.
Yeah I am leaning towards waiting for 1060 or getting a 1070. I have seen vids that say this card does not even match the gtx970, an already 2 years old card being outdone by nvidia...

As for drivers... I had a bad experience with amd drivers, when I got my HD7770 it was already a year old, and it was so glitchy it took another year of driver updates to become decent.
user wroteYeah I am leaning towards waiting for 1060 or getting a 1070. I have seen vids that say this card does not even match the gtx970, an already 2 years old card being outdone by nvidia...

As for drivers... I had a bad experience with amd drivers, when I got my HD7770 it was already a year old, and it was so glitchy it took another year of driver updates to become decent.
Lot has changed since the HD 7000 series, AMD drivers are currently on par with Nvidia's. And the 1060 will most probably be a severely cut-down GP104 (think 50% of a 1080), and will probably be as good as the 480, BUT it won't have as much potential as the 480 when the drivers mature a bit more.
and DX12 implementation in AMD graphic cards is much better than Nvidia, the stock 480 in current state outperforms the GTX980 is DX12 titles
anayman_k7 wroteand DX12 implementation in AMD graphic cards is much better than Nvidia, the stock 480 in current state outperforms the GTX980 is DX12 titles
Don't forget Vulkan too, which is practically Mantle
Nothing new , the r9 390x outperforms the 980 in certain Direct X 12 titles (but for example Tomb Raider it does not), Since Maxwell lacks in Asynchronous compute , Pascal came out and eliminated this competitive advantage for AMD.

Here some quick concerns for AMD Rx 480:

- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Official Specifications and Benchmarks Leaked – 15% Faster Than RX 480, More Than 40% Efficient Than Polaris 10 for ~ 300 USD

So where is the power efficiency they said with Polaris and 14nm FinFET
Read more: http://wccftech.com/nvidia-gtx-1060-specifications-benchmarks-leaked/#ixzz4DDzHm886

- AMD RX480 Crossfire vs GTX1080 vs GTX1070 vs 970 SSC SLI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVVJPbFRDEc

2x 970OC (a 2 years old that has a 3.5+0.5GB Vram ) comes in toes with a new architecture which is a plus for green team frankly, with declining prices of Maxwell too.

Jay2Cent also recommended as I always recommend to go with the fastest single card you budget offer , it is more efficient to play a all a games rather a hit/miss scenarios with cross fire/SLI with optimized profiles , mainly on AAA titles that you like to enjoy.

a 1070OC does not come too short even compared to 2x 480s.
the reason I would not get 2 480's on my upcoming gaming rig is, I am gonna game on a 4k screen, and I am gonna need 2 gtx 1080 or 1070 in sli, having 2 480's in crossfire with giving less performance than a single 1080 is not enough... the only thing confusing me on which gpu to buy is, is the gtx 1080 worth he extra $300? and what is the performance gonna be of the upcoming vega in october...
I was a crossfire user for years & shifted to Nvidia single card solutions. No regrets whatsoever and I totally agree with Tech Guru to the point.
official update from amd:
AMD just issued a small statement on the PCI-Express over-current Issues mentioned and reported on the web. It seems that the Radeon RX 480 reference cards are going over spec using more than 75 Watts over the PCI-Express slot and then another 75 Watt over the 6-pin power connector. If you pull over 75 Watts from the motherboard slot, it will place more strain on it and some motherboards might note cope with that very well. To that end and to solve the issues reported they will address this issue in software. The cards do exceed 150 Watts, in fact we measured it at 166 Watts. Here is that statement:

"We continuously tune our GPUs in order to maximize their performance within their given power envelopes and the speed of the memory interface, which in this case is an unprecedented 8 Gbps for GDDR5. Recently, we identified select scenarios where the tuning of some RX 480 boards was not optimal. Fortunately, we can adjust the GPU's tuning via software in order to resolve this issue. We are already testing a driver that implements a fix, and we will provide an update to the community on our progress on Tuesday (July 5, 2016)."

If this is fixed by software (driver) this likely means it will be throttling down if it hits a certain power state, so if a higher than 150 Watt power state is reached, AMD might be throttling down the cards in the future to meet the proper P state. Yesterday we have been performing some additional stress tests ourselves and cannot replicate the issues mention on the web. We do see a minor increase of temperature on the PCI-Express slot, but nothing rather concerning. Yesterday we updated the FLIR images in our reference review to show that.

source: guru3d.com
Nemesis-301 wroteofficial update from amd:

AMD just issued a small statement on the PCI-Express over-current Issues mentioned and reported on the web. It seems that the Radeon RX 480 reference cards are going over spec using more than 75 Watts over the PCI-Express slot and then another 75 Watt over the 6-pin power connector. If you pull over 75 Watts from the motherboard slot, it will place more strain on it and some motherboards might note cope with that very well. To that end and to solve the issues reported they will address this issue in software. The cards do exceed 150 Watts, in fact we measured it at 166 Watts. Here is that statement:

"We continuously tune our GPUs in order to maximize their performance within their given power envelopes and the speed of the memory interface, which in this case is an unprecedented 8 Gbps for GDDR5. Recently, we identified select scenarios where the tuning of some RX 480 boards was not optimal. Fortunately, we can adjust the GPU's tuning via software in order to resolve this issue. We are already testing a driver that implements a fix, and we will provide an update to the community on our progress on Tuesday (July 5, 2016)."

If this is fixed by software (driver) this likely means it will be throttling down if it hits a certain power state, so if a higher than 150 Watt power state is reached, AMD might be throttling down the cards in the future to meet the proper P state. Yesterday we have been performing some additional stress tests ourselves and cannot replicate the issues mention on the web. We do see a minor increase of temperature on the PCI-Express slot, but nothing rather concerning. Yesterday we updated the FLIR images in our reference review to show that.


source: guru3d.com
GTX 960 , witnessed this issue when it is released. But regardless, to me 2x 480s are not worth the purchase especially in the prices schema in Lebanon (including profit margin , VAT , Customs etc..) , 250 USD for the 8 GB Variant at Amazon (reference) / https://www.amazon.com/XFX-RADEON-DDR5-3xDP-RX480M8BFA6/dp/B01H3P9CKI - None References in Lebanon will tip ~ 320 USD , 2x 320 = 640 USD > one stable and not a far performance compared to 1070 OC , in that matter I will add 160 on 640 and Get a 1080 OC.
Tech Guru wroteNothing new , the r9 390x outperforms the 980 in certain Direct X 12 titles (but for example Tomb Raider it does not), Since Maxwell lacks in Asynchronous compute , Pascal came out and eliminated this competitive advantage for AMD.
AMD still has an advantage in DX12 and Vulkan, actually. And in DX12, the 480 outperforms the 980 by a fair margin.
Die_Kapitan wrote
Tech Guru wroteNothing new , the r9 390x outperforms the 980 in certain Direct X 12 titles (but for example Tomb Raider it does not), Since Maxwell lacks in Asynchronous compute , Pascal came out and eliminated this competitive advantage for AMD.
AMD still has an advantage in DX12 and Vulkan, actually. And in DX12, the 480 outperforms the 980 by a fair margin.
Only in Hitman (which is AMD optimized marketed Title for Asynchronous compute capabilities along with Ashes of Singularity)

Tomb Raider in Direct X 12 Mode , rx 480 ~ 970 , and 980 beats it
Total War in Direct X 12 : WARHAMMER rx 480 ~ 980
Ashes of the Singularity rx 480 ~ 980

Noting that the 2 years old Maxwell lags in Asynchronous , even in comes in par with 2 real direct x 12 benchmarks , lose a one , and wins one , comparing with a new Polaris Architecture. Pascal widen things up facing Polaris , and the 1060 will be the rx 480 direct x 12 sharp hit.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_radeon_r9_rx_480_8gb_review,1.html
i agree with Tech, for Polaris and the new 14nm FinFET architecture the DX12 results are mediocre at best compared to Maxwell which lacks Asynch compute and is 2 years old.
I also forget to say that it matches the performance of the 980 in Linux, and its performance in Linux is on par with its Windows performance which is a first.
Anthony2000 wrotei agree with Tech, for Polaris and the new 14nm FinFET architecture the DX12 results are mediocre at best compared to Maxwell which lacks Asynch compute and is 2 years old.
It's a mid-level card that hasn't even been released for a week, matching the performance of a card two tiers higher than it with much much more mature drivers and two times it price, for fuck's sake!
reminder, it is a 200$ card aimed toward 1080p gamers, and it does its job pretty well
it melts at 91 degrees and ruin your Motherboard and Cables :P oh, and your 200$ ^.^
Ngel wroteit melts at 91 degrees and ruin your Motherboard and Cables oh, and your 200$ ^.^
no bias, m8.

For real though, it doesn't get anywhere near 91 degrees, you can very easily undervolt it to draw less from the PCIe, and a driver fix from AMD is coming next week, plus any half-decent motherboard on the market (so practically all but the lowest of low-end mobos) can output more than 75W via PCIe.