Sapphire RX 480 Nitro OC+ Review

Sapphire RX 480 Nitro OC+ Review

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It’s been a while since we’ve seen rendered things on our graphics card boxes and we kinda missed them so it’s nice to see Sapphire giving us a new take on an old school design. The Nitro itself looks identical to the RX 470 Nitro we reviewed, and we feel the same as we did then. It’s got a nice solid look to it.

Sapphire RX 480 Nitro OC+ Review     Sapphire RX 480 Nitro OC+ Review  

The one thing that perhaps surprises us, particularly given how warm we know the Polaris GPU runs at these kind of clock speeds, is how few vents there are in the Nitro shroud. Even the heatpipe side has plastic tucked into every nook and cranny. It’s almost monolithic. So much so we keep expecting Also Sprach Zarathrusta to blare across our speakers.

Sapphire RX 480 Nitro OC+ Review     Sapphire RX 480 Nitro OC+ Review  

Sapphire RX 480 Nitro OC+ Review     Sapphire RX 480 Nitro OC+ Review  

We’ve often mentioned how little attention manufacturers give to the backplates given how it’s the bit of your graphics card you actually see on a regular basis, but and we think that the Sapphire Nitro OC+ really looks the part. Neutral enough to fit into any colour scheme, busy enough to not be a slab of blackness.

Sapphire RX 480 Nitro OC+ Review     Sapphire RX 480 Nitro OC+ Review  

As you would expect from a card boasting clock speeds at this level, the RX 480 uses an 8 pin PCIe power input. Still only 175W TDP though, which is good news for those of us with bills to pay. We also like the multitude of display output options. AMD were slightly guilty of forgetting how many monitor types there are in their 3xx series, and whilst we wouldn’t expect a VGA port it’s great to see they’ve redressed the balance.

Sapphire RX 480 Nitro OC+ Review     Sapphire RX 480 Nitro OC+ Review Â