Seemed fairly solid, just a few things. Your marking criteria,
Ease of Learning: 4 / 5
Ease of Use: 4.5 / 5
Enjoyment: 4 / 5
Design: 5 / 5
Value for Money: 4 / 5
...could do with a re-jig more appropriate for hardware. And the benchmarks are hard to get a full grasp of without comparisons to other cards, with the results factored into the conclusion (something you can add to over time with more review samples).
Few typos:
These enables support
*enable
The results below are the average FPS using the three different resolutions, all running on Ultra High settings):
Rogue bracket.
completely right OC off at this stage
*write
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Thanks for the feedback. The typos are stuff I can easily change.
As for the rating criteria, its linked to the tech section for the theme. It gets a bit complicated making custom ratings for each review item, especially with the amount of bugs in WordPress, but something I'll consider changes or working on.
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That's a very detailed review... it was exactly what I'm looking for.
I was planning to switch my 750ti for a RX480 but I realize that I shouldn't.
First of all, the price in Brazil is not very attractive (it is more expensive than 1060).
Second and the most important: I need to buy another power supply...
Thanks for that! :)
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Good point. But Asus actually do offer the RX480 without the ROG tag in the title. I think they've just added some additional features like the lighting to make it more of a sell for more advanced gamers, but if you're a more advanced gamer, perhaps they'll just buy a more advanced card? :) The ROG STRIX is also available for the GTX10xx range from Nvidia.
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I've always been a fan of Asus and jumped on board with ROG back on the old AM2+ Crosshair II motherboard and was never disappointed. But then shortly after that they started tagging GPUs with ROG too which just kinda confused me since i felt all their GPUs were for gaming already. Motherboards & Laptops made sense to me but I guess they just put more quality control and jazz things up a little bit to call them ROG nowadays though. xD
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I think Republic Of Gaming is just their catchphrase mostly, but there is some kind of a link through the net ROG can do, I have a bunch of their cards and mobo's but I've never tried it.
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i know, but i mean if they keep labeling everything with ROG then eventually they mine as well just stop the non-ROG products and at that point they'd have to come up with a new theme to tag them with to differentiate between them.. "ROG STRIX RX480 Diamond Edition" or something dumb like that. nvidia used geforce so much they no longer even have another sub-model name they use.
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The title for the Asus ROG RX480 STRIX OC 8GB is already a mouthful. Some version even write it with the Aura Lighting as well included. Asus ROG RX480 STRIX OC 8G Aura Lighting Diamond Edition will just be overkill. :D
But, if you look at the catalogue, Asus have 3 or more versions of the ROG RX480 STRIX alone, and maybe more than 10 for the RX480. Now imagine how many variants there are for the RX480 across all the custom manufacturers just for this one card, and the poor buyer wants to do a comparison of what he can buy across the different cards?
Choosing a graphics card 2 or 3 years ago was already a minefield, now it's just ridiculous. Buy one now and tomorrow there's a new variant of the one you bought...even worse than buying a new smartphone. ;)
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I wonder in terms of factory production if having such a wide pool of cards isn't inefficient.
Creating new processes for two cards doesn't seem practical if you can use one and sell the same amount.
But, then again, we all know us gamers are finicky creatures...one person wants blue lights, another only wants yellow. :D
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yeah, i agree. though in something as basic as color its probably just alternates between the choices upon production.. then later when they find which is the better selling color they make it alternate in favor of that color a little bit more. =)
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"as well as a year subscription to World of Warships"
What do you mean with that? The game is free-to-play. Does that mean a Premium account which would represent a significant monetary value?
No info on the specs of the rest of the PC.
Min-fps and frametimes would be interesting.
How did you measure the power consumption?
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Yes, I should specify, free 1-year premium account.
I'll consult my table again for all the framerates to find the minimums.
Measuring power consumption was really not very precise. I had a friend use his multi-meter to check the consumption, but this could only be observed from the PSU. So had to do an average on idle with no graphics card, and then again with it. The issue with that is that the consumption could then be drawn from the onboard graphics. It's easier then to measure the difference in consumption between gaming and idle, but again, this isn't 100% accurate, since the draw is from a few different sources on the mobo during gaming. I had some reference based on stress tests on the mobo as a whole.
But now that I think of it, there's almost no point to me having added those figures there, since it isn't overly concerning to most buyers, isn't accurate enough to start with, and have to consult online results for comparisons for other cards. I don't think I'll be doing those tests again in the future, since it took quite a lot of time...but I wanted to make a bit of an impression with the PR guys who arranged the card for review.
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Probably best to write how much the whole system used under full load and idle so people can see what to expect. Also a comparison to onboard GPU.
On the asus.za site there's no mention of WoW. Maybeit was a limited bonus or dealer-specific?
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Would be good to do a complete round up of all the results, but having spent 5 hours on the write-up itself (no tests), and well over 2000 words I was afraid it may be far too long.
For the WoW, here's the official microsite for the promotion. There's big difference between the site itself, 15 days premium, as to the voucher in the box, 1 year premium. But I wasn't able to redeem it, since the previous reviewer had already redeemed it. :) Think I'll just state that it's a premium account, and not specify the time, although I'll no doubt get questions on that then.
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ok, I've read your article, hope I don't make it sound harsh or unpolite :P as ofc isn't intended!
I don't recall reading the "test bench" aka your PC in which you tried the vga. Nor in the beginning when you mention it didn't fit so you had to "get creative"; no pics? what did you do? ghetto style mobo over a box? had or borrowed one of those open/barebone cases? got rid of HDD cage?
I'd liked more pictures, bit less wording. I mean the article seemed OK (hey you're starting with this so guess it passes :) ) though I'm sorta used to straight-to-the-point reviews like clear separated topics, divided into specs, looks (pictures!), games used for testing AND how: demo, benchs, gameplay, etc
Keep in mind that OC editions aren't meant to be further oc'ed they're factory oc'ed and that's what the manufacturer or the customcooler company recommends so one can't or shouldn't complain about that.. Related to this, is that some reference cards won't reach same OC level that factory OC'ed ones; they know what they're doing and the safe operational margins, so we should hear them unless explicitally revised cases, testing and confirmation by other "trusted" people.
Lastly, I'm not sure if you like AMD's card or not, I also don't know if you like nvidia's either. This is FINE in the non-biased reviews and is actually the desired factor; it's like a seller, I have a hard time trusting sellers words because they'd say anything to make you BUY, even if it isn't in your best interest. So, having a review in which I can't see if you're happy or annoyed? it's weird to not know where you stand. Best side is no side, I mean be as objective as possible, no denying any card's good things just because it's made by a company we don't like (or viseversa).
Perhaps you did mentioned this and I just forgot or scrolled too far and missed it. Please accept my apologies.
By the end of it you mention only the local currancy, to be (in southamerica) it seemed like Brazilean Reals :P and don't think you put USD prices. I've seen even scripts or wiggeds or however they're called that scout for online prices and show it in your web.
Since I mention the website, the load time was fine, the design was fine, it's perfectly legible and it's easier & nice to browse.. there's no but, haha just I'll mention that as many people, I use the extension or pluggin WOT (Web of Trust I think) which rates websites as safe and/or recommended, yours shows up as so-so even tho I did not had a single problem, alarm from browser, nothing, so it may just be lack of votes or maybe a component somewhere got branded as "wary", IDK.
I'd say some words felt odd used in this review, but again I haven't read other articles by you so I don't know your style.
I did not find any error or typos, didn't find inconsistencies or anything I'd dislike, just -please take it as constructive criticism!- it wasn't too appealing to me probably because I'm used to other kind of reviews, I'm not talking about those whom use expensive devices to measure stuff; that makes them too technical and sometimes I just want the no BS version, the bottomlined one: yay or nay? the "I'd buy this or that" or the "better wait for better deals" or the "I'd only buy this IF..." sort of thing. One cannot (or shouldn't) say to others what to do but telling what one would do is fine, others can either agree or respectfully disagree and that's perfect, one's point of view may bring clarity or even ideas to others who were on the oposite side but haven't really thought about something that way.
Yes, I do tend to over analize which is why (probably) wrote another walloftext, dayum I can't help it! :P
Again, OP, I hope I didn't came off as an A$$ and that what I said helped even a bit, if not, if you or anybody else considers it offensive just block & delete this and ban me for being honest but perhaps not having the gift of choosing proper words, so yeah..
ps. Checked your bundle train but it's just too much entries for me to think I'd win, so I won't bother. It's been like this for a while so no biggie. Thanks for the article.
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So back to your comments...
...there was a lot a left out due to the length of the already long review. I had to cut quite a lot that I originally had in, and think I should have cut quite a lot more actually.
Perhaps I should do a few more photos of the setup myself in future as opposed to the stock images. But I received some directive from the PR company that arranged the review unit for testing to use some official images from their media site. So I'm not sure how they'd feel about such photos.
You're right about the factory specified OC. But I feel if they're going to add the capability to OC, might as well have some dynamic performance settings that pushes the GPU to where it can go if needed, rather than just saying users can set the OC clockspeeds themselves. Especially if it's not much difference.
I won't go as far as to say I'm a fan or either manufacturer, AMD or Nvidia, I've had both in the past and enjoyed all of them. Haven't had a graphics card that I hated or that had buggy drivers.
More than 50% of our readers are South African based, so I put the Rand value in, which is quite important for the local market. It's easier to obtain Dollar prices, but I'll perhaps add both amounts going forward. PS I'm on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean from Brazil. :)
For the rating on WOT, we had some issues last year with some Google stuff, which blocked us as spam for some reason. So we had to arrange with them to remove this, and after about a week we were put on their safelist again. We weren't sure why this happened, but it ended up blocking our emails to companies, etc. as well, which was nightmare. I'm not sure if WOT uses such stats to build a rep, but given that we're South African, it may be that many WOT users would never have visited our site to add a rating.
The reason you didn't find any typos was because one of the earlier SG users pointed out 3 or 4, which I fixed ASAP. :)
I don't take offense at your criticism, although I am a bit tied up in terms of making clear Yay or Nay statements, having not done any other graphics card reviews. So I have no bases for head to heads, so I provide a suggestion in that case. I do often try to make a more clear statement in reviews where I can, like for smartphones where I've done quite a few. So hopefully in the next few months I can be more direct.
And again, I don't think you're being an A$$, and do appreciate the time to view the review and for the in depth feedback.Appreciated.
PS Added you to my WL, and not just because you're a fan of Full Metal Alchemist. Hopefully then you'll enter some WL GAs in the future.
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Hey Ph03n1xSA sorry it took 5 hs to read this and reply, I spent half day building my new case which I received today :D
It's a Fractal Design Define S (non-windowed) and well it took some time to tidy the cables and make it look half-decent why everything in my post is half I don't--
hahaha alright, back on topic, I see what you say and it's perfectly fine, makes sense and seems you're doing it smart to the local market and their tastes, glad you're invested and care about all of this!
Aww! seriously you didn't have to, tho I appreciate the gesture buddy :)
Now sure about the wot thing, I just use it since quite a while and I know for a fact other sites I took as safe were then blocked by Google, so like everything, take it with a pinch of salt, as they say :P I mean it's just a reference, another layer to look to, but no deciding factor.
About the brands, perfect! that's how we (consumers) should be with everything we use or buy; not "marrying" with a brand and blindly trust them just because. I'm sure many of us could bring stories and experiences both ours and from friends about great or crappy hardware (and brands obviously) but it's a world just too bast to generalize, YMMV (your millage may vary) so what works for you it fails catastrophically for someone else :P plus there's the batch QT pass and all that, 1 in 10chillion units will fail! :P
I'm not in Brazil but further down there (yes, there's a land south of the south) where all kinds of characters came to be... XD
Alright, didn't want to extend this much again, thankfully this one was shorter, a little bit..
ps, forgot about the FMA thing! it's my avatar for a reason, glad you're a fan too!
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Cool site! I like your logo a lot, I see both Superman and a snowy mountain :]
Read a couple of articles, the one about DC movies and their Rebirth comics tie-in was quite interesting! I think the RX 480 review was good (managed to quickly scoop the info I look for with GPUs, which is mostly the benchmarks and the card's value regarding its price vs performance ratio), I missed some sort of subjective score or recommendation system for PES 2017 though.
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Thanks for the comments.
I don't fully understand the the last sentence. Are you referring specifically to the review of PES 17?
If you are, then I would say that there is a recommendation of PES 17 over FIFA 17. Given the fact that the person reviewing the game was a FIFA fan, that's quite a big statement as well. :)
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Yeah! The review of PES is one of the articles I read some parts of, I might recommend it to a friend who's a FIFA obsessed, he buys micro transactions for Ultimate Team and such... is there a PES demo for PS4?
I guess I always look for some score in videogame and movie reviews I check to have a notion of how much enjoyment people had with it! (1 to 5 or 1 to 10 most likely).
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Well written. I am interested in this card for a friends PC build so I enjoyed the review. I really like the ROG STRIX line build and performance. I have an STRIX R9 380 and will wait a moment for a next upgrade. Since ATI drivers are still improving the performance of it to be very usable in 1080p..
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Hahaha...yeah, some of those guys write a book as a review. But they're quite well established and people go to their site for in depth reviews. We have some stats and counters running in the background that says the average viewer spends about 60 seconds on average and then moves to the next page. :)
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So I do a few reviews on the side, on a site I partially operate with my brother and a friend. While we don't make any money off it as yet, we've grown over the past few years, and we've finally managed to secure a few more high-end review units.
As a result, I managed to review the Asus ROG RX480 STRIX OC. Since this is my first really technical review, I wanted to know how you guys find it, and whether it should be more technical, less lengthy, etc.
Please be honest with your feedback, but also don't be too harsh if you don't like it.
I've included a bundle train as a thanks for your efforts, even if you're just here to along for the train ride.
Edit: Thanks to all those who provided some great feedback, it's really appreciated. Think I have sufficient information regarding any future reviews of this nature. Now enjoy the mini train ride.
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