Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsRuns Hot; Inconsistent Performance; Doesn't work with AC: Black Flag!
Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2016
*Update 12/6/16* Dropped from 3 stars to 2.
This thing runs hot. Really hot. 50C idle temp hot! The fans don't kick on at all until you hit 60*C within normal Radeon settings. I've tried changing Wattman settings within the Radeon Settings control panel to decrease the max and target temps, bump up the fan speed, and increase the power it can take in (which I've seen many reviewers say it can make it more stable), and my games still crash. Error's range from a freeze with no minimizing to desktop, to a display driver crash and a straight "nah, we don't want you to play" closing of the game.
Downloading Afterburner was the ONLY way to get the fans working! I unchecked Auto Fan Speed and the minimum is 25%. Just that 25% dropped temps from low 50's C to low 30's C!! Exactly where it should be for doing nothing but updating a review in Chrome! Only bummer now is that my computer is noticeably louder now. Guess it's worth is not to have your dang card overheat every time you try to upscale a game because it's fans aren't working!
Downloading the MSI Gaming App seemed to be a fix; until it stopped wanting to open. So pretty much you get one shot at setting your values (including LED controls) and having it stick. I can't get the desktop App to open anymore.
I'm past my Amazon return window, but luckily MSI has a 3-year warranty on almost all their stuff. So now I have to decide whether or not I want to replace this, while mourning over missing the Cyber Monday deals.
Btw, has any other MSI owner had so much trouble with greasy/wet spots on their equipment?
Between this and my MSI MoBo, no more MSI for me; ever!
- - - - - -
[Original review]
So, despite my system running my games just fine (Ultra or Max settings) with a GTX 760 FTW card, I decided to shop around for a new card anyway. After a month of drooling over the Sapphire RX480 Nitro+, I decided that the price for the 8gb was too high for me and that money was better used on real-life stuff [dates and food and whatnot], and I opted for this [4GB 470].
Boy am I having installers remorse.
First off, this card is a little bigger than it seems. It was a tight fit [in my 90's style mid-size case] for my GTX - and this one was literally butt-up against my drives. Suffice to say some rewiring was in order.
Once it was in and the drivers downloaded, I expected to be unstoppable! Instead I was stopped in my tracks
My once-stable Modded-Skyrim was now tarnished - it's frame rates jumping around all over the place. My purchase of Assassin's Creed Black Flag in anticipation of epic gameplay with this card was a bit of a letdown. Only after weeks of settings-tweaking - including power control in Wattman - have I reached a perfect balance of IQ and FPS. I took just as much hunting to learn that RX cards don't preform at full specs until you go into Wattman power controller and boost some settings. Jayztwocents Youtube channel has a perfect explanation of what to tweak and why. Think that's the only reason my AC4: Black Flag framerates finally stabled out at 58-62fps. *I also had to go into the textfile and change some DisplayRate settings to 65hz - just FYI* Now I just can't play because the card causes fatal graphical glitches in cut-scenes! This last time while it was Auto-Saving, so there's no way past it! Game loads, freezes, then closes to desktop. Weee.
All in all my system feels even less stable with this card in! After some research I discovered that anything developed with Nvidea has trouble with AMD cards. So Skyrim, Fallout, A.C. are all basically useless. Almost as useless as AMD's control panel. With Nvidea, you had detailed control over basically every setting the card could output! AMD gives a vague overview, as though anyone who may possibly be in there is an everyday user who would up in there by mistake. Even selecting the "more" option to elaborate on what each setting does leaves out descriptions of some settings! For other options such as Anisotropic Filtering, there's no "Enhance Application" options. It's either "Override" or "Off". Seriously?!
Overall this is kind of a disappointment and it leaves me waiting for a price drop of the Zotac 6GB 1060. The smaller bus (192bit vs RX's 256bit) may be worth is for actuall better framerates and options. Overall I'm not super impressed with this interation of the RX series. I still have hope that the Nitro 480 will be better, though! ..... Hope.........Some hope..........maybe........ :/
System Specs:
FX-8320E CPU
16GB 1866mhz DDR3 RAM
RX 470 GamingX 4GB GPU
MSI 970 Gaming MoBo
60/120 gb SSD
2TB HDD
650watt 80+ Bronze PSU
OH! and the MSI Promotional Offer is a joke! Right now it's a year Premium Subscription to some game-stream software, that they need a non-existant 2nd serial number for. It literally doesn't exist! It gives a diagram of where on the back of the card [which, btw, NO backplate!] the sticker should be. It's not there. A Google search reveals that no one has ever found it. And trying to find help on the MSI site for anything other than Tech Support or Where to Buy is just as non-existant! I've tried just submitting an "Other" claims ticket, and they want your model number, serial number, CPU model number and how many socket pins, Mobo country of origin, Social Security number, mother's maiden name...... You get the point. WAY more than would possibly be necessary to ask where a 2nd sticker is. Those extra field don't just appear if you're applying for MSI Laptop or MoBo help either - they're required fields for every type of support!
This whole upgrade has been a headache and not really worth it..