Radeon RX 5900 vs RX 480

Primary details

GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.

Place in the ranking	250	not rated
Place by popularity	94	not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation	15.82	no data
Power efficiency	10.23	no data
Architecture	GCN 4.0 (2016−2020)	RDNA 2.0 (2020−2024)
GPU code name	Ellesmere	Navi 21
GCN generation	4th Gen	no data
Market segment	Desktop	Desktop
Design	reference	no data
Release date	29 June 2016 (8 years ago)	no data
Launch price (MSRP)	$229	no data

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

Detailed specifications

General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores	2304	4096
Compute units	36	no data
Core clock speed	1120 MHz	no data
Boost clock speed	1266 MHz	1635 MHz
Number of transistors	5,700 million	21,000 million
Manufacturing process technology	14 nm	7 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	150 Watt	300 Watt
Texture fill rate	182.3	418.6
Floating-point processing power	5.834 TFLOPS	13.39 TFLOPS
ROPs	32	96
TMUs	144	256

Form factor & compatibility

Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).

Bus support	n/a	no data
Interface	PCIe 3.0 x16	PCIe 4.0 x16
Length	241 mm	no data
Width	2-slot	2-slot
Supplementary power connectors	1x 6-pin	2x 8-pin
Bridgeless CrossFire	+	-

VRAM capacity and type

Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.

Memory type	GDDR5	GDDR6
Maximum RAM amount	8 GB	12 GB
Memory bus width	256 Bit	384 Bit
Memory clock speed	8000 MHz	14000 MHz
Memory bandwidth	224 GB/s	672.0 GB/s
Shared memory	-	-

Connectivity and outputs

Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.

Display Connectors	1x HDMI, 3x DisplayPort	1x HDMI, 3x DisplayPort
Eyefinity	+	-
HDMI	2.0	+
DisplayPort support	1.4HDR	-

Supported technologies

Supported technological solutions. This information will prove useful if you need some particular technology for your purposes.

AppAcceleration	n/a	-
CrossFire	+	-
Enduro	n/a	-
FRTC	+	-
FreeSync	+	-
HD3D	n/a	-
LiquidVR	+	-
PowerTune	+	-
TressFX	+	-
TrueAudio	n/a	-
ZeroCore	+	-
UVD	+	-
VCE	+	-

API compatibility

List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX	DirectX® 12	12 Ultimate (12_1)
Shader Model	6.4	no data
OpenGL	4.5	4.6
OpenCL	2.0	no data
Vulkan	+	-
Mantle	n/a	-

Pros & cons summary

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Maximum RAM amount	8 GB	12 GB
Chip lithography	14 nm	7 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	150 Watt	300 Watt

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Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.

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