It appears that MSI will be one of the first AIB partners to get a reference version of the AMD RX 480 graphics card out. Available as soon as next week, the MSI Radeon RX 480 8G pairs AMD’s Polaris-based GPU with 8GB of GDDR5 memory on a reference platform and cooler.

The MSI card uses the AMD reference cooler with a blower style fan and measures 9.45” in length. It is a dual slot design with a red and black aesthetic. Rear IO includes three DisplayPort and one HDMI ports. It is powered by a single 6-pin PCI-E power connector.

There is not much to say with regards to clocks on this GCN4-based card as there are no factory overclocks to speak of. The base clock sits at 1120 MHz (which is an average expected clock, not necessarily the minimum) and the GPU can boost up to a maximum of 1266 MHz out of the box. MSI is clocking the memory at the full 8 GHz though, which is good (AMD stated that partners could clock memory anywhere from seven to eight GHz).

Looking around various retailers, it appears that you will be able to get your hands on it as soon as July 9th from Newegg for $240. 

Watch out for pricing before clicking that buy button though, because some sites that allow third party sellers have jacked up the prices quite a bit! If you are looking for a reference design, this card should be as good as the rest. Personally, I am looking forward to MSI and other AIB partner’s custom RX 480 cards which should have much higher overclocking potential and a better power phase setup that should alleviate any power consumption concerns of the reference design’s VRM setup. That is not to say that the reference MSI is going to blow up your PC or anything, but from a buyer's perspective I would rather wait for the custom boards with better coolers that I can push further and faster for only a fairly slight premium. If you need a blower style cooler, this card should work.

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