I’ve taken some ample time to compare my old PowerColor PCS R9 390 to my new GIGABYTE G1 RX 480. If you’re on the fence about getting a shiny new midrange card, hopefully this will help.
Performance: All my games (save Ark: Survival Evolved) run at over 60 fps maxed out (sans something unnecessary like 8xMSAA) and with minimal stuttering. Witcher 3 (Ultra+Hairworks High+High Postprocessing+HBAO), runs like a dream (at least at 1080P and below), I've never seen the framerate in Fraps dip below 50 in Novigrad and typically stays above 60. I am running with a 24/7 OC of 1316 / 2015 / 1108mv (-48mV) / +18% power limit in MSI Afterburner. The highest OC I’ve attempted thus far was 1360 / 2110 / 1216mV (+60mV) / +50% power limit, where it scored roughly 900 points higher than my R9 390 at 1100 / 1500 / 1256mV (+100mV) / +50% power limit in FireStrike (14,000 vs 13,100), all the while doing it at much lower power draw, temperatures and much, MUCH better acoustics. I also need to point out my R9 390 could not be pushed any further as it was flirting with its thermal threshold, whereas the RX 480 seems to have plenty of headroom beyond that.
Cons: When I first got the card I was having trouble with it crashing every now and again, but the last crash I experienced was three or so weeks ago, so I'm confident I narrowed it down to an issue with the default fan profile, i.e. inability to keep everything on the PCB cool. Setting a slightly more aggressive fan profile in MSI Afterburner seemed to have fixed this as I haven't seen experienced any crashing in roughly a month. Edit: GIGABYTE is aware of the issue of their default fan profile not being aggressive enough and have since issued a BIOS update:
https://www.reddit.com/r/gigabytegaming/comments/585uc5/gigabyte_rx_480_g1_gaming_bios_update/
My RX 480 with max OC (1360 / 2110):
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/10549448
My RX 480 at 24/7 clocks (1316 / 2015):
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/10549657
My power thirsty, hot running and leaf-blower sounding R9 390 (1100 / 1500):
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/6239447
And my R9 390 at 24/7 clocks (1010 / 1500):
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/6125118
All in all, I cannot say enough good things about this card and I'm glad I didn't give in to the temptation to get the RX 470 or the GTX 1060 3GB (both of which I was considering quite heavily) for the sake of saving a few dollars.
Performance: All my games (save Ark: Survival Evolved) run at over 60 fps maxed out (sans something unnecessary like 8xMSAA) and with minimal stuttering. Witcher 3 (Ultra+Hairworks High+High Postprocessing+HBAO), runs like a dream (at least at 1080P and below), I've never seen the framerate in Fraps dip below 50 in Novigrad and typically stays above 60. I am running with a 24/7 OC of 1316 / 2015 / 1108mv (-48mV) / +18% power limit in MSI Afterburner. The highest OC I’ve attempted thus far was 1360 / 2110 / 1216mV (+60mV) / +50% power limit, where it scored roughly 900 points higher than my R9 390 at 1100 / 1500 / 1256mV (+100mV) / +50% power limit in FireStrike (14,000 vs 13,100), all the while doing it at much lower power draw, temperatures and much, MUCH better acoustics. I also need to point out my R9 390 could not be pushed any further as it was flirting with its thermal threshold, whereas the RX 480 seems to have plenty of headroom beyond that.
Cons: When I first got the card I was having trouble with it crashing every now and again, but the last crash I experienced was three or so weeks ago, so I'm confident I narrowed it down to an issue with the default fan profile, i.e. inability to keep everything on the PCB cool. Setting a slightly more aggressive fan profile in MSI Afterburner seemed to have fixed this as I haven't seen experienced any crashing in roughly a month. Edit: GIGABYTE is aware of the issue of their default fan profile not being aggressive enough and have since issued a BIOS update:
https://www.reddit.com/r/gigabytegaming/comments/585uc5/gigabyte_rx_480_g1_gaming_bios_update/
My RX 480 with max OC (1360 / 2110):
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/10549448
My RX 480 at 24/7 clocks (1316 / 2015):
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/10549657
My power thirsty, hot running and leaf-blower sounding R9 390 (1100 / 1500):
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/6239447
And my R9 390 at 24/7 clocks (1010 / 1500):
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/6125118
All in all, I cannot say enough good things about this card and I'm glad I didn't give in to the temptation to get the RX 470 or the GTX 1060 3GB (both of which I was considering quite heavily) for the sake of saving a few dollars.