Chrispy_ wrote:My undervolted, reference RX480 is running at under 100W now, whilst being technically overclocked to 1275MHz.
I'm pushing 2560x1440@60Hz, no problems. Sometimes Ultra needs dialling back to High on a few key settings but it's pretty reasonable. I was torn between a GTX1060 6GB and the RX480 when they both launched, but with Nvidia's driver issues and significant performance improvements to the crimson drivers (around 5-15% depending on the game), there's no contest anymore. I'd only buy a GTX1060 if I was after something specific to Nvidia like PhysX (LOL, no) or CUDA (for work stuff).
I would definitely look for a reference blower in your RVZ01, having built into a couple of those myself. Not dumping hot air into the case is a huge bonus for those cases. They're practically tailored to work with reference-style blowers. The RX480 fits the resolution you want and the thermal envelope that will be happy in the RVZ01. There are no GTX1060 cards that come with decent blowers, and the GTX1070 founders edition is terrible value (but a good choice for the RVZ01). On the AMD side, the Sapphire RX470 "reference card" looks like the same cooler as the reference RX480 cards but it's not - it's an alu baseplate instead of a copper one! This makes the original RX480 reference card my recommendation unless you can afford a GTX1070 founders edition.
If performance/$ isn't your #1 priority, I would go with an RX480 and run it at 0.975V. I can't tell you what clockspeed it will reach at that voltage but I'd be very surprised if it was less than 1200MHz, and at that point you're going to be running very cool and quiet.
I'd also tentatively recommend a GTX980 with the reference nvidia cooler if you can find one as old stock or used in good condition for cheap. It's faster than an RX480 and although it uses about 175W it's a damn good cooler. It's not worth spending more than $200 on an older Maxwell GPU though, especially not one without a warranty.
Do you have a 4GB or 8GB card?
The thing about blowers is the noise. My PC sits next to my monitor and I cannot deal with the whine of a blower that close to my face, especially when I'm trying to do my audio production work. My R9 270 had a dual-fan cooler that worked pretty well, and the way the RVZ01 is set up, the graphics card is compartmentalized away from the rest of the system so I don't really see heat dumping being a big issue. My system temps always stayed below 70 C, even with the stock Intel cooler so I'd rather have the lower noise levels of a couple decent sized fans.
Anyway, I was looking on Amazon and went ahead and ordered my stuff. I am EXTREMELY impatient and I was able to get 6 months special financing through my Amazon card so I paid a premium to have it delivered today (oh, the joys of Prime). I got basically the same two items I originally posted, just a different brand monitor and the graphics card isn't the OC version but I can always do that part myself. I ended up paying about $50 more total than I would have at Newegg but to have it today as opposed to at the very least a week from now, I'd say that evens it out. Going a whole week with no Overwatch during the Year of the Rooster event was NOT an option for me. Plus, six months no interest.