My machine has been running very smoothly and quickly, though I suspect for me that has to do with the solid state drive rather than the processor.
I did end up getting a refund for the bad 480, and instead bought a 580 that was reasonable (Gigabyte for $239). A bit of a splurge, but no complaints from me so far.
Also, I saw some guides saying that you need a big power supply for the 580's, but I haven't found that. I'm running the 580 and a ryzen 1600 (not overclocked) off of a 550W gold supply and I haven't had any trouble.