Rx 470 spec: AMD Radeon RX 470 Specs

Full details revealed: AMD Radeon RX 470 and RX 460 specs and release dates

Nearly two months back, smack-dab in the midst of E3, AMD CEO Lisa Su took the stage at the PC gaming Show and introduced the Radeon RX 460 and Radeon RX 470 graphics cards to the world—the final two members of the 14nm Polaris GPU family. The latter targets “refined, power-efficient” 1080p gaming, while the former was built for superb e-sports performance, she said. But that was it. Since then, there’s been only silence, leaving Radeon enthusiasts rabid for more details.

Today, you get them. Even better: Both cards will hit the streets in the very near future.

But first, the bad news: AMD isn’t disclosing pricing information for either card just yet, though they’ll cost less than the $200 RX 480 as AMD continues its “graphics for the masses” push.

Radeon RX 470

The Radeon RX 470 is the first up, launching in the middle of next week, on August 4. This card’s designed to be a damned fine 1080p gaming card. AMD says it hits 60 frames per second-plus with anti-aliasing enabled in a slew of today’s top-end games, including Witcher 3, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Fallout 4, Far Cry Primal, Call of Duty: Black Ops III, and more. Testing was performed on a system using a Core i7-5960X with 16GB of RAM, with every game set to High graphics presets or higher.

Note that these charts of the RX 470’s performance compare it against the R7 270, rather than the newer R7 370.

That’s damned impressive for a graphics card costing (somewhere) less than $200.

Comparing the Radeon RX 470’s spec sheet against the $200 Radeon RX 480’s technical details reveals how that’s possible. The RX 470’s clock speeds hit up to 1,206MHz, with 4GB of onboard GDDR5 memory traveling over a 256-bit bus. That’s pretty darn close to the RX 480’s 1,266MHz clock speed, and the same amount of RAM (though the RX 470’s memory is slightly slower, at 6.6Gbps effective versus 7. 0Gbps on the RX 480).

The song remains the same under the hood. The RX 470 only has four fewer compute units than the RX 480; 256 fewer stream processors; 16 fewer texture units; and the same amount of ROPs. Without diving into deep technical details about what all that means, the card’s performance should be very close to the RX 480’s impressive level of power—though the RX 470 is unlikely to be virtual reality-capable. It’ll be interesting to see whether this card ravages the value proposition of the $200 4GB Radeon RX 480 that’s AMD has been promoting so heavily.

Another key difference between the RX 470 and RX 480: power draw. The RX 470 only sips 120 watts of power, compared to the RX 480’s 150W. At 120W, it’s tied with Nvidia’s new GeForce GTX 1060… assuming it stays underneath that threshold. The RX 480 can draw more than its rated TDP under load. That said, I don’t expect to see a repeat of the Radeon RX 480’s excessive PCI-E power consumption with the RX 470, especially since AMD’s already fixed that problem with new drivers.

To put the Polaris GPU’s power efficiency improvements in proper perspective, the Radeon RX 480 and older Radeon R9 390 deliver similar levels of in-game performance—but the Radeon RX 480 uses 134 fewer watts to do so. It’s exciting to see AMD’s cards make such a large leap forward in power efficiency.

Radeon RX 460

That segues nicely into AMD’s other new card: The Nano-esque Radeon RX 460, scheduled to launch on August 8. The RX 460 draws less than 75W, which enables it the card to draw all of its power via your motherboard’s PCI-E slot—no addition 6-pin or 8-pin power connectors required.

The RX 460’s power connector-less design means AMD finally has a rival to Nvidia’s popular GTX 750 Ti. Nvidia’s card proved to be a hit with people looking to add decent gaming capabilities to small form factor PCs or to big-box PCs from the likes of Dell and HP, which often lack supplemental power connectors. In fact, Nvidia even kept the GTX 750 Ti alive after introducing the more potent GTX 950, which demanded extra power.

Seeing as how the GTX 750 Ti is several generations old now, you’d expect the Radeon RX 460 to outperform it. AMD’s documentation reveals the RX 460 delivering 1.2x to 1.3x more performance than the older Radeon R7 260X—which performed fairly equally to the GTX 750 Ti—across a slew of multiplayer e-sports games.

That selection of games plays into the RX 460’s target audience. AMD’s pushing the card as a superb low-cost option for e-sports games, promising 60 fps or higher at 1080p resolution in Overwatch, League of Legends, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, World of Warships, Team Fortress 2, Heroes of the Storm, and Rocket League.

The RX 460 features a severely cut-down version of Polaris compared to its pricier cousins, with half as many ROPs and less than half as many compute units and stream processors as the RX 470. It also comes with 2GB of RAM in its most affordable model—though 4GB options will be available—with data sent over a smaller 128-bit memory bus. Don’t expect performance miracles out of this Polaris entry, in other words—but it should deliver a solid basic gaming experience.

To that point, the power-efficient RX 460 will be the first Polaris chip with a mobile variant, which AMD claims is capable of “enabling console class GPU performance in incredible form factors.” And there’s already a real-world laptop ready to embrace it, as AMD also announced that HP’s Omen lineup will include Radeon RX graphics options.

So how does it handle? AMD’s documentation compared an RX 460-equipped notebook with a similar GeForce GTX 960M-equipped laptop and says the RX 460 system hit 62 fps at 1080p/high settings—10 fps more than the Nvidia laptop.

Polaris revealed

Of course, the new cards support the same underlying bells and whistles announced for the Radeon RX 480, including the powerful Radeon WattMan overclocking tools, HDMI 2.0b, high dynamic range video, H.265 encoding and decoding, FreeSync, Frame Rate Target Control, and dedicated asynchronous shader hardware that can improve performance in next-gen, “close to the metal” DirectX 12 and Vulkan gaming APIs.

Support for all those display technologies should make the RX 460 an appealing option for home theater PC owners, too.

The only question left—beyond price—is how well these cards truly perform in the real world, rather than in AMD’s test labs. With both the RX 460 and RX 470 launching over the next week and a half, we’ll know the answer sooner than later. Finally.

AMD Radeon RX 470 review: A great graphics card with a terrible price

Reviews

The Radeon RX 470 simply doesn’t do enough to differentiate itself from the RX 480.

By Brad Chacos

PCWorld Aug 4, 2016 6:00 am PDT

At a Glance

Expert’s Rating

Our Verdict

XFX’s gorgeous, thoughtful customizations are great, and the Radeon RX 470’s performance devastates its predecessors, but it’s priced too close to the RX 480.

With the launch of the Radeon RX 480 ($200 for the 4GB model, $240 for the 8GB model) firmly in the rear view mirror, AMD’s bringing its cutting-edge 14nm Polaris GPU to even more of the masses.

While the revolutionary RX 480 delivered uncompromising 1080p gaming performance, damned fine 1440p gaming performance, and basic VR capabilities at an incredible price, the new Radeon RX 470 ($180 and up on Newegg) ostensibly aims to kick ass in 1080p gaming at an even lower price. But the Radeon RX 470’s spec sheet reveals that the graphics processor beating inside of it is just barely nerfed compared to the full-blown RX 480, for a barely lower price. Can this iterative step-down card carve out a niche of its own—or maybe even steal a bit of the thunder from AMD’s mainstream flagship?

Buckle up. It’s going to be an interesting ride.

Meet AMD’s Radeon RX 470

Glance at the RX 470’s stats and you’re sure to raise an eyebrow.

The RX 470’s clock speeds top out at 1,206MHz, with 4GB of onboard GDDR5 memory traveling over a 256-bit bus. That’s pretty darn close to the RX 480’s 1,266MHz max clock speed, and the same amount of base RAM. Under the hood, the RX 470 has only four fewer compute units than the RX 480; 256 fewer stream processors; 16 fewer texture units; and the same amount of ROPs.

That said, there are definitely some key additional tweaks. The RX 470’s base clock speed of 926MHz is far below the RX 480’s 1,120MHz; its memory is slightly slower at 6.6Gbps effective versus 7.0Gbps on the RX 480; and the RX 470 has a 120 watt TDP, 30W less than the RX 480’s. There’s also surprisingly no reference 8GB memory option for the Radeon RX 470, though AMD says it “encourages [hardware partners] to differentiate” if they see a market for 8GB versions. But for the most part, AMD’s new card sticks pretty close to the RX 480’s central design. Maybe that’s why the card’s priced just $20 lower than a 4GB RX 480.

One key difference between the RX 480 and RX 470: While we’re still mostly waiting for custom Radeon RX 480 cards to hit the streets—Sapphire’s Nitro+ model ($220 for 4GB on Amazon) being a notable exception—there will be no reference models of the RX 470 available at launch. All of the RX 470s on release will be custom models from AMD hardware partners. It’s the mirror opposite of the RX 480 situation—and it adds a whiff of “apples-to-oranges” in comparisons between the two cards. The clock speeds and cooling solutions in custom models can vary wildly.

Brad Chacos

XFX’s Radeon RX 470.

AMD sent us an XFX Radeon RX 470 RS Black Edition True OC ($220 on Newegg) for evaluation. Yes, that makes this card more expensive than a reference 4GB RX 480—posing an, er, interesting value proposition out of the gate.

The extra cash gets you some attractive niceties though. XFX’s card adds a 50MHz overclock to the RX 470 boost speed, topping out at 1,256MHz. (XFX says another model with a slower overclock will retail for $210.) It’s a true on-the-card overclock, too, with no need to download additional software to enable it. The company’s also lifted the card’s memory speeds up to 7.0Gbps effective, bringing it in line with the RX 480.

The card features XFX’s popular Double Dissipation cooling system. That includes “Ghost Thermal 4.0”—a heatsink with composite copper heat pipes snaking throughout, as well as a refreshed “UniBody VRM” design, which helps transfer heat from the card’s VRMs directly to the heatsink and heat pipes. All told, XFX says, you can expect 40 percent more cooling efficiency than in prior models.

Brad Chacos

The XFX Radeon RX 470’s fans are held in by brackets. You can pop them out without tools. It’s pretty cool!

The heatsink is only part of Double Dissipation’s design, though. The load-sensing fans pick up speed for heavier loads, and scale all the way down to idle when you’re not gaming or otherwise pushing the GPU. Idle fans are silent fans! Continuing a theme XFX toyed with earlier this year, the XFX Radeon RX 470 includes two large, swappable fans that are held in by snap brackets for easy-peasy tool-less replacement. That makes returns a much simpler affair. XFX also plans on rolling out custom fans with various colored LED lights “in the future” so you can make the card your own. I dig it.

The 9.45 x 4.76 x 1.57-inch card rocks a sleek metal XFX-branded backplate, along with a 6-pin power connector and DVI-D, HDMI 2.0b, and a trio of DisplayPort 1.4 connections. AMD’s Polaris GPU supports all sorts of cutting-edge display technologies through those ports, including high-dynamic range video, 60Hz-plus frame rates at 4K resolution over HDMI, 120Hz frame rates at 4K resolution over DisplayPort, and AMD FreeSync monitors.

Brad Chacos

Ooooh, purdy. Ignore the dust.

As a Polaris-based card, you’ll also get features like Frame Rate Target Control, H.265 encoding and decoding, the in-driver Radeon WattMan overclocking tool, CrossFire support, and dedicated asynchronous shader hardware that can improve performance in next-gen, “close to the metal” DirectX 12 and Vulkan gaming APIs.

Overall, it’s a slickly designed piece of kit that’d look good in any gamer’s case. You don’t find graphics cards with backplates very often in the $200-ish price range. As a cherry on top, XFX is extending the RX 470’s warranty an extra year compared to previous-gen cards, out to three years. (XFX used to be famous for its lifetime warranties, but had to fall back from that during the bitcoin mining craze, when digital prospectors were buying—and burning out—AMD graphics cards by the bucketload.)

Got it? Good. On to the fun stuff.

Next page: Performance tests begin.

Our test system

The XFX Radeon RX 470 fit right into PCWorld’s dedicated graphics card benchmark system, which is loaded with high-end components to avoid potential bottlenecks in other parts of the machine and show unfettered graphics performance. Key highlights of the build:

Intel’s Core i7-5960X ($1,016 on Amazon) with a Corsair Hydro Series h200i closed-loop water cooler ($97 on Amazon).
An Asus X99 Deluxe motherboard ($360 on Amazon).
Corsair’s Vengeance LPX DDR4 memory ($65 on Newegg), Obsidian 750D full-tower case ($155 on Amazon), and 1,200-watt AX1200i power supply ($308 on Amazon).
A 480GB Intel 730 series SSD ($248 on Amazon).
Windows 10 Pro ($199 on Amazon).

To see how well the Radeon RX 470 performs, we’re comparing it against a slew of other graphics cards. First up, there’s the EVGA GTX 950 SSC—a previous-gen $150 graphics card. We also tested the EVGA GTX 960 SSC, VisionTek Radeon R9 380, and Sapphire R9 380X to flesh out how the card compares against last-gen graphics cards.

We never tested the older R7 370 due to AMD’s… unorthodox rollout for the Radeon 300-series GPUs. Meanwhile, the 2GB HIS R7 270 we have on hand was plagued by compatibility issues with our test suite, prompting large pop-up warnings when we launched Ashes of the Singularity and a refusal to scale beyond 1650×1050 resolution in Far Cry Primal. That leaves us without a direct comparison between the RX 470 and its predecessors, but for what it’s worth, the GTX 950’s performance was decently ahead of the R7 370’s when it hit the streets.

The Radeon RX 480 ($240 for 8GB on Newegg), Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition (which costs $300, but uses the same underlying hardware as reference GTX 1060s that sell for $250), and Sapphire Nitro+ RX 480 ($220 for 4GB on Amazon) represent the RX 470’s current-gen competition. Ideally, we’d include results from the $200 4GB Radeon RX 480, too, but hey, we only have an 8GB model on hand. Performance between the two models is nearly identical except in fringe cases, anyway. On the plus side, the $220 Sapphire Nitro+ RX 480 is the exact same price as the XFX Radeon RX 470, for an apples-to-apples comparison of overclocked versions of these sister cards.

We benchmark every game using the default graphics settings unless otherwise noted, with all vendor-specific special features—such as Nvidia’s GameWorks effects, AMD’s TressFX, and FreeSync/G-Sync—disabled. AMD’s positioning the RX 470 as a great 1080p gaming card, so that’s where the bulk of our focus lies, but we also tested each game at 1440p resolution with all the current-gen cards. The last-gen cards simply shouldn’t be used for that resolution. They’re easily outmatched by every current-gen offering.

Hey, Tom Clancy! Want to kick things off?

Test 1: The Division

The Division, a third-person shooter/RPG that mixes elements of Destiny and Gears of War, kicks things off with Ubisoft’s new Snowdrop engine.

As expected, the XFX Radeon RX 470 blows away the last-gen GTX 950 and 960, and runs ahead of AMD’s own R9 380 and 380X by a fair margin. But there’s a sizeable 12 percent performance difference between the RX 470 and RX 480 at 1080p resolution, meaning the card won’t quite deliver the same uncompromising 1080p experience as the RX 480. That 52fps at Ultra graphics settings is nothing to sneeze at though, and if slipping below 60fps bother you, either using a FreeSync monitor or dropping the graphics down to High settings will push you back over that golden standard.

Next page: Hitman

Test 2: Hitman

Hitman’s Glacier engine heavily favors AMD hardware. It’s no surprise; Hitman’s a flagship AMD Gaming Evolved title, complete with a DirectX 12 mode that was patched in after the game’s launch.

Important note: Hitman automatically caps the game’s Texture Quality, Shadow Maps, and Shadow Resolution at medium on cards with 2GB of onboard memory, meaning the EVGA GTX 950 and 960 as well as the VisionTek R9 380 were tested at lower graphical settings. I’ve still included them in the graphs below for two reasons: 1) Because they’re the sort of cards the Radeon RX 470 is directly replacing, and 2) so you can see the comparative DX11 vs. DX12 performance on those cards.

The cards are not an apples-to-apples comparison with the rest of the pack, however.

The overclocked XFX Radeon RX 470 clears 60fps easily in Hitman, and comes damn close at 1440p, essentially tying the results of Nvidia’s $250 GTX 1060. The Radeon RX 480 pulls ahead by 7 to 10 percent—not a huge difference, but a considerable one, and the gap is large enough to allow the pricier card to hit 60fps average at 1440p. Once again, the RX 480’s little extra oomph helps it hit new tiers of experience that aren’t quite possible with the XFX Radeon RX 470. That matters—though the RX 470 comes damned close.

Last-gen’s $150 to $250 cards don’t. They can’t even run the game at its highest graphical settings. All cards with 2GB of memory suffer from severe performance dips the second DirectX 12 is activated. As I said, the RX 470 and RX 480 are a huge leap over what came before.

Next page: Rise of the Tomb Raider

Test 3: Rise of the Tomb Raider

Whereas Hitman adores Radeon GPUs, Rise of the Tomb Raider performs much better on GeForce cards. It’s also the single most drop-dead gorgeous PC game I’ve ever laid my eyes on.

We only tested the game’s DirectX 11 mode, as we haven’t had a chance to reevaluate the game’s DirectX 12 enhancements now that several patches have been released to fix its once-wonky implementation.

The RX 470 easily clears 60fps at 1080p, though it still lags by a significant 11 percent behind the stock RX 480. The performance gap makes a bigger difference at 1440p, where slipping to 44fps with Ultra settings enabled can affect gameplay smoothness. The gulf is even wider between the Sapphire Nitro+ RX 480 and the XFX Radeon RX 470, which carry the exact same MSRP.

The $250 GTX 1060 blows away all comparable Radeon cards in this GeForce-leaning game, though.

Next page: Far Cry Primal

Test 4: Far Cry Primal

Far Cry Primal is yet another Ubisoft game, but it’s powered by a different engine than The Division—the latest version of the long-running and well-respected Dunia engine. We benchmark the game with the free 4K HD Texture Pack installed—not that it matters at the resolutions being tested here.

Once again, the XFX Radeon RX 470 offers tremendous performance. Once again, a roughly 10 percent performance difference draws the RX 470 further away from the uncompromising 1080p performance that the RX 480 offers. Once again, the Sapphire Nitro+ 480 widens the gap that much further despite costing the same price as the XFX Radeon RX 470.

Next page: Ashes of the Singularity

Test 4: Ashes of the Singularity

Ashes of the Singularity, running on Oxide’s custom Nitrous engine, was an early standard-bearer for DirectX 12, and many months later it’s still the premier game for seeing what next-gen graphics technologies have to offer. (It’s a fun real-time strategy game, too!) The performance gains it offers with DX12 over DX11 are eye-opening—especially when running on Radeon cards.

We omitted the EVGA GTX 950 and 960 from the 1440p results because they run below 30 frames per second across the board at that resolution.

As ever with AMD cards, the Radeon RX 470 sees a nice frame rate boost by flipping the DX12 switch, especially at High settings. That won’t matter if you’re running Windows 7 or 8, but it’s a tremendous benefit for Radeon owners on Windows 10, allowing AMD’s cards to pull even with the GTX 1060’s superb DX11 performance.

Next page: Steam VR and synthetic benchmarks

Test 5: SteamVR

Time for some synthetic benchmarks! First up: the SteamVR performance test, which serves as the only major virtual reality standard until more benchmarking tools hit the streets. The SteamVR performance test is better thought of as a gauge for your graphics card’s relative virtual reality performance—and as a pass/fail test for determining whether your rig can handle VR whatsoever—than it is for making head-to-head GPU comparisons.

What black magic is this?! The XFX Radeon RX 470 actually just squeaks into the SteamVR performance test’s “VR capable” range with a 6.0 average fidelity score. XFX’s overclocks are enough to get the card over the hump. We still wouldn’t recommend using an RX 470 for virtual reality, but it’s nice to know you can in a pinch.

Test 6: 3DMark

We also tested the RX 470 and its rivals using 3DMark’s highly respected DX11 Fire Strike synthetic benchmark, which runs at 1080p, as well as its brand-new Time Spy benchmark, which tests DirectX 12 performance at 2560×1440 resolution.

Yeah, the 470 falls exactly where you’d expect it to based on the prior results

Next page: Power and heat

Test 7: Power use

We test power under load by plugging the entire system into a Watts Up meter, running the intensive Division benchmark at 4K resolution, and noting the peak power draw. Idle power is measured after sitting on the Windows desktop for three minutes with no extra programs or processes running.

The Radeon RX 470’s lower clock speeds and TDP pay off here. Polaris becomes much more power hungry the more you push it. While the RX 470 tends to offer just 7 to 11 percent less performance than the RX 480, it uses nearly 40 watts less power overall at peak draw—a 14.5 percent reduction.

It’s still not as efficient as the Pascal GPU inside Nvidia’s GTX 1060, but it’s a major leap forward for Radeon cards. With the Radeon R300-series, we could only hit this level of performance with cards that pushed our system power usage in excess of 400W.

Test 8: Heat

We test heat during the same intensive Division benchmark, by running SpeedFan in the background and noting the maximum GPU temperature once the run is over.

The tested cards represent a mix of reference and custom coolers, making this somewhat of an apple-to-oranges comparison. Nevertheless, it’s nice to see how the custom-cooled XFX Radeon RX 470 and Sapphire Nitro+ RX 480 stand up to the reference RX 480 and GTX 1060.

The XFX Radeon RX 470 tops out at 75 degrees Celsius, staying relatively quiet all the while. That’s a big improvement over the RX 480’s reference blower, and comparable to cooling solutions slapped onto other graphics cards in this price range.

Next page: Bottom line

Bottom line

There are no bad graphics cards, only graphics cards with bad pricing. And, well, the Radeon RX 470—especially XFX’s model—sits in a bad place. Rather than carving out a compelling new market segment, the Radeon RX 470 just plain feels irrelevant at $180 and up.

There’s no question the Radeon 470 is a great graphics card—at least in a vacuum. While it doesn’t quite hit a locked 60fps average at 1080p with all the bells and whistles cranked to 11, it comes damned close, and dropping the settings to High easily allows you to clear that gold-standard frame rate. Likewise, the RX 470 can generally hit 40-plus frames per second at 1440p at High or Ultra settings, making it a decent 1440p gaming option (especially if you have a FreeSync monitor to smooth out framerate hitches). It’s only a few frames behind a GTX 970 in most games. Heck, it even squeaks into the VR-capable category, albeit only by the thinnest of margins, thanks to the solid-for-Polaris out-of-the-box overclocks of this XFX model. That utterly blows away what the last-gen crop of $150 to $200 graphics cards were capable of!

But the world doesn’t exist in a vacuum. And in the real world, the 4GB RX 480 is a major spoiler for the RX 470 given the price of both cards and just how damned good the RX 480 truly is.

Thomas Ryan

The elephant in the room: The $200, 4GB Radeon RX 480.

The 8GB Radeon RX 480, which again offers performance darn near identical to the $200 4GB version except in specific circumstances, offers 8 to 12 percent more performance than the RX 470. That doesn’t sound like much, but it’s good for at least an extra 5 frames per second in most scenarios, and occasionally far more. It’s enough to push you right up or past the 60fps gold standard in today’s games at Ultra settings—something that the RX 470 can’t consistently do. It’s a crucial “smoothness of experience” threshold.

The gap widens when you take results from the overclocked Sapphire Nitro+ RX 480 (4GB) into account—and that’s the real killer for this card. The XFX Radeon RX 470 is the exact same price as the overclocked, custom cooled Nitro+. Both the $200 reference Radeon RX 480 and the customized Sapphire card offer superior performance to this tricked-out Radeon RX 470 for the same price or even less!

Why would you spend the same amount of money on an inferior-performing card that can’t quite deliver the same uncompromising 1080p experience? And a reference-clocked version of the RX 470 wouldn’t even hit the same heights as this amped-up XFX card.

The XFX Radeon RX 470’s quiet, removable fans and backplate make for a slick overall design, but I can’t help feeling that shaving off some of those extras to drive down the card’s price would make it more appealing in this price-sensitive segment. That’s not really XFX’s fault, though—this is a superbly designed graphics card. It’s downright perplexing that AMD’s second Polaris salvo would be priced so close to the Radeon RX 480. The Radeon RX 470 would make much more sense in the marketplace as a $150 card, even if it meant reducing performance a wee bit more.

Brad Chacos

The XFX Radeon RX 470 is a gorgeous, well-built card.

There could be a potential twist in the future, though.

In the real world, Radeon RX 480s have been hard to find, with customized partner variants (like the Sapphire Nitro+) essentially MIA. The RX 480s that have hit the streets overwhelmingly lean towards pricier 8GB models, which no doubt offer better profit margins for everybody involved. Given how close the two RX-series cards are in performance, some manufacturers might very well decide to pass on manufacturing the 4GB RX 480, opting to instead offer the Radeon RX 470 for 1080p gaming and the 8GB RX 480 as a step-up card. Doing so could make more fiscal sense for AMD’s hardware partners and create more differentiation between the two GPUs.

That’d be intensely disappointing, given the 4GB RX 480’s superb price-to-performance ratio and heavily advertised $200 price point, combined with the RX 470’s not quite perfect 1080p chops. But I can see it as a possibility. And in that potential future, the RX 470 would be more attractive.

Okay, I’m taking off my tinfoil hat now.

In a vacuum, the Radeon RX 470 delivers a damned fine 1080p gaming experience that’s a huge leap forward from the previous crop of similarly priced cards. You’ll be able to hit 60fps at high or ultra graphics settings even in cutting-edge games. XFX’s custom variant is superbly designed, runs cool and quiet, and offers a longer warranty than before. If one winds up in your stocking this Christmas, you’ll be happy!

But here in the real world, the price is wrong. There’s simply no reason to buy a Radeon RX 470 over a Radeon RX 480—unless my bizarre conspiracy theories wind up becoming reality. Skip a pizza, pocket the extra $20, and buy the RX 470’s higher-performing cousin instead… if you can find one. If you can’t, and RX 470s are available en masse, then well—it’s still a great, affordable card in a vacuum.

AMD Radeon RX 470 — 41 secret facts, review, specifications, reviews.

Top specifications and features

Passmark score
3DMark Fire Strike Score
3DMark Fire Strike Graphics test score
3DMark Ice Storm GPU benchmark score
3DMark Cloud Gate GPU benchmark score

Passmark

AMD Radeon RX 470 test score:
7844
Best score:
nine0021 29325

Performance

AMD Radeon RX 470:
1820
Best score:

Memory

AMD Radeon RX 470:
582
Best score:

General Information

AMD Radeon RX 470:
588
Best score:

AMD Radeon RX 470 features:
173
Best score:

Description

AMD Radeon RX 470 graphics card based on GCN 4. 0 architecture has 5700 million transistors, tech. 14 nm process. The frequency of the graphics core is 926 MHz. In terms of memory, 4 GB is installed here. DDR5, clocked at 1650 MHz and with a maximum throughput of 211.2 Gb/s. The texture size is 154.4 GTexels/s. FLOPS is 5.

In tests, the AMD Radeon RX 470 graphics card performed as follows — according to the Passmark benchmark, the model scored 7844 points. At the same time, the maximum number of points for today is 260261 points. According to the 3DMark benchmark, the video card scored 11647 points out of 49575 possible.
Directx version — 12. OpenGL version — 4.6.

In terms of compatibility, the video card is connected via the PCIe 3.0 x16 interface. Regarding cooling, the heat dissipation requirements here are 120 watts.
In our tests, the video card scores 504973 points.

Why AMD Radeon RX 470 is better than others

Passmark 7844 test score. This parameter is higher than that of 23% of goods
3DMark Ice Storm GPU benchmark score 373075 . This parameter is higher than that of 6% of goods

3DMark Fire Strike Score 9317 . This parameter is lower than 11% of products
3DMark Fire Strike Graphics test score 11647 . This parameter is lower than 12% of products
3DMark Cloud Gate GPU test score 67106 . This parameter is lower than 11% of products
3DMark 11 Performance GPU score 17273 . This parameter is lower than 10% of products
The base clock frequency of the GPU is 926 MHz. This parameter is lower than that of 65% of goods
RAM 4 GB. This parameter is lower than that of 22% of goods

AMD Radeon RX 470 Review

Performance

Memory

general information

Functions

Ports

Tests in benchmarks

AMD Radeon RX 470 Review Highlights

GPU base clock

The graphics processing unit (GPU) has a high clock speed.

926MHz

max 2459

Average: 1124. 9MHz

2459MHz

GPU memory frequency

This is an important aspect calculating memory bandwidth

1650MHz

max 16000

Average: 1468 MHz

16000MHz

FLOPS

A measure of the processing power of a processor is called FLOPS.

5 TFLOPS

max 1142.32

Average: 53 TFLOPS

1142.32 TFLOPS

RAM

4 GB

max 128

Average: 4.6 GB

128GB

Turbo GPU

If the speed of the GPU drops below its limit, it can switch to a high clock speed to improve performance.
Show all

1206MHz

max 2903

Average: 1514 MHz

2903 MHz

Texture size

A certain number of textured pixels are displayed on the screen every second.
Show all

154.4 GTexels/s

max 756.8

Average: 145.4 GTexels/s

756.8 GTexels/s

Architecture name

GCN 4.0

GPU Name

Ellesmere

Shared memory

Memory bandwidth

This is the speed at which the device stores or reads information.

211.2GB/s

max 2656

Average: 257.8 GB/s

2656GB/s

Effective memory speed

The effective memory clock speed is calculated from the size and information transfer rate of the memory. The performance of the device in applications depends on the clock frequency. The higher it is, the better.
Show all

6600MHz

max 19500

Average: 6984.5 MHz

19500MHz

RAM

4 GB

max 128

Average: 4.6 GB

128GB

GDDR Memory Versions

Latest GDDR memory versions provide high data transfer rates for improved overall performance
Show all

five
nine0005

Mean: 4.9

Memory bus width

A wide memory bus indicates that it can transfer more information in one cycle. This property affects the performance of the memory as well as the overall performance of the device’s graphics card.
Show all

256bit

max 8192

Average: 283.9bit

8192bit

Heat dissipation (TDP)

Heat dissipation requirement (TDP) — the maximum possible amount of energy dissipated by the cooling system. The lower the TDP, the less power will be consumed.
Show all

120W

Average value: 160 W

Process technology

The small size of the semiconductor means it is a new generation chip.

14 nm

Average: 34.7 nm

4 nm

Number of transistors

5700 million

max 80000

Average: 7150 million

80000 million

PCIe version

Considerable speed is provided for an expansion card used to connect a computer to peripherals. The updated versions have impressive throughput and provide high performance.
Show all

Average: 3

Width

242.5mm

max 421.7

Average: 192.1mm

421.7 mm

Height

111.5mm

max 619

Average: 89.6mm

619 mm

Purpose

Desktop

Sales start date

2016-08-04 00:00:00
nine0005

Mean value:

Release price

$179

max 419999

Average: $5679.5

419999 $

DirectX

Used in demanding games, providing enhanced graphics

max 12. 2

Mean: 11.4

12.2

OpenCL version

Used by some applications to enable GPU power for non-graphical calculations. The newer the version, the more functional it will be
Show all

2.1

max 4.6

Average: 2.2

4.6

opengl version

Later versions provide quality game graphics

4.6

max 4.6

Average: 4.2

4.6

Supports FreeSync technology

Yes

Shader model version

6.4

max 6.6

Average: 5.9

6.6

Version Vulkan

1. 2

Has HDMI output

HDMI output allows you to connect devices with HDMI or mini-HDMI ports. They can transmit video and audio to the display.
Full text

Yes

HDMI version

The latest version provides a wide signal transmission channel due to the increased number of audio channels, frames per second, etc.
Show all

max 2.1

Mean: 1.9

2.1

DisplayPort

Allows you to connect to a display using DisplayPort

Average: 2.2

Number of HDMI connectors

The more there are, the more devices can be connected at the same time (for example, game/TV type consoles)
Show all

Average: 1. 1

Interface

PCIe 3.0 x16

HDMI

Yes

Passmark test score

7844

max 29325

Average: 7628.6

29325

3DMark Cloud Gate benchmark score GPU

67106

max 1

Average: 80042.3
nine0005

3DMark Fire Strike Score

9317

max 38276

Average: 12463

38276

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics test score

11647

max 49575

Average: 11859.1

49575

3DMark 11 Performance GPU Score

17273

max 57937

Average: 18799. 9

57937

3DMark Ice Storm GPU score

373075

max 533357

Average: 372425.7

533357

FAQ

How much RAM does AMD Radeon RX 470 have

AMD Radeon RX 470 has 4 GB.

What version of RAM does AMD Radeon RX 470

AMD Radeon RX 470 support GDDR5. nine0005

What is the architecture of the AMD Radeon RX 470

GCN 4.0 graphics card.

Does AMD Radeon RX 470 have Freesync

Yes.

How many watts does an AMD Radeon RX 470 consume

120 watts.

How the AMD Radeon RX 470 performs in benchmarks

In the Passmark benchmark, the video card scored 7844 points.

AMD Radeon RX 470 FLOPS

5 TFLOPs.

Which PCIe version does it support?

PCIe version 3.

Which version of DirectX does AMD Radeon RX 470

DirectX 12 support.

How many HDMI ports does AMD Radeon RX 470 have

1 HDMI ports.

How many display ports does the AMD Radeon RX 470 have

3 DisplayPorts.

When was the AMD Radeon RX 470 released?

2016-08-04 00:00:00.

NVIDIA Quadro P5000 Mobile

NVIDIA RTX A5500

NVIDIA Quadro RTX A6000

NVIDIA RTX A4500
nine0005

AMD Radeon RX 6800

NVIDIA RTX A4500

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti

NVIDIA RTX A4500

NVIDIA Quadro RTX 6000

NVIDIA RTX A4500

AMD Radeon RX 6800S

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 SLI Mobile

NVIDIA RTX A4500

NVIDIA RTX A4000

NVIDIA RTX A4500

NVIDIA TITAN Xp

VS
nine0062
NVIDIA RTX A4500

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Super

NVIDIA RTX A4500

NVIDIA Quadro RTX 3000 Mobile

NVIDIA RTX A4500

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 SLI

NVIDIA RTX A4500

NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000

NVIDIA RTX A4500

AMD Radeon Pro W6800

NVIDIA RTX A4500

AMD Radeon RX 6700XT

NVIDIA RTX A4500

nine0062
NVIDIA TITAN RTX

NVIDIA RTX A4500

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080

NVIDIA RTX A4500

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 SLI mobile

NVIDIA RTX A4500

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti

NVIDIA RTX A4500

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Super

NVIDIA RTX A4500

leave your feedback

AMD Radeon RX 470 graphics card

Edelmark rating 7. 7 out of 10; nine0008
Release date: August, 2016;
Video card memory capacity: 8192 MB;
Video memory type: GDDR5;
GPU clock: 926 MHz.

Specification AMD Radeon RX 470

GPU

processors

GPU manufacturer	AMD
GPU name	Ellesmere
Platform	Desktop
Clock frequency	926MHz
Turbo clock speed	1.242 MHz
Two	No
Reference card	AMD Radeon RX 470 926MHz 4GB

Performance

Number of shaders	2.048
Number of texture units (TMU)	128
Number of ROPs	32
Computer units	32
Pixel fill rate	39. 7GPixel/s
Texture Fill Rate	159 GTexel/s
Number of floating point operations (FLOPS)	5.087 GFLOPS

Memory

Memory clock	1.650 MHz
Effective memory frequency	6.600 MHz
Memory bus width	256bit
Video memory size
Memory type	GDDR5
Memory bandwidth	211.2 GB/s

Energy consumption

Energy consumption	120W

Comparison of Radeon RX 470 with similar graphics cards

Game performance

Radeon RX 470	7.5 out of 10
GeForce GTX 1060	n/a
GeForce GTX 970	7.6 out of 10

Graphics

Tested on: T-Rex, Manhattan, Cloud Gate Factor, Sky Diver Factor, Fire Strike Factor.

Radeon RX 470	6.4 out of 10
GeForce GTX 1060	5.4 out of 10
GeForce GTX 970	6.8 out of 10

Computing power

Graphics card tests performed on: Face Detection, Ocean Surface Simulation, Particle Simulation, Video Composition, Bitcoin Mining.

Radeon RX 470	8.1 out of 10
GeForce GTX 1060	7.7 out of 10
GeForce GTX 970	7.9 out of 10

Performance per Watt

Tested on: Battlefield 3, Battlefield 4, Bioshock Infinite, Crysis 2, Crysis 3, Dirt3, FarCry 3, Hitman: Absolution, Metro: Last Light, Thief, Alien: Isolation, Anno 2070, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Diablo III, Dirt Rally, Dragon Age: Inquisition, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, FIFA 15, FIFA 16, GRID Autosport, Grand Theft Auto V, Sleeping Dogs, Tomb Raider, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, T-Rex, Manhattan, Cloud Gate Factor, Sky Diver Factor, Fire Strike Factor, Face Detection, Ocean Surface Simulation, Particle Simulation, Video Composition, Bitcoin Mining, TDP. nine0005

Radeon RX 470	8.9 out of 10
GeForce GTX 1060	8.0 out of 10
GeForce GTX 970	8.6 out of 10

Price-Performance

Video card tested on: Battlefield 3, Battlefield 4, Bioshock Infinite, Crysis 2, Crysis 3, Dirt3, FarCry 3, Hitman: Absolution, Metro: Last Light, Thief, Alien: Isolation, Anno 2070, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Diablo III, Dirt Rally, Dragon Age: Inquisition, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, FIFA 15, FIFA 16, GRID Autosport, Grand Theft Auto V, Sleeping Dogs, Tomb Raider, The Witcher 3 : Wild Hunt, T-Rex, Manhattan, Cloud Gate Factor, Sky Diver Factor, Fire Strike Factor, Face Detection, Ocean Surface Simulation, Particle Simulation, Video Composition, Bitcoin Mining, Best new price. nine0005

Radeon RX 470	n/a
GeForce GTX 1060	n/a
GeForce GTX 970	6. 4 out of 10

Noise and Power

Tested at: TDP, Idle Power Consumption, Load Power Consumption, Idle Noise Level, Load Noise Level.

Radeon RX 470	9.1 out of 10
GeForce GTX 1060	9.1 out of 10
GeForce GTX 970	8.8 out of 10

Overall graphics card rating

Radeon RX 470	7.7 out of 10
GeForce GTX 1060	7.0 out of 10
GeForce GTX 970	7.5 out of 10

Benchmarks Radeon RX 470

Bitcoin mining

nine0777

Radeon RX 470	510.5 mHash/s
GeForce GTX 1060	576.5 mHash/s
GeForce GTX 970	487.14 mHash/s

Face Recognition

Radeon RX 470	111.68 mPixels/s
GeForce GTX 970	148. 79 mPixels/s
GeForce GTX 1060	118.43 mPixels/s

T-Rex (GFXBench 3.0)

nine0775 3,352.34

Radeon RX 470
GeForce GTX 970	14.962
GeForce GTX 1060	3,358.92

Manhattan test (GFXBench 3.0)

Radeon RX 470	3,712.8
GeForce GTX 970	1,592.72
GeForce GTX 1060	3,713.14

Test Fire Strike

Radeon RX 470	67.3
GeForce GTX 970	72.7
GeForce GTX 1060	n/a

Sky Diver test

Radeon RX 470	383.43
GeForce GTX 970	428.4
GeForce GTX 1060	n/a

Battlefield 4

Radeon RX 470	77
GeForce GTX 970	88. 6
GeForce GTX 1060	n/a

Crysis 3

Radeon RX 470	48.9
GeForce GTX 970	52.8
GeForce GTX 1060	n/a

Video reviews

CHEAP video card ➔ ASUS Radeon RX470 Strix

review

AMD Radeon RX 470: gameplay in 18 popular games at Full HD

Reviews of the Radeon RX 470

You are confusing something, or your prices are inadequate.
A week ago I bought in Citylink (Yekaterinburg): Sapphire Nitro + 470 4GB — 14500, Sapphire Nitro + 470 8GB — 15800, Sapphire Nitro + 480 4GB — 15200. chip.
Cheap is rarely good, I was guided specifically by Sapphire, I took it from 8GB. Bust, probably, but the difference in price seemed to me not critical. nine1282 Maybe I should have taken the RX 480 4GB, but it will be hotter with the same cooling.

Review one of the quadrics (Intel core 2 quad q8xxx — 9xxx series). I would like to know what these old people are capable of in 2016. I want to upgrade my PC, otherwise my system is absolutely terrible, not only can I not even play normally (Amd Atlon x64 5000+ 2 gb ram 8400gs). And I would also like to know what cards he can open, for example, gtx 970 or radeon rx460 (I probably bent a lot, but still). Well, or something from yourself advise. nine0005

Hemorrhoids are less with her, or rather he is not. However, the «Reds» will now say that they have been 10 years old, and there is no crap either.