The dust has hardly settled and cards still aren’t in stock consistently from the RX 480 launch, but it's already time for AMD to introduce their next card, the RX 470. The RX 470 is based on Polaris 10 GPU like the RX 480 but its GPU has a slightly lower number of stream processors. All in all, where the RX 480 was promoted as a premium VR card, the RX 470 is their HD gaming card. There aren’t going to be reference cards in this model, so today I’m actually going to be taking a look at the XFX RX 470 RS Black Edition. This is XFX’s highest overclocked RX 470 so we should get a good look at the highest possible performance from the RX 470 platform to see how it compares to our reference RX 480 and the GTX 1060.
Product Name: XFX RX 470 RS Black Edition
Review Sample Provided by: XFX
Written by: Wes
Pictures by: Wes
Amazon Link: HERE
Specifications | |
Model Number | RX-470P4LDB6 |
Card Dimension | cm 24 x 12.1 x 4 Inches 9.45 x 4.76 x 1.57 |
GPU Clock | 1256MHz |
Stream Processors | 2048 |
Memory Bus | 256 bit |
Memory Clock | 7.0 GHz |
Memory Size | 4GB |
Memory Type | DDR5 |
Dual link Support | Yes |
Max Supported Resolution (DIGITAL) | 4096 x 2160 |
Display Outputs | 3x DisplayPort 1x HDMI 1x DL-DVI-D |
Display Port ready | 1.4 |
HDMI Ready | 2.0b |
HDR Ready | Yes |
FinFET 14 | Yes |
AMD FreeSync technology | Yes |
DirectX™ 12 Optimized | Yes |
4th Generation GCN | Yes |
AMD LiquidVR technology | Yes |
AMD Virtual Super Resolution (VSR) | Yes |
Radeon Software | Yes |
AMD CrossFire Technology | Yes |
Package Contents |
6-pin to 4-pin power cable Driver Disk Installation Guide Installation DVD Warranty Card |
Warranty | 3 Years |
Before diving into testing, I did want to include a copy of the GPUz from the card. With issues popping up this year with manufacturers sending review samples that are turned up to their optional OC clocks I want to make sure we keep everything transparent. Our XFX RX 470 RS Black Edition runs at the 1256 MHZ that they have listed on their specifications. I tested the card twice, once with the publicly available driver that is on the GPUz and then again with the RX 470 Beta driver that AMD provided for the launch.
RX 470
With this being our first RX 470 review I wanted to take a little closer look at the RX 470 and see just how it compares to the RX 480 that I reviewed last month. For starters, we know that it is based on the same 4th generation GCN architecture as the Rx 480. They both have Polaris 10 based GPUs as well. The RX 480 has the Polaris 10 XT and the RX 470 is running on what was rumored to be called the Polaris 10 Pro GPU. I can’t for the life of me find out for sure if they are calling it that still. That said the RX 470’s GPU is cut down from the 36 Compute Unites of the RX 480 down to 32 Compute Units. This takes the number of stream processors from 2304 down to 2048 as well. They still share the same 256-bit memory interface but the RX 470 is only available in a 4GB model where the RX 480 was split up between 4 and 8 GB models. Memory speeds on the RX 470 are also a touch slower at 6.6 Gbps vs 7 Gbps. The same goes for the GPU close speed, the RX 470 with the reference design runs at 1206 boost and 926 Base and the RX 480 was at 1266/1120 MHz respectively. Our RX 470 sample doesn’t follow that, though, it is advertised at 1256 MHz and I assume that is the Boost clock.
Price wise the RX 470 does fill in a gap a little lower than the 4GB RX 480 though I think not having a reference model available is going to make that difficult. This is because the only way we will see MSRP based cards is if manufacturers sell a reference like blower card. But once you start getting into overclocked cards things are going to get interesting. Our test card, for example, has an MSRP of $219. So the overclocked RX 470’s will be fighting with the RX 480 4GB cards, and so on. Anyhow I will have to get into testing and see where everything lands.
Card | MSRP |
RX 480 8GB | $229 |
RX 480 4GB | $199 |
RX 470 4GB | $179 |