AMD Extends Polaris Line-up With Mainstream Radeon RX 470 And Radeon RX 460
Of the two new cards introduced, the RX 470 is the most closely aligned with the midrange Radeon RX 480 (read the HotHardware review here), with its 2048 stream processors (compared to 2304) and 32 compute units (compared to 36). The RX 470 also takes a hit on clock speeds, with base and boost clocks of 926 MHz and 1206 MHz respectively. With these cut down specs, peak compute performance for the RX 470 drops in at 4.9 TFLOPs (compared to 5.8 TFLOPs for the RX 480).
AMD is touting the RX 470 as a perfect companion for 1080p resolution gaming, offering 60+ FPS performance (with anti-aliasing enabled) in popular games like Rise of the Tomb Raider, Fallout 4, Battlefield Hardline, and The Witcher 3. Compared to the previous generation Radeon R9 270, the RX 470 offers tangible performance benefits including 1.7x and 2.4x uplifts in Fallout 4 and DOOM respectively.
| Radeon RX 480 | Radeon RX 470 | Radeon RX 460 | |
| Architecture | Polaris 10 XT | Polaris 10 Pro | Polaris 11 |
| Stream Processors | 2304 | 2048 | 896 |
| Compute Units | 36 | 32 | 14 |
| Base Clock | 1120 MHz | 926 MHz | 1090 MHz |
| Boost Clock | 1266 MHz | 1206 MHz | 1200 MHz |
| Memory Interface | 256-bit GDDR5 | 256-bit GDDR5 | 128-bit GDDR5 |
| Memory Bandwidth | 224 GB/s | 211 GB/s | 112 GB/s |
| TDP | 150 watts | 120 watts | 75 watts |
| Peak Compute | 5.8 TFLOPS | 4.9 TFLOPS | 2.2 TFLOPS |
| Process Tech | 14nm FinFET | 14nm FinFET | 14nm FinFET |
| MSRP | $199/$239 (4GB/8GB) | $149/$179 (4GB/8GB) | $99/$119 (2GB/4GB) |
The RX 460, on the other hand, is based on Polaris 11 architecture, which has a more budget-minded performance profile. The RX 460 has less than half the stream processors and less than half the compute units of the RX 470, and its memory interface has been cut to 128-bit. As a result, peak compute performance stands at 2.2 TFLOPs.
If all you’re looking for is a highly efficient, yet capable eSports gaming card, then the RX 460 still has you covered. AMD promises 90+ FPS (High Quality) in competitive gaming titles like Counter Strike: Global Offensive, DOTA 2, Overwatch and Rocket League.
We should also note that the RX 460 will also find its way into gaming notebooks, where it will compare favorably to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M:
The Radeon RX 470 will be available August 4th, while the Radeon RX 460 will bow just four days later on August 8th. AMD, however, has made no indication of when mobile parts will be available.
