AMD Radeon RX 470 Review: Polaris Gets Even More Affordable
Introducing The Radeon RX 470
AMD has released virtually all of the Radeon RX 470's pertinent details over the last few weeks. If you've been paying attention to the graphics space lately, there's a good chance you're already familiar with the Radeon RX 470's GPU configuration, specifications, pricing, and expected performance levels.
Today though, we're able put the final pieces of the puzzle together and reveal what AMD's board partners have in store for the Radeon RX 470 and we've got an array of benchmarks and other related data to share as well. To quickly reiterate what has been disclosed up to this point, take a look at this slide...
AMD's reference specifications and reference card -- which looks exactly like the Radeon RX 480 -- are shown above, but all of AMD's partners are at the ready with custom boards that look nothing like the reference part. We are told to expect very few, if any, straight up reference RX 470s at retail. For the purposed of today's launch, we got our hands on ASUS' version, a 4GB Radeon RX 470 ROG STRIX. And as you'll see, save for the GPU at its heart, this card has very little in common with AMD's reference RX 470.
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| 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) | $179+ (4GB) | $109+ (2GB/4GB) |
The Radeon RX 470 is built around the same Polaris 10 GPU as the Radeon RX 480 that we reviewed here. With the Radeon RX 470, though, two CUs have been disabled, which results in fewer stream processors. There are 2048 stream processors active in the RX 470 versus 2304 on the RX 480. The 470's clocks are somewhat lower as well, with base and boost clocks of 926 MHz and 1206 MHz respectively. The end result brings peak compute performance for the RX 470 down to 4.9 TFLOPs (compared to 5.8 TFLOPs for the 480). The RX 470's memory is clocked slightly lower as well, which results in a peak 211GB/s, 13GB/s lower than the RX 480. We've thrown in some details for the Radeon RX 460 in the table above as well, which features a completely different GPU, but we can't give you the full scoop on that card just yet.
The PCB used on the ASUS Radeon RX 470 ROG STRIX is somewhat longer than AMD's reference model, though the overall design is still relatively small at 9.5 x 5.1 x 1.6 inches. The card is outfitted with a single 6-pin power connector, a 5+1 phase power array with premium caps and chokes, and a custom DirectCU II cooler, with dual fans. The heatsink on the card features heat-pipes that make direct contact with the GPU and dual "wing blade" fans are mounted on top. ASUS claims the cooling assembly is up to 3x quieter and offers 105% more air pressure than reference models, which results in up to 30% lower temperatures. Our equipment isn't sensitive enough to confirm the noise output claims, but we can say that this card is very quiet and GPU temps are a non-issue as well. More on that later, though.
Another "cool" feature on this card -- no pun intended -- is a built-in, GPU controlled 4-pin fan header. Should you want to add additional GPU cooling and have it controlled by GPU temperatures, rather than CPU or case temperatures like most motherboard-mounted fan headers, it can be plugged right into the header on the card and tweaked in ASUS' software.
The ASUS Radeon RX 470 ROG STRIX also features customizable RGB lighting. Using the included Aura utility, the color of the ROG logo on the top edge of the card can be set to virtually any color and it offers different modes of operation too. The lighting can be tuned to change color in line with GPU temperatures, cycle through different colors, or pulse on an off. ASUS includes a couple of decals with the card as well, should you want to add a bit more color.
ASUS includes a few bundled items with the Radeon RX 470 ROG STRIX as well. Along with the card itself, ASUS throws in some ROG-branded cable ties and some orange colored decals, should you want to spice things up a bit. There's also a basic lit pack and a driver / utility disc, which includes copies of ASUS' GPU Tweak II and the Aura utility for controlling the RGB lighting on the card.
