PowerColor Radeon RX 470 Red Devil 4GB review

AMD Radeon RX 470 4GB - 1080P gaming with _great_ value

AMD releases its second ASIC based on Polaris 10, the Radeon RX 470 with 4GB graphics memory is bound to impress for the money. Join us in this article where we'll tell you all about its performance and features. This mainstream graphics card series will allow you to play your games in both the Full HD 1080P range and perhaps a game or two as well in the WQHD (2560x1440) range for a price of under 200 USD. The RX 470 is a graphics card series that will allow you to play your games in both the Full HD 1080P range and all that at a very reasonable price as well. See, the 4 GB variant will start selling at $179 / 200 EURO. At the Full HD domain 4GB we feel is plenty graphics memory. These cards come with 2048 shader processors and are clocked at a dynamic boost frequency of up-to 1206 MHz on the reference cards.

In this review we'll look at temperatures, noise, performance and go with the latest game titles on the globe. This review is all about Polaris 10, a code-name indicative of the mainstream to high-end products (but not enthusiast):

Vega 10 - AMD Radeon RX 490 8GB (enthusiast class performance)

Polaris 10 - AMD Radeon RX 480 4GB and 8GB (high-end performance)

Polaris 10 - AMD Radeon RX 470 4GB and 8GB (mainstream performance)

Polaris 11 - AMD Radeon RX 460 2GB/4GB (entry level)

The Radeon RX 470 graphics card will be made available in 4 and 8 GB versions, the 4GB version will be the predominant standard though as it will be the most price effective solution. The GPU used for the 470 series is a familiar one, the Polaris 10 (Pro), an Ellesmere (codename) GPU based on 4th generation GCN architecture. The 14 nm FinFET+ process based Radeon RX 470 will push the product to 4.9 TFLOPS. With its 120W TDP it has 32 CUs (compute units aka shader clusters) x 64 shader processors per CU = 2048 shader processors). The card has 256-bit GDDR5 memory which offers an effective 6.6 Gbps / GHz memory bandwidth. The reference cards will run in the 1206 MHz range on its boost clock. Expect board partner cards to run a good 50 MHz faster. The GPU retains technologies of the Radeon GCN lineup such as DirectX 12, FreeSync and XDMA for CrossFire support. The GPU with its 2048 shader processors are tied towards 32 ROPs with 128 texture memory units. The initial consumer graphics card based on Ellesmere (PRO model) is the Radeon RX 470 The Radeon RX 470 Polaris 10 GPU is based on a 14nm fabrication process, as such you will see many enhancements in efficiency and that shows in power consumption, the reference cards will use just one 6-pin power PEG (PCI Express Graphics) header to give the the card its power. The reference boards have a 6-phase VRM power supply design and display output wise the new cards have seen an upgrade as well, including three DisplayPort 1.4 connectors and one HDMI 2.0b. AIB partners may release SKUs with a DVI connector as well, the reference PCB shows SMT traces for a DVI connector. Overall the specs show a very potent card to play the latest games with whilst offering a good memory size versus price in the 1920x1080 and even 2560x1440 monitor resolutions.

For this review we did not receive a reference card, instead it is one from PowerColor, the Red Devil edition. The card is fitted with 4GB of graphics memory and has been factory tweaked for you a little bit towards 1270 MHz on the Boost frequency, the memory for example runs at an effective 7000 MHz. Being an tweaked PowerColor model it has been fitted with a proper back-plate and a custom cooler. The card we received for review is a dual-slot, dual-fan solution and for something very mainstream certainly looks more high-end.

Let's fire up the review, but not before you've had a peek ...

Radeon RX 470 Red Devil edition from PowerColor packed with 4GB GDDR5 memory