PowerColor Radeon RX 470 4GB Red Devil: Product showcase

The RX 470 from PowerColor is well built dual-slot graphics card. The shroud is actually made of plastic, but the red plates, including the one with the logo are metal (here I should mention that the logo is upside down when card is installed in the case, but according to PowerColor this will be ‘fixed’ soon).

Of course this would be no Devil card without a backplate. It’s a full cover brushed metal plate with devil pentagram printed on it. It’s also a fingerprint magnet, so you need to be extra careful when installing it in the case.

Here’s the picture of the board, which as you might’ve notice is fully custom. The display connectors are also non-reference, as we get extra DVI-D output.

Here’s the main power section with six phases, and single 8-pin power connector on the second photo. There are 6+1 phases in total.

Apparently two modules are covered in glue, I hope this is not a new technique of memory installation.

Here’s the whole cooler and Double Blade III fans. This card features ‘Mute Fan Technology’, which you should know as 0db technology. This basically means fans will not spin unless certain temperature is reached, in this case that’s 50+C.

The rear of the card is where the most heat will be pushed outside the card. A good front case fan could really do wonders in this regard.

The heat sink is well designed. It distributes heat between three heat pipes.

The card is rather heavy, but no excessive sagging was present (our motherboard has reinforced PCI-E slot). The GPU base plate is similar MSI’s GAMING X series.

In the box you will find some leaflets and drivers on CD.

Specifications

Now, lets move on to specs. The RX 470 Red Devil has Dual-BIOS feature. You can chose between ‘Silent BIOS’ and ‘OC Bios’. The first one has boost clock of 1220 MHz and the OC gives you 1270 MHz. Whether those frequencies are reached in games and synthetics I will explain later in this article.

The RX 470 has Polaris 10 PRO GPU with 2048 Stream Processors, 128 TMUs and 32 ROPs. This GPU configuration is not new for AMD, as the company had other cards with such specs in the past few years, the HD 7970, RX 280X and R9 380X. I didn’t have 380X for comparison, but I can tell that this card is faster than 280X, according to some of my older benchmarks.

The RX 470 has 4GB GDDR5 256-bit memory by default. Some manufacturers will offer 8GB version, but those cards will be more expensive than RX 480, so I’m not sure who is willing to buy those cards.

Our sample has 100 MHz higher memory clock than non-existent reference model (1650 MHz).

PowerColor RX 470 Red Devil Specifications AMD RX 470 PowerColor RX 470

Red Devil AMD RX 480 GPU 14nm FF Polaris PRO 14nm FF Polaris 10 Unified Cores 2048 : 128 : 32 2304 Boost Clock 1206 MHz 1220 MHz (Silent)

1270 MHz (OC) 1266 MHz Memory Clock 1650 MHz 1750 MHz 2000 MHz Memory Configuration 4GB GDDR5 8GB GDDR5 Memory Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit Cooler Dual-slot,

Single-fan Dual-slot,

Dual-fan Dual-slot, Single-Fan Display Outputs 3x DisplayPort

1x HDMI 3x DisplayPort

1x HDMI

1x DVI-D 3x DisplayPort

1x HDMI Typical Board Power 120W 120W 150W Power Connectors 1x 6-pin 1x 8-pin 1x 6-pin

PowerColor Radeon RX 470 4GB Red Devil: Overclocking

As always we start with overclocking. The first thing to mention are problems with Crimson 16.7.3. This is the latest driver for RX 400 cards, which brings better performance in some games like Rise of the Tomb Raider. This is also the driver that limits overclocking by introducing maximum clock speeds for memory. There are no other tools to overclock RX 470 right now with this driver, so I’ve settled with maximum 1800 MHz clock.

This card can probably go higher on the memory, but don’t forget it doesn’t have any heat spreaders over the modules, so I wouldn’t really advise to overclock it higher.

As for the GPU, the OC Bios already ships with the highest voltage allowed by this driver (1175mV), so we can’t go any further than 1350 MHz. Of course to keep the clock stable, we are enabling power limit of 150%. The fan speeds were also increased, which unfortunately means much nosier card.

PowerColor Radeon RX 470 4GB Red Devil: Stability and thermal testing

As mentioned earlier, RX 470 Red Devil has two BIOSes. The silent BIOS has 1220 MHz clock, while the OC BIOS has 1270 MHz. In our stress testing it appears that both modes share almost identical average clock of 1030 MHz in Furmark and 1220 MHz in FS Stress Test.

It means that the card is reaching its power limits and as a result the actual performance is quite similar. Only by increasing power limit we can achieve a stable clock speed, which we were using in our overclocking profile.

PowerColor RX 470 Red Devil Stress testing Idle Fire Strike

Stress Test

Furmark Silent BIOS Max. GPU Temperature 51 C 80 C 80 C Fan Speed 0 RPM 1747 RPM 1523 RPM Typical Clock Speed 300 MHz 1217 MHz 1035 MHz Memory Clock 300 MHz 1750 MHz 1750 MHz OC Bios Max. GPU Temperature 50 C 84 C 80 C Fan Speed 0 RPM 1340 RPM 1480 RPM Typical Clock Speed 300 MHz 1224 MHz 1031 MHz Memory Clock 300 MHz 1750 MHz 1750 MHz Overclocking Max. GPU Temperature 50 C 79 C 86 C Fan Speed 0 RPM 2267 RPM 2860 RPM Typical Clock Speed 300 MHz 1350 MHz 1350 MHz Memory Clock 300 MHz 1800 MHz 1800 MHz

Furmark: Silent BIOS

Furmark: OC BIOS

Furmark: Overclocking

Furmark is the only benchmark that generates 86C temperature on this GPU, however this is only when card is overclocked and power limits are increased.

FireStrike Stress Testing

As you can see the variation of boost clock with OC mode is rather high, the frequency jumps to 1240 MHz only to decrease to 1215 MHz. One thing is certain, it does not reach stable 1270 MHz boost clock. Meanwhile in silent mode, the clock speed is almost stable at 1220 MHz.

In OC mode the GPU temperature raises up to 84C, while in silent mode it never goes beyond 80C. Our overclocking profile has rather high fan speeds, so the temperature never goes beyond 79C.

Here you can see the difference in fan profiles in both modes. In OC mode the fan speed increases more rapidly, while in silent mode you get less noise under 70C. However once it goes beyond 75C the fan speed is actually higher than in OC mode.

Testing platform

Component Model Provided by CPU Intel Core i7 6800K @ 4200 MHz Motherboard ASUS X99-A II Memory G.Skill Trident Z DDR4 3200 MHz 16-18-18-38-2N G.SKILL Display Yamakasi Catleap Q270 SSD Samsung 950 Pro M.2 PSU OCZ 850W ZX OS Windows 10 x64 PRO GPU PowerColor Radeon RX 470 Red Devil (Crimson 16.7.3) POWERCOLOR MSI GeForce GTX 1060 6G TOC (GeForce 368.81) MSI MSI GeForce GTX 960 GAMING 4G (GeForce 368.81) HIS Radeon R9 390X IceQ X2 OC (Crimson 16.7.3) HIS

Other card specifications:

HIS Radeon R9 390X IceQ X2 OC –1070/1500 MHz (boost/memory)

MSI GeForce GTX 960 GAMING 4GB — 1216/1279/1750 MHz (base/boost/memory)

MSI GeForce GTX 1060 6G TOC — 1544/1759/2000 MHz (base/boost/memory)

Performance

Performance metrics PowerColor

RX 470 RD

“Silent” PowerColor

RX 470 RD

“OC Mode” PowerColor

RX 470 RD

“Overclocking” MSI

GTX 1060

6GT OC HIS

R9 390X

ICEQX2 MSI

GTX 960

GAMING 4G Synthetic performance DirectX11: 3DMark Fire Strike Performance Here we have some of the olders scores from old test bench. In this example RX 470 RD is almost as fast as factory-overclocked GTX 780 Ti. (1920×1080, GPU Score) 11811

98% 11997

100% 12544

105% 13300

111% 13111

109% 7659

64% DirectX11: 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme (2560×1440, GPU Score) 5244

98% 5324

100% 5568

105% 6262

118% 5945

112% 3581

67% DirectX11: 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra

This is 4K benchmark, which is probably the most demanding test for GPUs right now. The results of RX 470 RD are very close to reference RX 480 range. We will make sure to compare these cards when we have the chance. (3840×2160, GPU Score) 2618

97% 2686

100% 2825

105% 3025

113% 2976

111% 1753

65% DirectX12: 3DMark Time Spy

In this DX 12 benchmark we have very small gap between RX470 and 390X, where Grenada-based card is just 8% faster. (2560×1440, GPU Score, Async On) 3626

97% 3755

100% 3845

102% 4132

110% 4048

108% 2261

60% DirecX12: 3DMark Time Spy (Async OFF) (2560×1440, GPU Score, Async Off) 3243

96% 3377

100% 3451

102% 3964

117% 3563

106% 2266

67% DirectX11: 3DMark 11 Performance

Here we have higher almost identical performance between RX 470 Red Devil and factory-overclocked GTX 1060 from MSI. However this benchmark is run at HD-Ready resolution, which is not really that popular these days (1280×720). (1280×720, GPU Score) 17134

98% 17511

100% 18597

106% 17590

100% 18888

108% 10296

59% DirectX11: 3DMark 11 Extreme

Once we apply Extreme profile, which is in fact Futuremark’s very first FullHD benchmark, we can immediately notice the difference between those cards. (1920×1080, GPU Score) 3921

97% 4036

100% 4208

104% 5551

138% 4705

117% 3039

77% DirectX12: Ashes of Singularity

Another DX12 benchmark and another surprising results. The GTX 1060, which is acting more like an RX 480 competitor is only few percent faster than RX 470 Red Devil. (CRAZY 2560×1440, FPS) 28.7

98% 29.3

100% 29,7

101% 30.5

104% 35.8

122% 18.4

63% DirectX11: Unigine Heaven (Extreme, FPS) 61.7

96% 64.4

100% 65.7

102% 74.06

115% 73.3

114% 44.7

69% DirectX11: Unigine Valley

(Extreme HD, FPS) 47.0

98% 48.4

100% 49.2

102% 65.9

137% 63.0

131% 34.8

72% Gaming performance DirectX11: Rise of the Tomb Raider (Very High Settings)

DirectX12: Rise of the Tomb Raider (Very High Settings) Our first game is Tomb Raider. Bear in mind that we are using latest driver, which boosts performance in this game for RX 400 cards. This is one of the very few games that we can really feel the benefit of DX12 API. TR is playable at very high settings at 1080p, however if you are using 1440p monitor, we recommend lowering the settings. (1920×1080, DirectX11, FPS) 64.62

93% 69.54

100% 69.69

100% 79.68

115% 73.76

106% 52.09

75% (2560×1440, DirectX11, FPS) 46.02

97% 47.24

100% 48.72

103% 55.00

116% 52.31

110% 34.28

73% (1920×1080, DirectX12, FPS)

74.10

99% 75.20

100% 78.05

104% 79.97

106% 75.95

101% 51.52

69% (2560×1440, DirectX12, FPS) 49.00

94% 52.02

100% 51.22

98% 53.23

102% 51.25

99% 35.20

68% DirectX11: Hitman 2016 (Maximum Preset) DirectX12: Hitman 2016 (Maximum Preset) DX12 implementation in Hitman 2016 is not really improving performance as much as we expect, with the only exception of 390X. RX 470 Red Devil should be enough to get 60 FPS in Ultra preset at 1440p. For some reason overclocking RX 470 does not increase performance, we are assuming this is caused by limited frame buffer, which really takes a hit at those settings. (1920×1080, DirectX11, FPS)

77.19

97% 79.70

100% 76.97

97% 77.29

97% 81.53

102% 44.60

56% (2560×1440, DirectX11, FPS) 59.58

96% 61.78

100% 62.04

100% 58.93

95% 64.65

105% 33.90

55% (1920×1080, DirectX12, FPS) 73.86

95% 78.15

100% 76.38

98% 75.49

97% 83.70

107% 42.30

54% (2560×1440, DirectX12, FPS) 55.80

94% 59.51

100% 59.62

100% 57.47

97% 66.43

112% 31.31

54% DirectX11: Far Cry Primal (Ultra Preset)

Unfortunately in Primal, we can’t expect 60 FPS in 1080p resolution. (1920×1080, DirectX11, FPS)

55.00

98% 56.00

100% 57.00

102% 67.00

120% 66.00

118% 37.00

66% (2560×1440, DirectX11, FPS) 40.00

98% 41.00

100% 41.00

100% 46.00

112% 49.00

120% 26.00

63% DirectX11: THIEF (Very High Settings) RX 470 Red Devil handles THIEF nicely at 1080p. This game is one of the very few which support Mantle, but of course this API is no longer developed, so we are sticking to DX11 here. (1920×1080, DirectX11, FPS)

75.00

99% 76.00

100% 79.30

104% 84.90

112% 82.20

108% 48.70

64% (2560×1440, DirectX11, FPS) 52.00

100% 52.00

100% 53.00

102% 56.50

109% 58.40

112% 31.40

60% DirectX11: Shadow of Mordor (Ultra Preset)

Here we decided to include 4K results (because the game allows us to render at different resolutions). All cards in this comparison deliver more than 30FPS at 4K. Also, after some tweaking, RX 470 and other cards reach 60 FPS at 1440p. This is the only game that we tested where GTX 960 was faster than RX 470. (2560×1440, DirectX11, FPS)

59.87

97% 60.72

100% 61.87

102% 68.86

113% 74.84

123% 65.59

108% (3840×2160, DirectX11, FPS) 31.52

99% 32.59

100% 33.82

104% 37.67

116% 42.10

129% 33.70

103% DirectX11: The Division (Ultra Preset) The Division is clearly a very demanding game, running it at Ultra with 199 USD GPU is probably not the best idea, but this is how we test cards here, by squeezing all the juice at highest settings. Here we can’t recommend RX 470 for 1440p/Ultra, but it was playable at 1080p. By lowering settings you can enjoy much better frame-rate. (1920×1080, DirectX11, FPS)

54.50

95% 57.10

100% 56.50

99% 61.60

108% 56.40

99% 36.50

64% (2560×1440, DirectX11, FPS) 40.4

100% 40.06

100% 41.80

103% 43.30

107% 44.20

109% 25.40

63% DirectX11: Rainbow Six Siege (Ultra Preset)

Is RX 470 enough to enjoy Rainbow Six Siege at Ultra? Well, on paper yes, but I have to say that 4GB memory is really having trouble buffering all the necessary assets. The performance was good, but sudden drops or freezes were present in online gaming. It all disappeared once lower settings were activated. (1920×1080, DirectX11, FPS) 118.40

96% 123.60

100% 123.00

100% 129.10

104% 129.00

104% 76.70

62% (2560×1440, DirectX11, FPS) 66.20

98% 67.90

100% 68.50

101% 82.80

122% 68.50

106% 48.60

72% DirectX11: Grand Theft Auto 5 (Very High Preset) In GTA5 the RX 470 Red Devil is doing quite well at Very High Settings. This configuration is basically what is applied by the game automatically if we choose the highest settings in game options. However we are not enabling any of the advanced settings, as those have very big impact on performance, and often generate strange results. This card should be offer very playable framerate at 1080P and even at 1440P. (1920×1080, DirectX11, FPS) 107.20

96% 111.60

100% 111.80

100% 133.40

120% 118.20

106% 80.20

72% (2560×1440, DirectX11, FPS) 76.00

100% 76.00

100% 78.40

103% 90.60

119% 85.00

112% 33.20

44% DirectX11: Metro Last Light (Very High, Tessellation High, PhysX Off)

Metro LL is still a very demanding game. Only few cards on the market can deliver 60+ FPS in 1440p resolution, unfortunately RX 470 is not one of these cards. (1920×1080, DirectX11, FPS) 74.4

97% 77.1

100% 78.9

102% 87.0

113% 87.0

113% 56.9

74% (2560×1440, DirectX11, FPS) 48.6

99% 49.1

100% 50.3

102% 62.0

126% 58.0

118% 36.6

75% Vulkan: Doom (Maximum Settings) Lastly, we have the only fully working Vulkan implementation. We really tried to include Talos Principle in this comparison too, but that game is still very buggy. In Doom we have very solid numbers from RX 470, not only does it beat GTX 1060, but even R9 390X. In fact, It doesn’t even need overclocking to reach higher frame-rate. (1920×1080, DirectX11, FPS) 122.0

97% 126.0

100% 127.0

101% 99.0

79% 124.0

99% 65.0

52% (2560×1440, DirectX11, FPS) 74.0

99% 75.0

100% 77.0

103% 63.0

84% 85%

113% 42.0

56%



PowerColor Radeon RX 470 4GB Red Devil WhyCry PowerColor Radeon RX 470 Red Devil (AXRX 470 4GBD5-3DH/OC) Performance - 85% Cooling and Design - 90% Overclocking - 90% Price and Bundles - 85% 0db fan technology

quiet operation in games

backplate

DVI-D port

Red Devil logo is upside down

glue on memory?

price

88 %



