Introduction
AMD released the AMD Radeon RX 470 Mobile, a mobile graphics processor, on August 4, 2016. The chip supports DirectX 12 and was created using a 14 nm manufacturing process based on the Ellesmere PRO graphics processor. This guarantees that Radeon RX 470 Mobile will be able to run all current games. A typical-sized chip, the Ellesmere graphics processor has 5,700 million transistors and a die area of 232 mm2. AMD has blocked some shading units on the Radeon RX 470 Mobile in order to reach the product’s goal shader count. Unlike with the fully locked Radeon RX 480, which uses the same GPU but has all 2304 shaders activated. It has 32 ROPs, 128 texture mapping units, and 2048 shading units.
The Radeon RX 470 Mobile and AMD’s 8 GB GDDR5 RAM are connected through a 256-bit memory connection. Memory is operating at 1750 MHz, while the GPU is functioning at 926 MHz with a boost to 1074 MHz (7 Gbps effective).
The AMD Radeon RX 470 Mobile is a mxm module card, therefore it doesn’t need a separate power connector and has a maximum power usage of 85 W. As it is not intended to have monitors attached to it, this device lacks display connectivity. Instead, it will utilise the outputs of the hosting mobile device and is designed to be used with laptops and notebooks.
Features of AMD Radeon RX 470
The Polaris 10 chip, used by the Radeon RX 470 and RX 480, is identical. The Polaris 10 chips in the RX 470 are “binned,” which is a standard procedure in the microelectronics industry. These rejected chips didn’t pass muster as RX 480 components, but they still meet the requirements of the RX 470 despite its lower power. It makes good commercial sense because you can sell the Polaris 10 chips in two distinct products and have a considerably greater yield of functional Polaris 10 chips.
Boost clock frequency
The two don’t differ significantly from one another. While the 470 only receives 32 compute units, the RX 480 has 36. The base clock speed is 926MHz, which is significantly less than the RX 480’s 1,120MHz. Clock speeds have also been marginally decreased. Our PowerColor variant has a boost clock frequency of 1270MHz and is pre-overclocked.
Memory
The RX 470 ships with GDDR5 memory that has a 256-bit bus and a storage capacity of 211GB/s, which is significantly less than the 224GB/s of the 4GB RX 480. Both cards have the same amount of memory.
Power
There are many small technological surprises in Polaris, but arguably the most significant is the much increased power efficiency. Additionally, colour compression has been improved at the hardware level for more effective rendering, and AMD’s WattMan software allows for fine-grained overclocking control.
Our PowerColor model arrived with 1,750MHz memory and was pre-overclocked to 1,270MHz. Similar to all RX 470 cards, this one has a double-height design. It features two fans with nine blades each. The backplate is a plain matte-black design with a hexagram reiterating the demonic themes of PowerColor’s Red Devil. The shroud is constructed of black plastic.
A little button on the PowerColour RX 470’s near side allows users to switch between an overclocked state and a calmer, more power-efficient option. The default setting, the OC mode, was used for all of our testing.
Model
The RX 470 has a varying number of media outputs depending on the third-party vendor. Although some models are available with a second HDMI port in exchange of one of the DisplayPorts, our model came with three DisplayPort 1.2 sockets, an HDMI 2.0 connector, and a DVI connector.
The Asus RX 470 Strix
Though this Polaris 10 model might be a few card short of a complete deck, it’s important to note that the basic setup hasn’t been altered significantly. When contrasted to the fully functional RX 480, the SPU and TMU count are only down 11%, and the ROP count is still 32.
The baseline operating frequency has been reduced by AMD, falling from 1120 MHz to 926 MHz by 17%. However, the boost clock frequency, which was lowered from 1266 MHz to 1206 MHz, only differs by 5%.
There is 4GB of GDDR5 storage attached to the GPU, however it’s important to note that the AMD specification only specifies 1650MHz memory, which offers a bandwidth of 6.6Gbps. In contrast, the 8GB RX 480 has memory that operates at 8Gbps. While the 4GB RX 480 has memory that operates at 7Gbps.
Although the same 256-bit wide memory bus is being used, the bandwidth has fallen from 224GB/s for the 4GB RX 480 to 211GB/s, a 6% decrease. Due to the slightly slower clocked GDDR5 memory.
When operating at the highest boost frequency, the RX 470 is capable of up to 4.9 TFLOPS of computing power. Nvidia’s GTX 1060 only produces 4.3 TFLOPS in comparison to the RX 480’s 5.8 TFLOPS.
Thermal Design Power
Thermal Design Power (TDP) for the AMD RX 470 has been reduced from 150 watts to 120 watts, a 20% decrease over the RX 480. However, due to its identical TDP rating as the is GTX 1060. A single 6-pin PCIe power connector was once again employed.
We did not have an AMD standard card available for testing, which is a relief. Instead, the Asus RX 470 Strix card was employed. Although the Strix variant is factory overclocked. We had to decelerate the Asus RX 470 to match the AMD standard clock speeds. Since we had only tested with other graphics cards that were reference or stock clocked.
For those who are curious, the Strix has a factory overclock of 1250MHz out of the box. But the OC option in the Asus GPU Tweak II program allows you to increase it to 1270MHz. The GDDR5 memory has been kept at its default frequency of 1650MHz (6600MHz data rate).
Last Verdict
A common desktop PC graphics card is the AMD Radeon RX 470. It was released in August 2016 and, like its larger sibling Radeon RX 480. It is based on the Polaris 10 processor. However, the GPU only utilises 2048 shader units (32 CUs, 128 TMUs) out of 2304 available (36 CUs, 144 TMUs). The core clocks range from 926 to 1206 MHz, and the 4 or 8 GB GDDR5-VRAM (256-bit interface) clocks range from 1650 MHz to 1750 MHz.
Due to its outdated hardware, the RX 470 performs around 10% slower than the RX 480. It can only match the GeForce GTX 970’s level of performance.
