PowerColor Red Devil Radeon RX 470 Video Card Review @ [H]

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FrgMstr

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PowerColor Red Devil Radeon RX 470 Video Card Review - AMD’s next generation Polaris architecture based GPU is released today in the form of the AMD Radeon RX 470 priced below the Radeon RX 480. Instead of a reference video card we have a full custom cooled and factory overclocked retail video card with the PowerColor Red Devil RX 470 video card.
 
Gold!? You AMD shills!

Product stack is pretty compressed at the moment. Keen to see the 4gb 470 vs 480 comparison, make for some interesting architecture numbers.
 
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N4CR said:
Gold!? You AMD shills!

Product stack is pretty compressed at the moment. Keen to see the 4gb 470 vs 480 comparison, make for some interesting architecture numbers.
Click to expand...
At the moment newegg has it for $179 on its website.
 
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The PowerColor Red Devil RX 470 is $179 right now at Newegg. Whether it stays that way I really do not know. We were told one thing, and another thing is happening, a good thing, but will it last? Pricing is already inconsistent.
 
Brent_Justice said:
The PowerColor Red Devil RX 470 is $179 right now at Newegg. Whether it stays that way I really do not know. We were told one thing, and another thing is happening, a good thing, but will it last? Pricing is already inconsistent.
Click to expand...

It has been sold out for a while.

However, you can buy the sapphire versions for more than the 4GB rx 480 reference cards for the 4GB version or the same price comparing 8GB cards.

At $150 the levels of performance we're seeing would be a good deal. For $200+ it stops making any sense except for the possibility of all prices being badly inflated.
 
Good value for sure, but I can't be the only one wondering if Nvidia has a 1050 announcement coming very soon to counter this...
 
A half-length card for smaller cases might make the higher relative price of the RX 470 more palatable. Meanwhile, I'm sure the current RX 470 pricing will go down as soon as the 480's and 1060's become more available. Seems like they're just taking advantage of the lack of cards out there right now.
 
Disappointing not to see any comparison to a 480 4GB card, or a GTX 1060.. just previous gen cards.

Also still think the new review format provides very little useful information, since games and settings used now change every review and are not comparable between reviews.

Seems like a good card, and further suggestion that 480 4GB card was launch only short term card to be able to say "new card for $199".
 
Considering that game patches and driver changes change the results over time you really can't compare reviews conducted at different times unless all parameters between the two reviews stayed the same.

ebduncan said:
Been waiting for these to come out for order.

I ordered 1. 179$ to good of a price for a card that performs this well. Replacing the g/f's GTX 950 she's gonna be happy, maybe she will stay off my rig now.
Click to expand...

Always have the girlfriend/wife have the same or better rig than your own. ;)
 
For as dominant AMD has been in Vulkan games, I really hope the upcoming Star Wars games will have Vulkan compatibility. My hope is they will, but the wait is killing me - 2018 for the first of the new batch.
 
Algrim said:
Considering that game patches and driver changes change the results over time you really can't compare reviews conducted at different times unless all parameters between the two reviews stayed the same.
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True, but different game settings say high vs very high should have a much larger impact on performance than driver versions, especially in the short term.

I liked the HardOcp reviews better than most sites, as I want to see want to see how I can get the best looking games on my hardware as I can, while still having decent framerates.

Unless they do a separate round up review, and show cards with the same settings in the same game, or best settings for each card in a the same games.. I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to use HardOCP reviews to get an idea of how much better or worse a 480 is vs a 470 vs a 1060 lets say.

Maybe this is more important for non-US residents.. the prices in other countries are obivously different, but often, the price ratio is not the same either.. 1060's might be only 10% more than a 480 8GB here in Canada, instead of say 20% more in the US.
 
I think even at 199 the card deserved a gold award, now it should get a diamond or platinum award :D:D
 
Man, AMD keeps killing it right now, really looking forward to the higher end stuff later this year. The 470 is great, it's a card at roughly the same price as last years 380, but a big performance increase. I would really like to see NVIDIA fight hard in the sub $250 bracket, seems that is where their cards are just lackluster, anyone heard rumblings of 1050?

Also, I like this review format. Drivers and therefore performance definitely change over time, so I think it's more honest to present performance as a snapshot. I would love to be able to compare in a more database like way, but AT's Bench will suffice for that.

Also, small edit needed on conclusions page under the section specific to Powercolor, feel free to delete this after: "custom heatsink with heatpies and dual-fan cooler."
 
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britjh22 said:
Man, AMD keeps killing it right now, really looking forward to the higher end stuff later this year. The 470 is great, it's a card at roughly the same price as last years 380, but a big performance increase. I would really like to see NVIDIA fight hard in the sub $250 bracket, seems that is where their cards are just lackluster, anyone heard rumblings of 1050?

Also, I like this review format. Drivers and therefore performance definitely change over time, so I think it's more honest to present performance as a snapshot. I would love to be able to compare in a more database like way, but AT's Bench will suffice for that.

Also, small edit needed on conclusions page under the section specific to Powercolor, feel free to delete this after: "custom heatsink with heatpies and dual-fan cooler."
Click to expand...

what? really?. this card is a joke at the actual price versus the RX 480.... you can buy a 4GB RX 480 and have more than 20% performance for ~10$ more.. lol..
 
Araxie said:
what? really?. this card is a joke at the actual price versus the RX 480.... you can buy a 4GB RX 480 and have more than 20% performance for ~10$ more.. lol..
Click to expand...

Please link me to somewhere I can buy a 480 for $189.99. A RX 480 4GB with an equivalent aftermarket cooler, SHOULD be ~ 220 to ~230, which when compared to the $180 this was available at this morning, seems like a fair price for the upgrade in performance to me.
 
britjh22 said:
Please link me to somewhere I can buy a 480 for $189.99. A RX 480 4GB with an equivalent aftermarket cooler, SHOULD be ~ 220 to ~230, which when compared to the $180 this was available at this morning, seems like a fair price for the upgrade in performance to me.
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typo.. ~20$... but to answer your aftermarket point...

what aftermarket cooler? this aftermarket cooler is only good to keep noise down because it ht 81C really? for a 150W card?. Any price premium for this kind of poor cooling performance should be ilegal....
 
britjh22 said:
Please link me to somewhere I can buy a 480 for $189.99. A RX 480 4GB with an equivalent aftermarket cooler, SHOULD be ~ 220 to ~230, which when compared to the $180 this was available at this morning, seems like a fair price for the upgrade in performance to me.
Click to expand...


Right. I've got the itch for a 5-6 GPU mining rig, and I would absolutely love the chance to buy any RX 480's currently for $250.
 
I guess AMD did kinda know what they were doing. I thought for sure with how dominating performance-wise the 1070 and 1080 were out of the gate, AMD would be put into 'panic mode' and thought the seemingly rushed RX 480 was an example of that. Vulkan and DX12 performance are making the Radeons look like a more forward thinking card, and targeting the 'market rich' 1080p premium market was a smart move.

Really curious to see what AMD's high end cards will look like now.
 
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Araxie said:
typo.. ~20$... but to answer your aftermarket point...

what aftermarket cooler? this aftermarket cooler is only good to keep noise down because it ht 81C really? for a 150W card?. Any price premium for this kind of poor cooling performance should be ilegal....
Click to expand...

Guru3D's review shows much different temps than [H] have, with 60C in silent mode and 70C in OC, I'd be interested to see what the ambient is for both. But if you think a price premium for poor cooling should be illegal, maybe you should sue NVIDIA for the FE cards. (y)
 
Soon to be instock along side retail priced 1080's...

If either will ever be instock.
 
Good to see another good card from AMD, hope they make a bunch of badly needed cash on them!

Still loving the new review format, keep it up!
 
britjh22 said:
Guru3D's review shows much different temps than [H] have, with 60C in silent mode and 70C in OC, I'd be interested to see what the ambient is for both. But if you think a price premium for poor cooling should be illegal, maybe you should sue NVIDIA for the FE cards. (y)
Click to expand...

check other reviews of the same card, sadly nothing too much famous, (eteknix, Vortex and other couple of european sites) all have the card in the same conditions as brent findings, note what he said:

Brent_Justice said:
It takes a bit less than 5 minutes of gaming for the GPU to warm up to its highest temperature. This shows why it is needed to perform long run-throughs of performance evaluation to truly see what is going on. If one were to simply run a short 30 second, or even 3 minute benchmark the GPU won’t hit its maximum temperature during that benchmark. You need at a minimum of 5 minutes of gaming to start understanding this. Obviously, we prefer it to be a bit longer period of time, just like when you are playing a real game.
Click to expand...

did you check the log images of Guru3d? that's I think even less than 2 minute load.. 1 minute, 30 secs I think if Afterburner is at default settings, but not only that, the card in OC mode is running at 1173mhz almost a fully 100mhz less than the brent's sample average clock, their own pics show that the GPU temperature are far of being stabilized but also running at lower clock..

on the other hand brent typically lately test the cards at ~21C I think in a Open Bench test, how would you think this kind of card would be running at 25C in a 20$ crap case with poor ventilation (which it's the case that the typical user interested in this card would be using).??

oh and BTW I hate that nvidia FE cooler crap.. however that's a cooler able to keep an overclocked GTX 1080 at 67C over 2GHZ (by own [H] review). kinda different reference cooler isnt? they are charging a premium for the cooler? at least the cooler it's freaking good for a reference blower style cooler..

temps-oc-mode.png
 
Axaxie, you are trying too hard to hate on a $179 AIB card. Is there anything you like about the 470?
 
N4CR said:
Gold!? You AMD shills!
Product stack is pretty compressed at the moment. Keen to see the 4gb 470 vs 480 comparison, make for some interesting architecture numbers.
Click to expand...

I figured the 470 would be the more compelling perf/price card in the Polaris lineup, but only being $20 below a 4GB 480 just seems very strange.
$20 is not much more to pay to get a full Polaris part.

Ironically, the 470 launch price is making the 4GB 480 far more appealing. Especially when you consider so many 470 cards are priced even higher than the $179 and are the same price as the 480 (or even more). E.g. the $239 RX 470 just makes no sense when that buys you a 8GB 480 (reference) card.
 
Hmmm... would way rather get the Radeon RX 480, especially the Red Devil one. Now to actually see one in stock that isn't more than $100.00 over MSRP. Man I hate resellers. AMD announces these cards, as well as the 480's, says hey... we have them. Pushes out a couple thousand to the planet. One of these days I might actually get one, maybe before they release their next product.
 
Rofl GN can barely hide his disdain for the Sapphire Platinum Edition 470. More expensive and worse than the Powercolor offering.

In fairness, I have to wonder if AMD plan was to raise ASP by having frustrated buyers, who can't find the RX480 4GB, 'settle' for the 470 instead.
The $200 470's don't make much sense in terms of pricing, but I can see AMD fans buying them anyway.

AMD still has their wonderful talking point of $199 480 from Computex, but benefit from getting sales on the $199 470s.
Not a bad consolation prize.
 
Karlman said:
Disappointing not to see any comparison to a 480 4GB card, or a GTX 1060.. just previous gen cards.

Also still think the new review format provides very little useful information, since games and settings used now change every review and are not comparable between reviews.
Click to expand...
I completely agree on all points. It's great that the new cards are killing previous gen models, but does anyone really care how the RX 470 compared to a GTX 960? We want to see the cards it currently competes with: the RX 480 4GB, GTX 970 and 1060.

Sure, the RX 470 is a great value card at $180. But for $20 more you can get an RX 480. Looking at other benchmarks, the 480 is roughly 10% faster speed for 10% more money. So unless you're on a really tight budget, I don't know why you'd get an RX 470 over a 480.
 
Timobkg said:
I completely agree on all points. It's great that the new cards are killing previous gen models, but does anyone really care how the RX 470 compared to a GTX 960? We want to see the cards it currently competes with: the RX 480 4GB, GTX 970 and 1060.
Click to expand...
Yes, lots of folks do that own a 960 now. Comparison against the 480 next as I wrote in the conclusion, but we need to get our hands on a 4GB card....or just do the 8GB, will not make any perf difference at 1080p.
 
While $180 is not a bad price, I think this card would have to be $150 to really make a case for it's existence vs the RX 480. I'm sure it will get there when stocks catch up to demand. I suppose you could argue that $30 isn't a bad price for the cooler PowerColor has included here and maybe you'd be right. It's much better than the coolers PowerColor used to put on cards that were more of a replacement rather than an upgrade for the stock cooler.
 
I was hoping for a lower price on this card. More like $159 for reference, with the custom cards being in the $169-$179 range. All things being equal (meaning you can actually get them) it's hard to imagine buying one of these and not spending the extra $20 for the 4GB 480. Too bad though, this does appear to be a great card and better than I expected, just a strange price compared to the 480.

Maybe once the dust settles and stock levels stabilize we'll see some price adjustments that make sense. In a way I'm glad I'm not desperate for a card right now, I sold my 780 Ti's back in March in anticipation for the new cards coming but between Nvidia's new price scheme and the lack of availability for the AMD cards I've decided to just stick with my consoles for now. Funny how one can get used to the lesser life when it feels like team green is screwing you over on their pricing. After all it's summer, and I'm just not that desperate for extra eye candy right now.
 
I'll shell out the extra dough for the 480 GB. But man, this is really sweet for the super-casual gamer.

I want to keep the trend going of upping my video RAM by 4x each buy. 512MB 8800 GT, 2GB 6950, and (likely) 8GB 480. Think that 5 years from now I'll be able to get a 32GB mainstream card?
 
I think AMD just needs to get rid of the RX480-4GB, the difference between that and this one is miniscule at best (specially with the overclocked models).

They should try to reach a price point of 229$ for the RX480-8GB, 179$ for the RX470-4GB, 129$ for the RX460-4GB and call it a day - NVIDIA won't have an answer and they'll have market share increase they are looking for.

Pretty sure all the hardware sites won't have any problems recommending the Polaris lineup at that price range over the competition specially given VULKAN and DX12 performance.
 
Is it me or the pricing of the 470 seems awkward? Seems to be too close to the rx 480 4gb?
 
There was a thread on OCN saying RX 460 was going to be 99 USD and RX 470 was going to be 149 USD. I don't think that anyone in that thread has a clue as to what AMD's actual suggested prices were for these cards until they were released.

So, yes, it's odd that 470/480 are so close in price. I think the RX 470 is the better card (what I think AMD actually targeted Polaris 10 to come in at) but that's a personal opinion and everyone's needs and wants are going to be different than my own.
 
In terms of value, it seems a bit different here in Canada. Both the HIS and MSI AIB 470s are selling for $279, whereas the reference 480 is selling for $335, which is a $65 difference. That seems a lot bigger difference than in the US.

P.S., pay no attention to the stupid inflated prices on hardware north of the border.
 
Algrim said:
There was a thread on OCN saying RX 460 was going to be 99 USD and RX 470 was going to be 149 USD. I don't think that anyone in that thread has a clue as to what AMD's actual suggested prices were for these cards until they were released.

So, yes, it's odd that 470/480 are so close in price. I think the RX 470 is the better card (what I think AMD actually targeted Polaris 10 to come in at) but that's a personal opinion and everyone's needs and wants are going to be different than my own.
Click to expand...
I thought there were spec releases from AMD that stated those prices.
 
funks said:
I think AMD just needs to get rid of the RX480-4GB, the difference between that and this one is miniscule at best (specially with the overclocked models).

They should try to reach a price point of 229$ for the RX480-8GB, 179$ for the RX470-4GB, 129$ for the RX460-4GB and call it a day - NVIDIA won't have an answer and they'll have market share increase they are looking for.

Pretty sure all the hardware sites won't have any problems recommending the Polaris lineup at that price range over the competition specially given VULKAN and DX12 performance.
Click to expand...

i'm starting to think the RX480 4GB was originally intended to only be used by OEM's and not released to the masses but i don't know, it would make more sense..
 
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