XFX Radeon RX 470 Video Card Review

Intro

The Radeon RX 470 is the mainstream video card in the new RX400 video card family from AMD, based on the Polaris architecture. Let’s test the 4 GiB model from XFX (RX-470P4L) and see how it performs.
The chip used in the Radeon RX 470 (codename “Ellesmere”, the same one used by the Radeon RX 480) is based on Polaris architecture. While the entry model, the Radeon RX 460, has much more modest specifications, the Radeon RX 470 is very close to the RX 480 (which is the high-end model of this family so far) in features. The number of processing cores, for example, is 2,048 in the RX 470, and 2,304 in the RX 480, with a maximum clock of 1,206 MHz and 1,266 MHz, respectively. Both are manufactured under 14 nm “FinFET” process, which guarantees higher energetic efficiency when compared to the previous generation.
The Radeon RX 470 we tested is from XFX, model RX-470P4L, with the same 2,048 cores from the reference model, but with a higher maximum clock (1,256 MHz vs. 1,206 MHz, which means 4% factory overclocking) and 4 GiB of GDDR5 memory running at 7 GHz (6% above the reference model, which runs at 6.6 GHz) with 256 bit interface, for a memory bandwidth of 224 GiB/s. So, keep in mind that other cards with different clocks may perform differently.
The tested video card has a TDP of 120 W.
It is possible to find Radeon RX 470 models with 4 GiB and 8 GiB. As we mentioned before, the tested model has 4 GiB.
Figure 1 shows the box of the Radeon RX 470 from XFX (RX-470P4L).

Figure 1: the box of the XFX Radeon RX 470

Figure 2 unveils the tested video card.

Figure 2: the XFX Radeon RX 470 (model RX-470P4L)

The MSRP for the Radeon RX 470 is USD 179. It means its direct competitor is the GeForce GTX 960 Ti. Another video card similarly priced is the GeForce GTX 1060 3 GiB, costing around USD 200.
While there are actually Radeon RX 470 models that cost USD 170 in the USA, the tested model costs USD 220.
So, in our tests, we compared the performance of the 4 GiB XFX Radeon RX 470 (RX-470P4L) to a GeForce GTX 960 from Gigabyte. We also included the Radeon RX 460 we tested recently, to have a comparison of both cards from the same family. Unfortunately, we had no GeForce GTX 1060 3 GiB to include here.
In the table below, we compare the main specs from the video cards we included in this review. Prices were researched at Newegg.com for this article.

Video card	Core clock	Turbo clock	Effective memory clock	Memory bus	Memory bandwidth	Memory	Processing cores	TDP	DirectX	Price
XFX RX-470P4L	926 MHz	1,256 MHz	7.0 GHz	256 bits	224 GB/s	4 GiB GDDR5	2,048	120 W	12	USD 220
Gigabyte G1 Gaming GeForce GTX 960	1,241 MHz	1,304 MHz	7.01 GHz	128 bits	112 GB/s	4 GiB GDDR5	1,024	120 W	12.1	USD 210
XFX Radeon RX 460	1,090 MHz	1,220 MHz	7.0 GHz	128 bit	112 GB/s	4 GiB GDDR5	896	75 W	12	USD 139

Now let’s take a closer look to the tested XFX Radeon RX 470 video card.