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AMD Radeon RX 470 and RX 460 specs confirmed

by Mark Tyson on 12 July 2016, 11:31

Tags: AMD (NYSE:AMD)

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AMD has discussed the Radeon RX 480, 470 & 460 at a special event in Australia. During the presentation (part 1, and part 2, via VideoCardz) details about the Radeon RX series of graphics cards were fleshed out a bit more than in previous communications. Thus we got to learn some additional tech specs about the upcoming high-volume targeted AMD Radeon RX 470 and RX 460 cards.

The AMD Radeon RX 470 looks much like the AMD reference RX 480, as it uses a very similar looking blower cooler. The reference design sports 4GB of GDDR5 memory while AIC partners can add up to 8GB. Like its big brother the memory is connected to a 256-bit bus, however the RX470's memory runs at an effective 7GHz, 1GHz slower.

The Polaris 10 GPU in the RX 470 is similarly trimmed for speed, down from a reference 1266MHz in the RX 480, to 1206MHz. AMD confirmed that the RX 470 has 32 Compute Units, resulting in 2048 Stream Processors, down from 2304 in the RX 480. Sources speaking to VideoCardz point to an RX 470 launch at the end of July with availability in early August. It will be priced around $150.

The AMD Radeon RX 460 uses the Polaris 11 GPU and targets eSports gamers who are after a cool and efficient graphics card. The reference design doesn't have any power connector and looks very short. As it uses GCN 4.0 architecture it offers 2.8x perf/watt performance over previous gen cards in the same segment, such as the Radeon R7 360. Furthermore the Display Port 1.3 / 1.4 HDR and encode/decode functionality improves its worth playing games and for content consumption.

AMD's 14nm Polaris 11 GPU in the RX 460 has 14 CUs, 896 Stream Processors. The reference design is equipped with 2GB of GDDR5 RAM, connected via a 128-bit bus. Clock frequency wasn't revealed by AMD but it is expected this card will provide about 2 TFLOPS of performance. This card is likely to launch alongside the RX 470 and take a square aim at the $99 market.

Last but not least, AMD's Australia presentation showed us a slightly amended GPU roadmap. As you can see in the image above, nothing has materially changed in this roadmap – it has just been amended with an explanatory note about the next big launch for AMD/RTG, the Vega GPU, equipped with HBM2 memory. The note says that Vega will provide a "high end architecture for high-end gamers".



HEXUS Forums :: 31 Comments

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Posted by darcotech - Tue 12 Jul 2016 11:34
AMD is going too slow with putting their video cards on the market.

Also I think they had to come up with RX 490 that could fight with at least GTX 1070. as of now nVidia is having high margins due to a monopoly with their high end cards.

GTX 1060 is coming soon, and there are conflict reports about its performance relative to RX 480.

Bad play from AMD.
Posted by scaryjim - Tue 12 Jul 2016 11:57
darcotech
… I think they had to come up with RX 490 that could fight with at least GTX 1070. as of now nVidia is having high margins due to a monopoly with their high end cards. …

Margin isn't everything. AMD have gone for volume, and that's going to be much better for their balance sheet in the short to medium term. They're far better off investing their limited resources in these mainstream cards that will sell in huge volume then taking a risk on a high-end launch that might not compare favourably with nvidia and cost them. That high end card will come, a bit further down the line, at a time when nvidia don't really have anything new to bring to the market, and they'll have ample opportunity to tweak the performance and efficiency of Vega. That next-tier card will come, when AMD are ready for it. The fact is the majority of the market for discrete cards don't buy £300 - £500 GPUs. They don't even buy £200 - £300 GPUs. They buy £150 and cheaper GPUs. That's a market that AMD is going to have these new products in over thge next month or two, while nvidia will have nothing new there. Expect to see stories about AMDs increasing market share over the next 3 - 6 months.

darcotech
GTX 1060 is coming soon, and there are conflict reports about its performance relative to RX 480.

The 1060 isn't going to compete with the 470 and 460, though, so isn't really relevant to this story. It's barely going to compete with the RX 480 pricewise - it's at the very top end of the projected 480 pricing, which means those performance comparisons to the reference RX 480 are going to be moot - it'll be competing with partner cards with better cooling and power delivery and higher clock speeds (and hopefully faster memory, IMNSHO). That's going to be a much closer comparison than we're currently seeing projected, and I think the picture will look very different, with the most expensive RX 480s matching the GTX 1060 at the same price, and the custom GTX 1060s being faster but also costing more.

darcotech
Bad play from AMD.

We won't know that for at least 6 months, and probably 12, as we haven't seen this whole generation play out yet. No doubt nvidia will bring a card into the < £150 space that AMD's going to take with the 470 and 460, and we know that AMD will be releasing Vega towards the end of the year to fill that high-end enthusiast space that they're currently handing to nvidia. If, come March-time next year, AMD have gained market share from nvidia and have a Vega-based card that's challenging nvidia's fastest cards, it'll have been a pretty good play.
Posted by sykobee - Tue 12 Jul 2016 12:16
Assuming that Vega is similar in architecture to Polaris, but with HBM2 memory, we can see that a later launch will also benefit from several months work on Polaris drivers.

The 470 will be a very very compelling card for the price. Especially as at 1206MHz default clock, a third party variant should O/C nicely, possibly to the level where it is on par with stock 480.

460 is comparatively weak, but the price is nice. A good card for people who mostly play old games or who are happy to play with reduced settings. Or who have an older computer that simply can't power a 470.

Vulkan and DX12 benchmarks are pretty bad for Nvidia so far, whereas AMD is gaining massively. Part of this is because Nvidia's DX11 drivers get more out of their hardware than AMD's, but the issue for Nvidia here is that AMD have more theoretical performance available that VK/DX12 can utilise. The 1060 might be the best value DX11 card, but you have to consider the future.
Posted by darcotech - Tue 12 Jul 2016 12:26
scaryjim
Margin isn't everything. AMD have gone for volume, and that's going to be much better for their balance sheet in the short to medium term. They're far better off investing their limited resources in these mainstream cards that will sell in huge volume then taking a risk on a high-end launch that might not compare favourably with nvidia and cost them. That high end card will come, a bit further down the line, at a time when nvidia don't really have anything new to bring to the market, and they'll have ample opportunity to tweak the performance and efficiency of Vega. That next-tier card will come, when AMD are ready for it. The fact is the majority of the market for discrete cards don't buy £300 - £500 GPUs. They don't even buy £200 - £300 GPUs. They buy £150 and cheaper GPUs. That's a market that AMD is going to have these new products in over thge next month or two, while nvidia will have nothing new there. Expect to see stories about AMDs increasing market share over the next 3 - 6 months.

Well, nVidia have now both volume and high margins. If AMD had compiting card, things would be quite different.

scaryjim
The 1060 isn't going to compete with the 470 and 460, though, so isn't really relevant to this story. It's barely going to compete with the RX 480 pricewise - it's at the very top end of the projected 480 pricing, which means those performance comparisons to the reference RX 480 are going to be moot - it'll be competing with partner cards with better cooling and power delivery and higher clock speeds (and hopefully faster memory, IMNSHO). That's going to be a much closer comparison than we're currently seeing projected, and I think the picture will look very different, with the most expensive RX 480s matching the GTX 1060 at the same price, and the custom GTX 1060s being faster but also costing more.

I know GTX 1060 will be more expensive for a little bit more performance, but it is on the marketing side and the way how people think, so that they can brag how they have fastest GPU in the category.
people tend to think that nVidia is so much better which informed people know is not completely true.

scaryjim
We won't know that for at least 6 months, and probably 12, as we haven't seen this whole generation play out yet. No doubt nvidia will bring a card into the < £150 space that AMD's going to take with the 470 and 460, and we know that AMD will be releasing Vega towards the end of the year to fill that high-end enthusiast space that they're currently handing to nvidia. If, come March-time next year, AMD have gained market share from nvidia and have a Vega-based card that's challenging nvidia's fastest cards, it'll have been a pretty good play.


I agree with you on that, but still AMD needs to be more aggressive, as they need to do a catch up both on CPU and GPU side.
Posted by scaryjim - Tue 12 Jul 2016 12:27
sykobee
… The 470 will be a very very compelling card for the price. Especially as at 1206MHz default clock, a third party variant should O/C nicely, possibly to the level where it is on par with stock 480. …

That's my reading of the market too, tbh. The front end snip is 11%, so an overclock to around 1400MHz would give it the necessary compute to match the 480. Main issue might be the bandwidth - I reckon the 480 is already limited and the 470 theoretically uses slower memory. But if a partner is willing to push the 470 to 1350MHz+ and clock the memory nearer to 8Gbps, you could well see it matching a stock 480…

EDIT for crosspost:

darcotech
Well, nVidia have now both volume and high margins. If AMD had compiting card, things would be quite different.

Nvidia still don't have a volume product. The GTX 1060 is going to be close to £300 on launch. That's not the volume market, that's still niche/high-end. The RX 480 is the very top end of the volume market. It's the most expensive card AMD think can address the mainstream, and they priced it at around £200. The RX 470 and RX 460 will be the genuine volume products.

I reckon the 480 probably has reasonable margins, tbh. In terms of BOM it must be identical to the RX 470 - they're based on the same GPU, and almost certainly use the same PCB and cooler. AMD reckon they can turn a profit on the RX 470 at $149. So the $199 they charge for the 4GB RX 480 is an extra $50 for exactly the same hardware. The chip just passed a couple more binning tests. That's not bad in terms of overall margin.

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