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

[PGHammer]

Soon to be instock along side retail priced 1080's...

If either will ever be instock.

MicroCenter has retail (as in AIB) GTX 1070s and GTX 1080s in stock today - they also have FEs of both in stock (Rockville, Towson, and Fairfax).

 

[Devilpup]

Compared to what I pad for my 770 when it first came out, I feel like the options today and price points are pretty darned good. I was actually looking at picking up something in the $140 range for my a pc I threw together for my kids, but am glad I waited. I threw an A10 in there and they do fine, but I like seeing stronger cards coming in at lower price points for future planning.

Heck, makes me wonder what level I'd have to jump in on to get any noticeable performance over my current card. I usually try to stick to double the memory between refreshes, so I might be waiting for a while anyway.

 

[TheHobbyist]

Eliminating the RX480-4GB would be silly. 4GB of VRAM is in line with what the GPU is able to achieve from a horsepower perspective. The 8GB version has exactly no benefits.

 

[Mav451]

Compared to what I pad for my 770 when it first came out, I feel like the options today and price points are pretty darned good. I was actually looking at picking up something in the $140 range for my a pc I threw together for my kids, but am glad I waited. I threw an A10 in there and they do fine, but I like seeing stronger cards coming in at lower price points for future planning.

Heck, makes me wonder what level I'd have to jump in on to get any noticeable performance over my current card. I usually try to stick to double the memory between refreshes, so I might be waiting for a while anyway.

Kepler was a bit overpriced before the R9 290/290X forced the price drops honestly. (I know - because I was a 780 owner at one point)
Couple that with the node-change and yes, everything below the GTX980/390X price-line was marginalized in the last couple months.

With AMD, either the $179 470 or the $299 Fury make the most sense. The $260-$270 480 isn't quite as compelling.
Similarly, the 1070, if you can get it at or below $399, is still a reasonable perf/price.
The 1080 and really the Titan XP are enablers for decent 4K frame-rates. Don't think I'd do it without those cards though, but you're paying for the privilege.

But looking at your sig, 1080P is well-served by the AMD lineup as it is. You don't need much for 1080P/60Hz.

 

[Algrim]

I thought there were spec releases from AMD that stated those prices.

I did some searching and per Forbes 149/179 for 4/8 GB versions of the RX 470 and 99/119 for the 2/4 GB RX 460. Source: AMD Launches Next Salvo Of Mainstream Polaris GPUs: Radeon RX 470 And RX460 Are Go

So, it appears you are correct that they did announce official pricing pre-launch. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything on AMD 'letterhead' (so to speak) where AMD itself was stating MSRP.

 

[funks]

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..

AMD really needs to set the baseline here to make sure devs target these cards. Creating too many variations is a headache. 8GB for the RX480 @ 229, 4GB for the RX470 @ 179$, and 4GB for the RX460 @ 129$ is a nice spread.

Given the performance of the Sony NEO and the new Microsoft Scorpio will probably be around that of an RX470-4GB, the card should be more than capable of running Console Ports.

 

[ceraf]

Meanwhile, in Canada....$279.99 CAD, which is roughly $215 USD

 

[Tyns]

Is it me or the pricing of the 470 seems awkward? Seems to be too close to the rx 480 4gb?

I've always considered the RX 480 4GB a paper launch for marketing purposes so they can say RX 480 is $200. Now I'm beginning to think it doesn't really exist so that there's a market for the RX 470.

 

[Brent_Justice]

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.

It would be neat to see a small form factor size RX 470, that would certainly be appealing to some. Don't know if we will, but would make it more valuable. The RX 460 though seems to be very small.

 

[Brent_Justice]

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".

We have to start from square 1, that is the baseline comparison on an upgrade path. Further evaluatin always follows with regards to other interesting comparisons.

Also consider the GTX 1060 pricing, it is not anywhere near RX 470 level, sure we can compare it, but you have to consider they are worlds apart in price, so how relevant is that really?

As for the 4GB 480 it makes perfect sense for comparison... if we had one. Sometimes we can only do what we can with what we have, we don't have a 4GB 480 yet.

On to the format, thank you for your feedback. Games and Settings also changed through each review in the past as well, in fact more so since we had to find what was playable on every card in the review, and that would always differ. Games are in flux right now as the transistion to DX12 is happening. As more DX12 games come out this year, we will again add them. I am highly looking forward to Deus Ex. Therefore, games will always change, we must evolve our gaming suite when new games are released that are relevant.

 

[Brent_Justice]

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...

That is exactly what we are doing. The apples to apples graphs under the table are comparing the cards all at the exact same settings in the same game.

 

[NKD]

I think the prices should settle. Seems like a lot of these are available on day one. Pricing is all over the place unlike rx480 launch, seems like that was much better controlled and still is.

we got sapphire nitro rx480 4gb going for 219.

so the rx470 prices will eventually hover around 180-200. Anything priced over 200 is just is very conflicting with the pricing or rx 480 4gb and 8gb. So AIB probably will price it around 190ish or so. Powercolor devil is listed at 179.99. I see no reference cards and the one I see is 199.99 lol. So all over the place and alot less regulated than 480 launch it seems.

So this leaves like no place for 4gb reference rx480. I don't think we will be seeing those anymore. They are as good as gone with this pricing in place for rx470.

Edit: Looks like newegg listened to Kyle and adjusted the price to 199.99 as he said was stated by powercolor. I guess we can say goodbye to reference 480 4gb for sure. Probably oem only.

 

[Brian_B]

The price difference (or lack thereof rather) does seem extreme.

But I can also see it making some sense. If AMD doesn't have a lot of lower-binned chips for 470's, why not sell them as 480's? The way to control that is in the pricing. People on an absolute budget will still buy the 470s, but people with a bit more discretionary funds in their budget will just jump up to the 480 because it makes sense to do so, and there's no reason to artificially cut down a perfectly good 480 just for the sake of making a 470. We've seen similar pricing schemes in previous generations.

 

[Max9R]

Meanwhile, in Canada....$279.99 CAD, which is roughly $215 USD

Yep, we're getting completely screwed north of the 49th. The good old live in Canada tax...

 

[NeoGohan]

Newegg now shows this card at $199 and sold out.

 

[bugleyman]

When RX 480 4GB boards are readily available @ the MSRP of $200, I'll probably buy one. Until then, my GTX 670 will have to do.

Alternatively, I'd pay $159 for an RX 470...but $179 is just too close to the price of the RX 480.

 

[NKD]

4gb reference is gone for rx480. Simply does not make sense. You probably wont see reference 4gb card once the inventory is depleted in the retail channel. I mean asus is going to price their rx 470 strix at 209? I mean it could be considered a good price if rx480 4gb cards weren't priced at 219 for 4gb nitro. I think we might not be seeing 4gb cards for rx480 in the U.S market. Just does not make any sense for rx 470 if they are 10 more dollars.

 

[gordon152]

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..

The market is what is dictating the lack of 4GB variants of RX 480. Board partners seem to have no real desire to push it as right now they moving anything they throw out on the market. I suspect reason we're even able to get reference 480s for MSRP is due to pressure from AMD, but they seem to have seeded control outside beyond that to board partners, which make decisions based on supply/demand, not mindshare.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Why would they go all tricked out "Red Devil" on a mid to low end card. Save that shit for Vega?

 

[gachimuchi]

Had AMD released RX 470 with cheap reference cooler @ 149$ first, then some people gonna be like :
- OMG what a crap cooler, where the AIB cards ???
- Such a sh**ty OC capability, gimme AIB cards !!!

Look like it's absolutely impossible to please everyone

 

[noko]

You guys are doing some great reviews, forward looking and understanding direction of the game industry testing with DX 12 and Vulkan. Very keen insight in other words. I also like the testing of different games on the reviews with the same high quality standards for actual game play. This makes each review unique, more informative and exciting.

I don't think some here really realize that a price difference of $20 in this range is actually significant - 10% savings is 10% savings which can allow purchase of a game or something else. Also this is a custom card with all the trimmings and options compared to a reference 4gb, noisier RX 480. I am not certain the performance increase on the RX 480 in how it throttles at stock will be significantly faster than an OC RX 470 if at all. Anyways I hope to see more 4gb 480's available at $199 to drive that performance level sub $200.

I do think PowerColor has a winner here and hope they do well with them.

 

[NKD]

I think MSI AIB 470 seems to be the one to get. Quiet, cool and overcloks pretty damn good. They seem to have the best performance/noice/temp ration of both rx480 and rx470.

 

[FrgMstr]

4gb reference is gone for rx480. Simply does not make sense. You probably wont see reference 4gb card once the inventory is depleted in the retail channel. I mean asus is going to price their rx 470 strix at 209? I mean it could be considered a good price if rx480 4gb cards weren't priced at 219 for 4gb nitro. I think we might not be seeing 4gb cards for rx480 in the U.S market. Just does not make any sense for rx 470 if they are 10 more dollars.

A Sapphire 4GB card was in stock and still is when we published this review for $209 at Newegg. SAPPHIRE Radeon RX 470 100407-4GOCL 4GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card - Newegg.com Now down to $199.

The market is what is dictating the lack of 4GB variants of RX 480. Board partners seem to have no real desire to push it as right now they moving anything they throw out on the market. I suspect reason we're even able to get reference 480s for MSRP is due to pressure from AMD, but they seem to have seeded control outside beyond that to board partners, which make decisions based on supply/demand, not mindshare.

Collapse of the product stack like I said several months ago. The AIBs are going to be squeezed so hard on models they will have to make decisions on what they want to put on the shelves, and when the "low priced" 480 8GB cards show up, and the "high priced" 470 4GB cards show up, where does the 480 4GB go? Still to this day at Best Buy, the uninformed consumer will buy the lesser GPU because it has more VRAM noted on the box. Fact.

Why would they go all tricked out "Red Devil" on a mid to low end card. Save that shit for Vega?

Haha! You have so much more trust in AMD than its partners do. What is the Red only partner supposed to do right now? Marketing is all they have.

Had AMD released RX 470 with reference cooler @ 149$ first, then some people gonna be like :
- OMG what a crap cooler, where the AIB cards ???
- Such a sh**ty OC capability, gimme AIB cards !!!

Some people always be like something. 1% of the 470 customers will actually be educated on what they are buying.

You guys are doing some great reviews, forward looking and understanding direction of the game industry testing with DX 12 and Vulkan. Very keen insight in other words.

Thank you for the kinds words.

I don't think some here really realize that a price difference of $20 in this range is actually significant

I would suggest you are very correct, that is why we moved from Silver to Gold when we saw it for sale at $180...back to $200 now though.

 

[harmattan]

470 looks like a terrific option for 1080p, and basically obliterates the prior cards in this segment. $179 does come close to stock 480 4GB, but you need to compare this vs. a high-end AIB 480 really since the cooling is so good. Considering that, and it's really $179 vs. $250.

Big fan of Powercolor, been doing some really different stuff lately with their Devil line-up and water-cooled stuff. Have had some great customer service with them as well in the past. Hope they come out with a dual-GPU 470 and/or 480 Devil version(s).

 

[Gnimble]

Argh... wished I waited and read this review before buying the GTX 960 for $190 last week...

 

[fuzzylogik]

oof? can you return it?

 

[shspvr]

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..

First nobody has any RX 480 in stock not 4GB nor the 8GB and a few that out there have been price gouging the card so high your better off just order a 1070 as there no way in hell I going pay $400 for RX 480 in fact nobody has any GTX 1060 in stock.

 

[draknon]

Now that the price has been put back to the MSRP of $199 is the score going to be changed back to Silver?

I find it to be odd that the scores would be tied to a retailers temporary sale price instead of a MSRP.

 

[iQuasarLV]

Ever since I lost a GTX680 and GTX770 down to a 660 Ti. I now wonder if this card is the way to go, or just pony up the $60 to get an AIB 480 8G. Decisions.

 

[NKD]

First nobody has any RX 480 in stock not 4GB nor the 8GB and a few that out there have been price gouging the card so high your better off just order a 1070 as there no way in hell I going pay $400 for RX 480 in fact nobody has any GTX 1060 in stock.

Sign up at nowinstockbro! I have gotten over a dozen notifications of 8gb rx480 cards being in stock in the last week. They go out in mins. Yesterday alone I had about 3-4. That price gouging you are talking about is not the retailers. Som people reselling their stuff. not anyone's fault you are not right informed.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Sign up at nowinstockbro! I have gotten over a dozen notifications of 8gb rx480 cards being in stock. They go out in mins. Yesterday alone I had about 3-4

Wow, this is amazing to me. Who knew these low end cards were so popular? I was under the impression only the top end stuff tended to stay out of stock for any amount of time after launch, because the market is smaller and everyone wants it immediately.

 

[TroubleMagnet]

The mid range and low end cards are where the volume is, we just get a skewed view here at [H] because so many of us are early adoptors with the cash to upgrade often and the desire to do things like VR and 4K gaming. There are a ton of people happily playing on 1080p monitors that only upgrade their cards when they get some game that plays slow. The RX480 8GB will last some people 3+ years I bet as you'll be able to play most games with all the settings at max at 1080p just fine. However a lot of them will save the ~$60 and get a RX470 and turn down the settings to high from very high and still be happy since then they can buy one or two extra games with the cash they saved from buying the cheaper card.

I bet the Red Devil branding and box are will get them a bunch of business at Best Buy and Frys. Seriously, go hang out and listen to the people looking at card and the employees, rarely a clue to be found about what cards are a good value.

 

[daglesj]

Pricing for the 470 and 480 are crazy in the UK. So much price overlap it makes having both cards with 4GB/8GB combos in circulation rather silly. Make the 470 purely 4GB at one small price range and the 480 in 8GB only in another.

 

[shspvr]

Sign up at nowinstockbro! I have gotten over a dozen notifications of 8gb rx480 cards being in stock in the last week. They go out in mins. Yesterday alone I had about 3-4. That price gouging you are talking about is not the retailers. Som people reselling their stuff. not anyone's fault you are not right informed.

You should look on Newegg I know there not reg stores hell even on EBay there thru the roof there to
what URL to nowinstockbro! or did mean nowinstock as in nowinstock.net and I ready have Stock Alerts! at Newegg and

 

[Pieter3dnow]

Surprised that [H] gave it a gold award. That cooler looks great wondering why they did not use it on the RX 480 ...

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

The mid range and low end cards are where the volume is, we just get a skewed view here at [H] because so many of us are early adoptors with the cash to upgrade often and the desire to do things like VR and 4K gaming. There are a ton of people happily playing on 1080p monitors that only upgrade their cards when they get some game that plays slow. The RX480 8GB will last some people 3+ years I bet as you'll be able to play most games with all the settings at max at 1080p just fine. However a lot of them will save the ~$60 and get a RX470 and turn down the settings to high from very high and still be happy since then they can buy one or two extra games with the cash they saved from buying the cheaper card.

I bet the Red Devil branding and box are will get them a bunch of business at Best Buy and Frys. Seriously, go hang out and listen to the people looking at card and the employees, rarely a clue to be found about what cards are a good value.

Volume, yes. You just usually don't see them sold out a month after launch day very often, because usually there is more volume and less excitement than surrounding top end releases.


You know, I think the 480 and 470 are decent little cards for basic games. I briefly considered something in this price class last year when I built my stepsons rig based mostly off of my spare parts. Thing is, I was just upgrading from my 2013 Titan 6GB in my box, and all thing considered, after I considered sellers fees, paypal fees, shipping costs (for both new and old card) it wound up costing about the same to just give him the Titan than to sell it and buy a lower end card, so I did.

He's probably one of a very few 8 year olds using a Titan on their own rig to play Minecraft

 

[Ieldra]

At $180 this kicks the RX480 in the nuts.

 

[FrgMstr]

Fair enough, but at least you'd think they would use the "Red Devil" marketing on the fastest thing AMD current has available, not the even slower 470...

So with that logic, ASUS should only put "Strix" branding on the 1080?

 

[Hazard]

Good point, no, but the 470 does seem a little low in comparative performance to be adorned with cool performance marketing.

At this point it's sortof like putting racing stripes on a standard family car. I know some people are into that sort of thing, but...

That being said, the RX 470 is in the same class as where I'd guess the next GTX 1050 will be, and there was a Strix version of the 950, so...

Bling to attracted the massive mainstream gamer. Why not? A couple of bucks for a fancy cooler and slap on a "hardcore" name is all part of marketing to that demographic.

 

[Archaea]

At $180 this kicks the RX480 in the nuts.

How? The RX480 is $200 at MSRP for 4GB.