SAPPHIRE Nitro Radeon RX 470 4GB - Silent 1080p 60FPS gaming

SAPPHIRE debuts its new Nitro Radeon RX 470 4GB graphics card, perfect for 1080p 60FPS gaming, and it's just $179. Let's take a close look.

Published
Updated
Manufacturer: SAPPHIRE
16 minutes & 45 seconds read time
TweakTown's Rating: 92%
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The Bottom Line

SAPPHIRE's new Nitro Radeon RX 470 4GB represents one of the best value for money graphics cards you can buy, offering 1080p 60FPS performance. It has great support for DX12, VR headsets, and next-gen HDR and high-res 8K displays. But, the RX 480 is not much more expensive...

Introduction, Pricing & Availability

You know what? This job is funny. I've just finished writing my NVIDIA Titan X review, a $1200 graphics card that is an absolute monster - it's truly the ultimate graphics card, and then I dive right into a mid-range graphics card in the form of SAPPHIRE's new Nitro Radeon RX 470 4GB.

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VIEW GALLERY - 54 IMAGES

Both of these cards are on completely different opposite sides of the spectrum, and to be completely honest, I'm more excited about what AMD will do with its new Radeon RX 470 graphics card, than what NVIDIA will do with a $1200 graphics card that will only sell a few thousand units.

But Anthony, you get to test $1200 graphics cards, don't be complaining now. And you'd be right - but I'm not complaining, I find it polarizing and real - AMD's Radeon RX 470 has me excited for many different reasons. First, around 80% of the discrete GPU market sits in the $100 to $300 price range, which is exactly where AMD is targeting all of their new Polaris-based graphics cards - the Radeon RX 480, RX 470 and the upcoming RX 460.

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This market is absolutely huge, and for the gamers in this market, they don't need a new graphics card every 1-2 years. Their upgrade cycle is more like 3-5 years, and AMD has positioned itself perfectly to begin chipping away at this market. If we look at games like Overwatch, CS:GO, DOTA 2, and League of Legends where combined they have over 100 million players, AMD can hit this market, and it can hit it hard.

The reason? These games don't require crazy high-end enthusiast graphics cards, they just need to pump away at 1080p 60FPS for fluid gaming, and that's something the new Radeon RX 470 can do easily. If you want to game at 1440p, you could still use the Radeon RX 470, but you'd turn the detail down. I hear you shouting: "But, Anthony! We warned you before; you're going crazy!" - and again, I'll reiterate: these games in CS:GO and Overwatch and League of Legends don't need to have all of their graphical bells and whistles cranked to maximum to have fun.

These games are all about the gameplay, all about the fun and competitive nature - my nephew Corey plays CS:GO and Overwatch religiously, and in CS:GO he will lower the resolution far below his 2560x1440 native resolution "because he's so used to it". So many pro players do the same thing, and many of the hardcore (but not pro-CS:GO gamers) do it as well.

The reason behind CS:GO gamers lowering their native resolutions perplexes me, which is a big driving force behind this review and the stance I'm taking with the Radeon RX 470. There's a post on the /r/GlobalOffensive subreddit which asks the question: "Why do pros use low resolution", with plenty of players saying that they're used to it - one of the reasons that stuck out for me was "There are legitimate reasons even for new players to start playing 4:3 stretched. I didn't believe it initially and hated how it looked compared to Full HD, but the lower FOV can be beneficial for some as it makes far away areas seem closer and easier to scan".

Pricing & Availability

AMD has experienced the same issues as NVIDIA did when it launched its GeForce GTX 1080 and GTX 1070, with shortages galore. AMD's new Radeon RX series graphics cards are all spiking in price right now, so the entire push behind the sub $200 graphics card marketing feels deflated.

Still, the Radeon RX 470 is a sub $200 graphics card as AMD has set the price of the Radeon RX 480 4GB at $199, while the 8GB version is $239.

It's Not Just About Gaming, Either

Streaming, New Tech & Features

The gaming market is filled with so many different things these days, compared to the 90s when I was gaming like a mad teenager that didn't need Redbull to stay up all night and get my Quake fix. We have Twitch streaming where 1.7 million active broadcasters are on Twitch per month, with 100 million viewers.

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These are some pretty crazy numbers, considering Twitch has only been around for a few years, and I can still hear the echo of parents from yesteryear, and unfortunately even from today "but Johnny, you can't make money playing those damn games!".

Vulkan & DX12

While it stands, Vulkan and DX12-powered games are few and far between, but there are some exciting ones on the way. Right now, we have Hitman and DOOM, but soon we'll have Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Battlefield 1, which will cement AMD's position in the post-DX11 world I hope will soon emerge from the ashes.

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AMD has been dominating the Vulkan side of things, with improved performance in games like DOOM with up to 30% more performance. That's not a bad improvement over the OpenGL version of the game and is a free bonus to the Radeon RX series graphics cards.

Specs, Cooling Tech & A Detailed Look

Specifications

SAPPHIRE's Nitro Radeon RX 480 4GB is powered by the Polaris 10 GPU, which features 2048 stream processors on the 14nm FinFET process. The model we have here for review is the 4GB variant, but SAPPHIRE does offer an 8GB version of the Nitro Radeon RX 470. The P10 GPU is clocked at 1260MHz, while the 4GB of GDDR5 sits at 7GHz on a 256-bit memory bus with 224GB/sec of memory bandwidth.

SAPPHIRE's Nitro Cooling System

SAPPHIRE has always had industry leading cooling technology on graphics cards, but when the price is as low as $179, it would be hard to keep the Radeon RX 470 cool and quiet under load. AMD's new Polaris architecture is more efficient than ever before, and on the exciting new 14nm FinFET process, the Nitro cooling tech adds another touch of premium to a card that is sub-$200.

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The Nitro cooler features dual ball bearing fans that have 85% longer life. The two 95mm fans are dust repelling and provide better cooling that is also quieter. SAPPHIRE's new Fan Check system is impressive, which keeps an eye on your cooler's status and supports SAPPHIRE's customer service if there are any issues. Then we have Quick Connect, which in the case of your cooler breaking down, SAPPHIRE can remove, clean, and replace the fan with a single screw for easy replacement.

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SAPPHIRE's Nitro Radeon RX 470 has the same Dual-X cooler on the higher-end RX 480 model, with two 95mm fans and redesigned airflow through the new Nitro Free Flow technology, making the Nitro RX 470 a little quieter, too.

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With most reference and lower-end cooling on other graphics cards blowing hot air somewhere back into your case, the Nitro cooler pushes the hot air through the vents on the backplate, which reduces the effects of the hot air bouncing back into the case at a minimum. Considering the card costs $179, this is a cheap cooler that pushes above its own weight.

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SAPPHIRE's Intelligent Fan Control III system keeps the Nitro Radeon RX 470 completely silent during idle and light loads, without the fans spinning the card runs cool enough passively resulting in total silence from the graphics card. If you like customization of your fan profile, you can tune your start and stop temperature settings on the fans.

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We can't have a graphics card released in 2016 without some LEDs, right? SAPPHIRE has deployed Nitro Glow onto the Nitro Radeon RX 470, which can be customized through SAPPHIRE's overclocking software, TriXX 3.0 - and through hardware with a physical red button on the back of the Nitro Radeon RX 470.

Detailed Look

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I'm really loving the style that SAPPHIRE has used on the Nitro cooler, with the Nitro Radeon RX 470 looking very premium for its price. Starting with the box, which is quite plain, and I'd rather that saved money from the box that will not provide any additional performance, be put into the cooler on the card - which SAPPHIRE has done.

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The Dual-X cooler in the flesh, with the two 95mm fans keeping the Nitro Radeon RX 470 cool.

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I really love the back of the Nitro Radeon RX 470, with the silver and black theme with the design of the ventilation - something that actually keeps the card cooler, and looking great. The LED switch in the bottom left lets you tweak the lighting on the top of the card.

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SAPPHIRE knows VR is quickly becoming an awesome technology that will continue to expand and has provided 2 x HDMI ports alongside 2 x DisplayPort outputs so that you could have a TV and a VR headset connected at once. Normally there would be a single HDMI connection which puts you in a pickle when you're using your TV, and then want to use your HTC Vive or Oculus Rift headset and then disconnect your TV to use the HDMI connection required for VR gaming.

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The heat sink can be seen at the front end of the card, with a single 8-pin PCIe connector powering the Nitro Radeon RX 470.

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The top of the card has the V BIOS switch, and the SAPPHIRE logo which lights up courtesy of the LEDs.

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A closer look at the V BIOS switch.

Testing Methodology & Test Setup Configuration

Testing Method

For the purposes of testing the SAPPHIRE Nitro Radeon RX 470 4GB, and for all future graphics card reviews and articles, we've changed up our benchmark suite. I've removed Battlefield 4, GRID: Autosport, BioShock: Infinite, and Grand Theft Auto V. In their place, I've got Far Cry Primal and The Division.

I've also added in some DX12 testing, with Hitman and Ashes of the Singularity. This will provide us with enough variety, but I'm on the hunt for new benchmarks all the time. The second that Battlefield 1 drops, we'll be including that in our GPU reviews, while I'll also be keeping an eye out on the release of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.

Test System Configuration

Video Card test system

Corsair sent us over their kick-ass AX1500i PSU, which provides 1500W of power for our 3 and 4-way GPU testing that we have coming very soon.

Anthony's Video Card Test System Specifications

Benchmarks - Synthetic

3DMark Fire Strike - 1080p

3DMark Fire Strike benchmark

3DMark has been a staple benchmark for years now, all the way back to when The Matrix was released and Futuremark had bullet time inspired benchmarks. 3DMark is the perfect tool to see if your system - most important, your CPU and GPU - is performing as it should. You can search results for your GPU, to see if it falls in line with other systems based on similar hardware.

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3DMark Fire Strike Extreme - 1440p

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3DMark Fire Strike Ultra - 4K (3840x2160)

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Heaven - 1080p

Unigine Heaven benchmark

Heaven is an intensive GPU benchmark that really pushes your silicon to its limits. It's another favorite of ours as it has some great scaling for multi-GPU testing, and it's great for getting your GPU to 100% for power and noise testing.

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Heaven - 1440p

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Heaven - 4K (3840x2160)

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Benchmarks @ 1080p

1080p Benchmarks

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Far Cry Primal is a game built on the impressive Dunia Engine 2 with wide open, beautiful environments. It might look stunning, but the performance is actually quite good - but most cards will be stressed at 1440p, and especially so at 4K and beyond.

You can buy Far Cry Primal at Amazon.

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We recently changed over to Metro: Last Light Redux, with developer 4A Games making the Redux version of Metro: Last Light the 'definitive' version of the game. Redux had a fresh coat of paint on the already impressive 4A Engine, and it really pushes our GPUs to their limits.

You can buy Metro: Last Light Redux at Amazon.

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Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is one of the most graphically intensive games we test, with Monolith using their own Lithtech engine to power the game. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.

You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor at Amazon.

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Thief has been around for quite a while now, with the latest version of the first-person stealth game powered by Epic Games' older Unreal Engine 3. While it's old, it has some great multi-GPU scaling that we use to test out our various GPU setups.

You can buy Thief at Amazon.

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Tomb Raider is still such a gorgeous game, with developer Crystal Dynamics using their own 'Foundation' engine to build Lara Croft into the new world. One of the best parts about Tomb Raider is the absolutely stellar multi-GPU scaling, so this is an important test to see how well our NVIDIA GeForce SLI and AMD Radeon CrossFire setups scale.

You can buy Tomb Raider at Amazon.

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Benchmarks @ 1440p

1440p Benchmarks

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Far Cry Primal is a game built on the impressive Dunia Engine 2 with wide open, beautiful environments. It might look stunning, but the performance is actually quite good - but most cards will be stressed at 1440p, and especially so at 4K and beyond.

You can buy Far Cry Primal at Amazon.

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We recently changed over to Metro: Last Light Redux, with developer 4A Games making the Redux version of Metro: Last Light the 'definitive' version of the game. Redux had a fresh coat of paint on the already impressive 4A Engine, and it really pushes our GPUs to their limits.

You can buy Metro: Last Light Redux at Amazon.

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Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is one of the most graphically intensive games we test, with Monolith using their own Lithtech engine to power the game. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.

You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor at Amazon.

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Thief has been around for quite a while now, with the latest version of the first-person stealth game powered by Epic Games' older Unreal Engine 3. While it's old, it has some great multi-GPU scaling that we use to test out our various GPU setups.

You can buy Thief at Amazon.

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Tomb Raider is still such a gorgeous game, with developer Crystal Dynamics using their own 'Foundation' engine to build Lara Croft into the new world. One of the best parts about Tomb Raider is the absolutely stellar multi-GPU scaling, so this is an important test to see how well our NVIDIA GeForce SLI and AMD Radeon CrossFire setups scale.

You can buy Tomb Raider at Amazon.

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Benchmarks @ 4K

4K Benchmarks

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Far Cry Primal is a game built on the impressive Dunia Engine 2 with wide open, beautiful environments. It might look stunning, but the performance is actually quite good - but most cards will be stressed at 1440p, and especially so at 4K and beyond.

You can buy Far Cry Primal at Amazon.

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SAPPHIRE Nitro Radeon RX 470 4GB - Silent 1080p 60FPS gaming 103

We recently changed over to Metro: Last Light Redux, with developer 4A Games making the Redux version of Metro: Last Light the 'definitive' version of the game. Redux had a fresh coat of paint on the already impressive 4A Engine, and it really pushes our GPUs to their limits.

You can buy Metro: Last Light Redux at Amazon.

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SAPPHIRE Nitro Radeon RX 470 4GB - Silent 1080p 60FPS gaming 104

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is one of the most graphically intensive games we test, with Monolith using their own Lithtech engine to power the game. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.

You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor at Amazon.

SAPPHIRE Nitro Radeon RX 470 4GB - Silent 1080p 60FPS gaming 44
SAPPHIRE Nitro Radeon RX 470 4GB - Silent 1080p 60FPS gaming 105

Thief has been around for quite a while now, with the latest version of the first-person stealth game powered by Epic Games' older Unreal Engine 3. While it's old, it has some great multi-GPU scaling that we use to test out our various GPU setups.

You can buy Thief at Amazon.

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SAPPHIRE Nitro Radeon RX 470 4GB - Silent 1080p 60FPS gaming 106

Tomb Raider is still such a gorgeous game, with developer Crystal Dynamics using their own 'Foundation' engine to build Lara Croft into the new world. One of the best parts about Tomb Raider is the absolutely stellar multi-GPU scaling, so this is an important test to see how well our NVIDIA GeForce SLI and AMD Radeon CrossFire setups scale.

You can buy Tomb Raider at Amazon.

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Benchmarks - DX12

This is our new section for video card reviews, with DX12 and VR becoming a huge deal over the course of the last 12 months. We have just a handful of DX12 tests right now, so expect this section of the site and our reviews to grow considerably over the coming months.

The same goes for VR, where we have both the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive in house now. We will be testing VRMark for now, which is in Preview form, as well as our thoughts on VR gaming on the HTC Vive with the new SAPPHIRE Nitro Radeon RX 470 4GB graphics card.

DirectX 12 Performance

We have 3DMark Time Spy Ashes of the Singularity and Hitman with DirectX 12, with the NVIDIA Titan X stomping all over every other GPU setup I've tested. Insanity.

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Power, Temperature, & Noise

250W Under Load

AMD's new Polaris architecture is power efficient, but NVIDIA really nailed the power efficient GPU game with Pascal. NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 1070 is a much faster card, and it consumes 21% less power. But, if we compare the new SAPPHIRE Nitro Radeon RX 470 against the likes of the SAPPHIRE Nitro R9 380X 4GB, it uses 10W more.

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Temperature & Noise

These new graphics cards on the 14nm and 16nm FinFET process are getting a little hot under the collar already, but SAPPHIRE keeps its cool with the Nitro Radeon RX 470 4GB. Under 100% load in our gaming and benchmark sessions, where I may have played 10 hours or more of Overwatch testing out Lucio, the Nitro Radeon RX 470 4GB stayed at an average of 72C.

Even at 72C, the card wasn't running overly hot, nor did the Dual-X cooler have its fans spool up. I didn't play around with the fan curve at all, but you could keep the card much cooler by tweaking the fan speed up when the card gets to 50-60C.

Performance Summary & Final Thoughts

Performance Summary

The one thing I'm going to start with as I begin my performance summary of the SAPPHIRE Nitro Radeon RX 470 4GB is that I'm only going to be judging the card for its performance at 1080p. I've included 1440p and 4K results after I told myself I wouldn't include them in my review. I thought it would be good to just include them anyway, so we can see where the card falls against the 8GB variant that I will be reviewing shortly.

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The 4.9 TFLOPS of compute performance on the Radeon RX 470 is enough to chew through today's games at 1080p 60FPS, which is great considering the $200 (or so) price you should find SAPPHIRE's Nitro Radeon RX 470 4GB for. SAPPHIRE has two models of its Nitro Radeon RX 470 cards, one with 4GB of VRAM and another with 8GB. The one we have here rocks 4GB of RAM, and it's enough for 1080p and 1440p gaming without a problem.

SAPPHIRE's Nitro Radeon RX 470 4GB kills it at 1080p, with 60FPS average and some. In games like Metro: Last Light Redux, we had results of 79FPS average - which is more than enough to turn on some AA and still hit 60FPS average. Far Cry Primal was hitting 59FPS at 1080p, which is perfect - again, some detail adjustments and you could hit 60FPS and beyond on the Radeon RX 470... but an overclocked RX 470 should be able to keep up with a reference RX 480.

This is where the reality sets in - the RX 470 is priced at $179 from AMD, while the RX 480 4GB costs $199... a difference of $20. Most people are going to spend the extra $20 and get the RX 480 over the RX 470, which is why AMD really needed to have a $149 price on the RX 470. But, we can't change that - the only thing I can do is make a point that the RX 480 costs just $20 more.

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Now, when it comes to games like Overwatch and CS:GO, the Radeon RX 470 becomes an even bigger beast. These games don't require crazy amounts of GPU horsepower, so I thought I'd test Overwatch (my current gaming obsession) on the SAPPHIRE Nitro Radeon RX 470 4GB. I'm using a BenQ XL2730Z monitor, which rocks a native resolution of 2560x1440, refresh rate of 144Hz, and AMD's FreeSync technology.

I was playing Overwatch at 2560x1440 at around 100FPS average on a mix of medium/high graphics settings, and if I lowered the resolution to 1080p, I was hitting 144FPS average without an issue. This is quite the performance from a $179 graphics card, which I normally wouldn't bother with, but in games like Overwatch, CS:GO, and League of Legends, this is all you need. Spending $500+ more on GeForce GTX 1080 is absolutely useless in a game like Overwatch or CS:GO, and this is the market AMD needs to win with. The Radeon RX 470 is an amazing value for money card at 1080p, and even more so when it comes to Overwatch, League of Legends, DOTA 2, or CS:GO.

High Price: If the Radeon RX 480 wasn't already available, then the RX 470 would be a clear winner - but AMD needed to hit a lower price point. AMD should've priced the Radeon RX 470 at $149, and allowed the RX 460 to hit $99 or $109. The $179 price on the Radeon RX 470 is most likely going to land with reference-style designs, while the custom RX 470s will reach prices closer to $200. Boo.

Final Thoughts

Well, here we are, at the end of the review for our first AMD Radeon RX 470 graphics card, and you know what? I'm beyond excited about the Radeon RX 470. I benchmarked and reviewed the SAPPHIRE Nitro Radeon RX 470 4GB the day after I received it, benchmarked and reviewed NVIDIA's new Titan X graphics card which costs $1200, yet the RX 470 will have a longer lasting effect on me. Why? Because more people can afford the Radeon RX 470, and more people will buy it. It's a card that the average person can afford and not just the 1% of the market willing to spend $1200 on a graphics card.

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AMD's new Polaris architecture is power efficient, but it doesn't even match what NVIDIA can offer with cards that are magnitudes faster - so we definitely have that to ponder. SAPPHIRE's Nitro Radeon RX 470 4GB consumes around 260W (the entire system), which isn't too bad, but it's worrying when the GeForce GTX 1070 consumes less power but offers close to twice the performance in all resolutions.

But again, we're not here to compare $450+ graphics cards to $200-ish graphics cards, and that's where AMD completely buries NVIDIA. While NVIDIA might have the high-end and enthusiast markets tied up with their GTX 10 series and new Titan X graphics cards, AMD is filling the lower and mid-range markets with graphics cards like the Radeon RX 470 and RX 480.

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Gamers who might own an older graphics card and want a nice bump in performance but reduced thermals and noise, but want all the new features that AMD's next-gen Polaris architecture offers, will find the perfect solution with the Radeon RX 470. It's not quite as expensive as the RX 480 (which is another 10% at $199 for the 4GB model), but it offers near RX 480 levels of performance, at $179.

If you've been waiting a few years to upgrade and wanted to get into current and next-gen games with a bit of a GPU upgrade, spending around $200 will provide you with a card easily capable of 1080p 60FPS on every game on the market right now. If you're playing games like CS:GO and League of Legends, the RX 470 might even be too much for you, and that's where the even cheaper Radeon RX 460 will come into play. That's something that will be reviewed by yours truly in the next few days.

The End Result: SAPPHIRE's Nitro Radeon RX 470 4GB offers virtually identical performance to AMD's reference RX 480 graphics card, even with its 8GB of RAM and higher GPU frequency. It looks better, performs faster, and has a far superior cooler. The only issue is that the RX 480 isn't much more expensive, so it makes you wonder, what is the true purpose of the RX 470 at its current price?

TweakTown award
Performance (overclocking, power) 95%
Quality (build, design, cooling) 95%
General Features (display outputs, etc) 100%
Bundle, Packaging & Software 90%
Value for Money 80%
Overall 92%

The Bottom Line: SAPPHIRE's new Nitro Radeon RX 470 4GB represents one of the best value for money graphics cards you can buy, offering 1080p 60FPS performance. It has great support for DX12, VR headsets, and next-gen HDR and high-res 8K displays. But, the RX 480 is not much more expensive...

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Anthony joined the TweakTown team in 2010 and has since reviewed 100s of graphics cards. Anthony is a long time PC enthusiast with a passion of hate for games built around consoles. FPS gaming since the pre-Quake days, where you were insulted if you used a mouse to aim, he has been addicted to gaming and hardware ever since. Working in IT retail for 10 years gave him great experience with custom-built PCs. His addiction to GPU tech is unwavering and has recently taken a keen interest in artificial intelligence (AI) hardware.

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