AMD just revealed the Radeon RX 470 and Radeon RX 460 cards during E3 2016 this week, the former billed for “power-efficient HD gaming” and the latter for the “ultimate e-sports gaming experience.” Unfortunately, we really don’t know the hardware details of these two cards, or the previously-announced Radeon RX 480 for that matter, but a leaked press kit now gives us some indication on how the RX 470 will perform based on AMD’s own benchmarks.
According to the leaked press deck, the company used a test bench featuring an Intel i7-5960X processor clocked at 3GHz, 16GB of system memory, AMD software driver 16.20, and Windows 10. In this bench AMD pitted the upcoming Radeon RX 470 with the Radeon R9 270X. Thus, in 3DMark’s Fire Strike benchmark using the 1080p preset, the RX 470 scored a 9,090, and the R9 270X scored a 5,787.
The company also benchmarked the cards in Ashes of the Singularity set on 1080p High. AMD saw that the RX 470 managed 46 frames per second and the R9 270X managed only 28.1 frames per second. In Hitman with the settings at 1080p High, the RX 470 cranked out 60 frames per second and the R9 270X only managed 27.6 frames per second. Overwatch in 1080p High mode produced 121 frames per second and 76 frames per second, respectively.
In the overall scheme of things, a single RX 470 card sits low in the 3DMark Fire Strike benchmark totem pole based on the default settings (DirectX 11, Windows 10 x64). As shown in a chart here, the GeForce GTX 1070 scores a massive 19,370 while the GTX 1070 scores an equally impressive 16,229. The RX 470, with its score of 9,090, actually falls behind the Radeon R9 290 in this benchmark, along with the GeForce GTX Titan and the GeForce GTX 970.
Next, AMD Performance Labs pitted the Radeon RX 480 8GB card against the R9 380 on June 10, 2016. The test bed consisted of an Intel i7-5960X processor, 16GB of DDR4 system memory clocked at 2,666MHz, a Gigabyte X99-UD4 motherboard, the Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.1.1 driver suite, and a 64-bit version of Windows 10. According to AMD, the RX 480 card scored a 6.3 in the Steam VR Performance Test whereas the R9 380 only scored a 3.6.
Finally, the press pack mentions an AMD Radeon RX 480M that’s based on the Polaris 11 architecture. This chip was tested in a bench consisting of an Intel Core i7-4600M processor, 8GB of system memory, and AMD Radeon driver 16.20. The test showed that the Radeon RX 480M with 16 compute units and a 35-watt thermal envelope scored 7,200 and 4,070 in two different games. The Radeon R9 M280X with 14 compute units and an 82-watt thermal envelope scored 5,700 and 3,500 in the same two games.
AMD is shooting for more performance-per-watt in its new Radeon RX Series of graphics cards, offering a great visual experience on the cheap. The company doesn’t seem to be aiming at pricetags over $300, which is good news for PC gamers wanting a taste of VR and/or looking to upgrade their current graphics cards but have a set budget.
The first card, the Radeon RX 480, will cost a mere $200 for the 4GB model when it ships on June 29. Thus, with that date right around the corner, we expect to see more hardware details on this new Radeon RX series in the coming weeks.
