A Closer Look
From a visual standpoint, Sapphire’s latest cooling hardware is sublime and revolves around an elegant design strategy. Instead of trying to merge far too many colours together in an unattractive fashion, Sapphire decided to keep things simple and uphold the notion that less is more. This neutral colour scheme isn’t overbearing and should compliment a wide range of gaming systems sporting contrasting colour schemes.
I’m particularly fond of the small indentations scattered across the matte gunmetal shroud. This finish resists finger marks and dust built-up rather well and captures people’s attention. It’s probably the best looking graphics card I’ve seen for a long time and evokes a premium feel.
On a more technical note, the Sapphire Nitro+ RX 470 OC has a custom PCB, dense fin array aluminium heatsink and nickel plated copper heat-pipes. Also, high-quality Black Diamond Chokes 4 have been utilised which reduce coil temperatures by 15% compared to the previous version. Evidently, Sapphire haven’t made any cutbacks and bundled the best possible selection of components.
While the front section looks absolutely breathtaking, the backplate is the real showpiece. In my opinion, this is the best-looking backplate ever created and I particularly love the gorgeous colour coordination and sleek lines. Even the Nitro branding adds to the backplate’s aesthetic appeal and everything is beautifully balanced.
The latest version of Sapphire’s cooling fans offers 85% longer lifespan than the previous generation. Even more impressive, these 95mm dual bearing fans are 10% quieter and can easily be replaced just in case any technical problems arise. Replacing the fans is a rudimentary process and involves unscrewing a single screw which holds them firmly in position. Sapphire selected this method to prevent users from accidentally removing the fans when handling the graphics card. It’s also possible that some users might find it too satisfying when using a clicking mechanism and remove the fans on a regular basis without a logical reason.
The ability to remove the fans improves RMA times and simplifies the process. Now, consumers can request replacement fans and not have to send the GPU to a repair centre at their cost. This makes sense because the fans are the most likely element to fail over time. Not only that, an upcoming update to Sapphire’s overclocking utility will also allow the end-user to receive help and perform fan diagnostics. Removing the fans is handy to eliminate dust build-up which has the potential to impact on fan efficiency. Thankfully, Sapphire’s fan removal system is brilliant and provides the end-user with greater flexibility.
Unlike the Sapphire reference model, an 8-pin PCI-E connector has been used to enhance the overclocking headroom and ensure the GPU has enough power in extreme usage scenarios. Also, notice the side positioning similar to the R9 Nano which is fairly unusual but another excellent addition. From this image, we can see the thick custom PCB and aluminium heatsink.
In a similar vein to the Sapphire Nitro+ RX 480 OC, the graphics card has a BIOS switch featuring two modes. The silent profile is designed for those who value noise at the expense of performance while the higher-end BIOS features an impressive 1260MHz clock. In contrast to many of their competitors, Sapphire focused on a manual BIOS switch instead of a software implementation. I prefer this because it’s not a resource hog and adds less bloatware to your gaming PC.
The company’s new Nitro Glow technology incorporates a wide range of RGB lighting options including static, rainbow shift, change colour by fan speed, and PCB temperature. Of course, RGB lighting isn’t to everyone’s tastes and it’s possible to disable the illumination using an onboard switch. By default, the graphics card employs a static blue colour which fits in with Sapphire’s theme. The lighting revolves around Sapphire’s name and isn’t too ostentatious. Please note, an upcoming revision to Sapphire’s TriXX 3.0 software will include lighting customization upon release.
The rear I/O contains two DisplayPort 1.4, a dual-link DVI-D and two HDMI 2.0b. AMD’s latest architecture supports HDR and 4K h.265 encode/decode. As you can see from the photo below, Sapphire included optimised air vents in the I/O section to maximise airflow and in turn, reduce temperatures.
Nice card.
Yeah, it’s a really great card.
Nice review! The performance gap between 470 and 480 is not more than 10%, but 470 is 30% cheaper than the 480 and overclocked 470 come close the 480. 470 got great value for money. Powercooler 470 seems like much better than the Sapphire Nitro.
Hey, thank you for the kind words. Yeah, there’s not a lot in it performance wise, and I think it will be a very solid option once the price comes down a little bit.
The price difference of the Sapphire Nitro+ 4GB RX480 to RX470 is $20, which is 10%.
Impressive Vulkan results versus the 1060. Let’s hope future Vulkan and DX12 games perform similarly.
Great review once again.
Thank you!
Anytime. This card makes my decision hard
Go with a 470 4gb, especially at the current price level.. then add another in a few months… give it a friend to play with!
Will see. Can’t wait to put my R9 270X in deserved retirement. For CF 8 gig looks better.
This card make 480 4GB obsolete , there is not much performance difference in them,great review looking forward when vega comes out.
Thanks 🙂
If the non-reference 4GB RX480s were in stock, they would be worth the $20 premium for the extra shaders and CUs. I want the Sapphire Nitro+ 4G RX480 for $230, but out of stock….However the RX470 is in stock.
Yes they are in stock , but some versions are terrible priced.
Yes, some are in stock, but at terrible prices as you said. After 2 days of looking for a 480 8gb (or even a 4gb) at a decent price, but was let down everywhere I went. I’m not paying $300+ for this card. I finally “settled” for a 470 4Gb for $211 on Amazon. ASUS STRIX OC. I nearly gave up, but I’ve had a lowly GT 720 in my PC for a year now. I built backwards, but wanted a stable foundation to work with first (budget). Now I want to game.
Dude….. “Never Settle !”
There’s not enough of a performance difference to justify another $70. I paid $189 for a 470 with what, 4 less shaders? than the $270 needed for the 480. This 470 plays every game I throw at it with ultra+ settings. I feel just fine about the choice. And I’ve had it for a while now, I didn’t have to wait. I’m not going to be a victim of price gouging. The 470’s O.C. nicely. I run mine at 1350 GPU clock / 1850 mem clk. and game on one monitor with a movie on the other, and I barely hit 68°. There’s still plenty of room. Same clocks and mem as the 480.
can you guys tell me should i go for it or gtx 1060?? i can buy this radeon card with 8 gb
wow
Looks like the Nitro got a very decent amount of overclocking headroom, and the Sapphire cooling solution is very impressive too. Thanks for the solid review.
AMD + Sapphire = True fire performance 🙂
Hi , and this can be the case even if buy my card hey ? i dont need
to stay ina certain part of the world to be special? Im just asking… i
hate to buy something and then its a failure. I have 4 cards i cant
decide on and so many mixed reviews. There is a Gigabyte gaming graphics card and an ASUS Strix edition
card that is on my list also…. but something tells me the Saphire
Nitro 4GB is just fine… am i right ?
I have my card pushed to 1400mhz on the core and 2200 on the memory at stock voltages. I guess I won the lottery 🙂
Hi , and this can be the case even if buy my card hey ? i dont need to stay ina certain part of the world to be special? Im just asking… i hate to buy something and then its a failure. I have 4 cards i cant decide on and so many mixed reviews. There is a Gigabyte and an ASUS card that is on my list also…. but something tells me the Saphire Nitro 4GB is just fine… am i right ?
The sapphire is in my opinion the best 470 you can buy. After overclocking It runs hotter and may be a little bit louder, but it will crush 1080p gaming. As for the gigabyte one, I saw a review on a gigabyte rx480 and it was pretty bad compared to other brands. The Asus will run much cooler and quieter as the core clock, power draw limit(only a 6 pin pcie) and throttling are heavily controlled by Asus to keep it at around 60-65c. Ultimately I’ll say it like this, if you want a top preforming card and don’t care about heat then get the sapphire, I can honestly say I love it, if you want a cool and quiet card but are willing to Sacramento performance then go for Asus. Also sapphire has a damn sexy back plate whereas Asus does not have one at all. On the topic of how your card will oc, I have no clue. I think it’s honestly just luck, I don’t think it matters where in the world you live.
i just bought this GPUbut it’s 8GB instead. It’s great! gives excellent performance. I can play watch dogs 2 on high settings 1080p 60+FPS.
it’s very hot on stock config, i dont even touch the OC and bios switch
Is this card 6 or 8 pin power and does this make a difference? i am just asking since some guy on a forum once told me he would straiught up go for PowerCOlor brand over the HIS brand because it has an 8pin connector rather than a 6pin connector.
This card has an 8pin. Power draw on mine doesn’t go over ~135w under full load when OCed to 1400mhz (no overvolt just 50% power limit). Which is 20watts less than what the 6 pin can deliver (75w through pcie and 75 through 6pin) so the 225w of total available power that you have with the 8 pin is arguably unnecessary. But my best guess is that the 8pin will give it better stability when overclocked and just in case you sometime manage to hit 150w while over volting then you have the extra power.