Sapphire RX 470 OC Graphics Card Review

Final Thoughts

Price

Unfortunately, the pricing of AMD’s RX 470 hasn’t been divulged to reviewers in a swift and concise manner. Currently, the retail prices are subject to change and I’ve received some conflicting reports. Right up to the embargo being released, this section was edited to reflect new information. According to AMD, the Sapphire RX 470 OC will cost £164.99 in the UK from Overclockers UK. This isn’t a great exchange rate since US customers can acquire models starting from $179.99. Of course, the current devaluation of Sterling is probably the root cause of this and unavoidable. Custom models will rightfully cost more and I’ve been quoted a £189.99 price on the ASUS STRIX GAMING RX 470. This is perilously close to the RX 480 and I hope the pricing comes down after launch. For example, the Sapphire Nitro+ RX 480 OC 4GB is available to pre-order from Overclockers UK for £199.99 . This isn’t a basic reference model either and makes you question the RX 470’s price point.

In my opinion, the RX 470 reference model should cost no more than £154.99 to remain an enticing proposition. The small price gap to a highly-rated custom model will simply make consumers pay the extra even if the performance is similar. Furthermore, the reference model cannot uphold its maximum boost clock. Psychologically, owning the higher-end product creates a heightened sense of pride and users are more likely to display their systems with the RX 480. I’m not entirely sure how AIB partners can expect to market custom designs if they’re the same price or within £5-10 of the RX 480. Evidently, AMD hasn’t created a suitable price disparity between their two Polaris 10 chips and this is probably going to result in weak sales.

Overview

AMD’s lower-end offering in the Polaris 10 range is an unusual creation because it’s priced very similarly to the RX 480 and doesn’t seem to dramatically inhibit the performance during most gaming scenarios. Of course, there are some exceptions such as the Hitman benchmark which allowed the RX 480 to have a commanding lead. Additionally, there was a large gap when benchmarking Doom but this is mostly due to wide scope between the minimum and maximum figures. Vulkan is a challenge to benchmark and there’s a wider margin of error which has to be taken into account. Not only that, the frame-rate is already so high that you’re not going to have a worse experience by opting for the RX 470.

Ideally, I would have preferred to include the reference RX 480 as a direct comparison but this wasn’t possible due to the sample being returned after review. This means, comparing the relatively basic Sapphire model sporting the reference cooler against a highly-acclaimed custom RX 480 isn’t the fairest approach. However, these are the tools I had at my disposal and hopefully, the high-end AIB versions of the RX 470 reflect the performance in a more accurate manner. Even though the Sapphire RX 470 OC has the potential to perform close to the RX 480, the cooler lets it down. This dramatically impacts on the performance and makes it fall behind custom editions by a large degree. Thankfully, manually overclocking the graphics card appears to resolve this issue and ensures the boost clock doesn’t fluctuate.

Speaking of overclocking, the graphics card’s rudimentary cooling solution which relies on thermal pads for the memory and VRMs and as well a single heatsink doesn’t offer great headroom. I only managed to increase the core to 1250MHz while the memory remained stable at 1800MHz. This pales in comparison to the Sapphire Nitro+ RX 470 which boosted all the way up to 1350MHz. Saying that, it’s important to have realistic expectations with the reference cooler since it’s not engineered to reach massive overclocks. Unfortunately, the cooler’s single blower fan is loud under load and may become an annoyance for users who value a silent build. On a more positive note, the temperatures were low and didn’t reach alarming levels.

According to my testing, the RX 470 is designed to compete against the GTX 970 in DirectX 11 games and the GTX 980 in DirectX12 or Vulkan. This is a good feat when you consider the price point of the competing NVIDIA options. However, it’s hard to discount the small price difference to the RX 480.

Aesthetically-speaking, Sapphire have done a wonderful job of modifying AMD’s stock cooler and I’m really fond of the stylish silver and black colour theme. The backplate is another great touch and features an usual pattern which is bound to catch people’s attention. Overall, the build quality is very high for a product in this price range and should last you a long time. Perhaps, some RGB lighting would have enhanced the appearance and allowed the Radeon logo to be easily visible behind a side panel window. Nevertheless, it’s a visually-appealing product but I just wish it the cooler was able to keep the boost clock running within a low range.

Pros

• Affordable
• Eye-catching colour scheme
• Good build quality
• Impeccable packaging
• Low temperatures
• Performs well in DirectX 12 and Vulkan
• Stunning backplate

Cons

• Can become noisy under load
• Cooler isn’t able to uphold a stable boost clock
• Performs considerably worse than custom models
• RX 480 isn’t that much more expensive

“The Sapphire RX 470 OC provides a great gaming experience on a budget but the basic cooler hinders its potential by a large degree. As a result, it’s not able to remain within touching distance of the RX 480 and I’d recommend opting for a custom-cooled model instead. Nevertheless, it’s a solid choice for a cheap and cheerful gaming system.”

Sapphire RX 470 OC Graphics Card Review

Thank you Sapphire for providing us with this review sample.