Following the official launch of AMD's Radeon RX 470 GPU, Sapphire has unleashed its own custom graphics card with the Nitro+ RX 470 in 4GB and 8GB factory overclocked versions. Surprisingly, the new cards are up for purchase now at various retailers at $210 for the 4GB model and $240 for the 8GB model (more on that in a bit).

The new Nitro+ RX 470 uses the same board and cooler design as the previously announced Nitro+ RX 480 which is a good thing both for Sapphire (less R&D cost) and for consumers as they get a rather beefy cooler that should allow them to push the RX 470 clocks quite a bit. The card uses the same Dual X cooler with two 95mm quick connect fans, three nickel plated copper heatpipes, and an aluminum fin stack. The card features the same black fan shroud and black and silver colored backplate. Out of the box this cooler should keep the RX 470 GPU running cooler and quieter than the RX 480, but it should also enable users to get higher clocks out of the smaller GPU (less cores means less heat and more overclocking headroom assuming you get a good chip from the silicon lottery).

Sapphire is using Black Diamond 4 chokes and a 4+1 power phase design that is driven by a single 8-pin PCI-E power connector (and up to 75W from the motherboard slot). This mirrors the design of its RX 480 sibling.

Display outputs include a single DVI, two HDMI 2.0b, and two DisplayPort 1.4 ports.

The chart below outlines the comparison between the Nitro+ RX 470 cards, RX 470 reference specifications, and the RX 480.

 

Nitro+ RX 470 4GB

 Nitro+ RX 470 8GB RX 470 Reference RX 480
Stream Processors 2048 2048 2048 2304
Compute Units 32 32 32 36
TMUs 128 128 128 144
ROPs 32 32 32 32
GPU Clock (Base) 1143 MHz 1121 MHz 926 MHz 1120 MHz
GPU Clock (Boost) 1260 MHz 1260 MHz 1206 MHz 1266 MHz
Memory 4GB GDDR5 @ 7 GHz 8GB GDDR5 @ 8 GHz 4 or 8 GB GDDR5 @ 6.6 GHz 4 or 8 GB GDDR5 @ up to 8 GHz
Memory Bus 256-bit 256-bit 256-bit 256-bit
Memory Bandwidth 224 GB/s 256 GB/s 211 GB/s 256 GB/s
TDP <225W <225W 120W 150W
GPU Polaris 10 Polaris 10 Polaris 10 Polaris 10
Price $210 $240 $180+ $200+ ($240+ for 8GB)

The RX 470 GPU is only slightly cut down from RX 480 in that it features four fewer CUs though the processor maintains the same number of ROP units and the same 256-bit memory bus. Reference clocks are 926 MHz base and 1206 MHz boost. Memory can be up to 8GB of GDDR5 with reference memory clocks of 6.6 GHz (effective). Sapphire has overclocked both the GPU and memory with the NItro+ series. The Nitro+ RX 470 with 4GB of GDDR5 is clocked at 1143 MHz base, 1260 MHz boost, and 7 GHz memory while the 8GB version has a lower base clock of 1121 but a higher memory clock of 8 GHz.

The 8GB model having a lower base overclock is a bit strange to me, but at least they are rated at the same boost clock. These specifications are very close to the RX 480 actually and with a bit of user overclocking beyond the factory overclock you could get even closer to the performance of it.

The problem with this RX 470 that gets so close to the RX 480 though is that the price is also very close to reference RX 480s! The Sapphire Nitro+ RX 470 4GB is priced at $209.99 while the Nitro+ RX 470 8GB is $239.99.

These prices put the card well into RX 480 territory though not quite up to the MSRPs of factory overclocked RX 480s (e.g. Sapphire's own Nitro+ RX 480 is $219 and $269 for 4GB and 8GB respectively). The company has a nice looking (and hopefully performing) RX 470, but it is going to be tough to choose this card over a RX 480 that has more shaders and TMUs. One advantage though is that this is a card that will just work without having to manually overclock (though where is the fun in that? heh) and it is actually available right now unlike the slew of RX 480 cards that have been launched but are consistently out of stock everywhere! If you simply can't wait for a RX 480, this might not be a bad option.

EDIT: Of course the 8GB model goes out of stock at Newegg as I write this and Amazon's prices are higher than MSRP! hah.