AMD Teases Future Radeon RX 470 & Radeon RX 460 Cards
by Ryan Smith on June 13, 2016 3:30 PM EST
With the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo once again upon us, this week has been a flood of gaming hardware and software news. On the PC front, AMD is once again sponsoring PC Gamer’s PC Gaming Show, and while the company isn’t making quite as large of a presence this year – having just announced a bunch of tech at Computex – AMD is still attending E3 to tease a bit of hardware. Announced in a press release that’s going out at the same time as the PC Gaming Show starts, AMD is very briefly teasing the next two Polaris-based Radeon cards: the Radeon RX 470 and the Radeon RX 460.
AMD previously teased the Radeon RX 480 back at Computex, and with that card not shipping until the end of this month, the RX 470 and RX 460 are even more brief teases, essentially amounting to AMD confirming that they will exist.
As you can assume from the numbers, the RX 470 and RX 460 will slot in below the $199 RX 480. AMD’s press release specifically notes that the RX 470 is a “refined, power-efficient HD gaming” card. Whereas the RX 460 is a “a cool and efficient solution for the ultimate e-sports gaming experience.” These are no further details such as performance, specifications, or pricing, so this is a true teaser in every sense of the word.
Based on their admittedly short descriptions, it sounds like the RX 470 and RX 460 will slot in to very similar positions as the R7 370 and R7 360 respectively, as these are the same markets AMD pitched those cards at. This would make the RX 470 a budget 1080p card, while RX 460 is pitched specifically at MOBA players and the like, as those games have relatively low system requirements. Lower-end cards of this nature have also proven very popular in China, where MOBAs are especially popular and the pricing is better aligned with what most consumers can afford.
For what it’s worth, those cards launched at $149 and $109 respectively, so that may give us a ballpark idea of what to expect. Note that AMD only has two Polaris chips – the larger Polaris 10 and the smaller Polaris 11 – so it’s not clear how AMD may split these up. Historically, Radeon x60 cards have been based on chips that have been prevalent in smaller, mid-performance laptops.
On that note there’s one last passage from AMD’s press release I want to point out. In reiterating their talking point about bringing “console-like” performance to thin and light laptops, AMD’s release mentions that Polaris offers “exceptionally low power and low-z height.” Like everything else, no further details are provided, but I don’t suspect this is the last we’ve heard of this point. Having seen a very early Polaris 11 last December it’s definitely a small chip, and it sounds like AMD focused not just on package size, but thickness as well. Z-height is not something I’ve previously paid attention to, so I’m not immediately sure how thick AMD’s last-generation chips were, or whether this has been much of a problem on a competitive basis.
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Wreckage - Monday, June 13, 2016 - link
So AMD's best card will be no better than NVIDIA's low/mid range card. I mean we all saw it coming, but it's still a bit disappointing. Can't wait for the GTX 1060ddriver - Monday, June 13, 2016 - link
amd is releasing newgen midrange first which makes good business sense, and it offers great value, if you have a problem with that maybe you should get your head examinedWreckage - Monday, June 13, 2016 - link
It makes terrible business sense to have your best new card for the rest of the year to be worth so little. Trust me if they could sell the card for more they would.ddriver - Monday, June 13, 2016 - link
amd have put 14nm into better selling product range - high end GPUs are nice, but they aren't big money makers, since very few people buy themmake a distinction between "worth" and "cost" - the amd lineup is great in this aspect, as it is worth more than it costs, or if you prefer, it offers a very good value
amd is giving priority to midrange for 14nm, which means the chips will be much smaller than a high end chip would be, which means it will enjoy much better yields than nvidia's larger 14nm chips, amd are leaving high end for when the process matures and yields improve
ddriver - Monday, June 13, 2016 - link
3 of the 5 best selling GPUs are priced at ~200$The best selling GPU appears to be gtx 970, selling at 300$. The rx 480 will offer that performance than the 970, at the most selling price point - 200$, at a better power budget.
amd is attacking the best selling and most profitable market range, and the competitor's best selling and most profitable product. This time amd is acting very adequately.
fanofanand - Tuesday, June 14, 2016 - link
the GTX 970 is NOT the best selling GPU, just because it shows a higher percentage on steam certainly doesn't make it so.ddriver - Tuesday, June 14, 2016 - link
I don't care about steam, I get those figures from retailers.wumpus - Tuesday, June 14, 2016 - link
So steam players are buying their cards wholesale? I doubt AMD is concerned so much exactly who winds up selling the cards as long as they get volume. I really don't get who is paying for a $200 card and not using it for steam (try finding a motherboard+CPU that doesn't easily do all non-gaming video tasks). If AMD is actually targeting these people, I need to cancel all plans for a 480 and make sure I can at least afford a 570 (actually things are more complicated than that. I suspect the real factor is the LCD at this point.Is this largely a foreign market? The desktop market in the US is all but dead. It limps on in the form of Anandtech types who invariably build their own machines and old types who would rather buy a whole new machine (and probably a laptop) than replace a video card. Maybe China/India/elsewhere has people willing to buy such cards (I suspect Korea buys plenty of desktops as well [the better to game, my dear], but is more likely to buy the fancier nVidia cards).
The_Countess - Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - link
retailers are already a subset of GPU sales. most go to OEM's.nunya112 - Monday, June 13, 2016 - link
AMD's research here is flawed and biased. they are basing it off their own products. no one wants Fury or Fury X. So AMD looks at the numbers and in their delusional state. Ohh see more people want mid range cards.when the real answer is. no they just dont want your high end cards. ANd I love AMD. but the FURY is a FLOP its a 1440P card at best and has a bad implementation of HBM