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MSI RX 470 Gaming X 8G Review

I have spent the last month benchmarking a selection of AMD and NVIDIA cards with the latest drivers on one of our new 6700k test beds. We are using the AMD Crimson Edition Display Driver, Version 16.8.1 and Nvidia ForceWare 368.81 driver.

We list each resolution test for every game on its own page – meaning if you are just interested in 1440p resolutions for instance, you can skip the other resolutions without effort. If you want to read the whole review and find all the page changes annoying – click on our menu system top right of these pages, and head to ’30. view all pages’.

We are aware the RX 470 is not designed for Ultra HD 4k gaming, but we include the results out of interest – comparing against 4GB versions of the same hardware when more texture memory is advantageous. There seems little point for an 8GB RX470 in the grand scheme of things however including some tests seems the best road to test.

We are using a custom Titan Bayonet system supplied by Overclockers UK as the basis of our test system today. Read more on this system over HERE.

Case: Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ATX Mid Tower
Processor: Intel 6700K @ 4.4ghz
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) @ 3000mhz
Motherboard: ASUS Z170-E DDR4 ATX Motherboard
Power Supply: Super Flower Leadex 850W Gold Certified
Software: Microsoft Windows 10 64 Bit
SSD: Samsung 250GB 850 EVO
HDD: Seagate 1TB 7,200 rpm 64MB Cache.

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If you want to purchase this system yourself head to THIS page on OCUK.

Graphics cards:

MSI RX 470 Gaming X 8G – (1,254 mhz core / 1,675 mhz (6.7Gbps effective) memory)

Comparison Cards on test:

Sapphire RX 470 Nitro + OC 4GB (1,260 mhz core / 1750 mhz (7 Gbps effective) memory)
Asus RX 470 Strix Gaming OC Aura RGB – (1,270 mhz core / 1650 mhz (6.6Gbps effective) memory)
Asus RX 480 Strix Gaming OC AURA RGB – (1,330mhz core / 2,000 (8Gbps effective) memory)
Sapphire RX 480 Nitro + OC 8GB – (1,342mhz core / 2,000 mhz (8Gbps effective) memory)
Sapphire RX 480 Nitro + OC 4GB – (1,306mhz core / 1,750 mhz (8Gbps effective) memory)
MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G RGB SLI– (1,683mhz core / 1,823 mhz boost / 5000 mhz memory)
Palit GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition –
(1,747mhz core / 1,886mhz boost / 5256 mhz memory)
MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G RGB – OC Mode
(1,709mhz core / 1,849mhz boost / 5,056 mhz memory)
Gigabyte GTX 1080 G1 Gaming RGB
(1721 mhz core / 1860 mhz boost / 5,005 mhz memory)
Nvidia GTX 1080 Founders Edition (1607mhz core/ 1733mhz boost / 5,005 mhz memory)
Nvidia GTX 1070 Founders Edition (1506mhz core/ 1683mhz boost / 4,006 mhz memory)
Sapphire R9 390 Nitro 8GB (Rev 2 w/ backplate). (1040mhz core / 1,500 mhz memory)
Sapphire R9 295X2 (1,018 mhz core / 1,250mhz memory)
AMD R9 Fury X
(1,050 mhz core / 500 mhz memory)
AMD R9 Nano (1,000mhz core / 500 mhz memory)
Gigabyte GTX980 Ti XTREME Gaming (1,216 mhz core / 1800mhz memory)
Nvidia GTX Titan Z
(706 mhz core / 1,753 mhz memory)
Nvidia GTX Titan X (1,000 mhz core / 1,753 mhz memory)
Asus GTX980 Strix (1,178 mhz core / 1,753 mhz memory)
Nvidia GTX980 Ti (1,000 mhz core / 1,753 mhz memory)
Sapphire R9 390X Tri-X 8GB (1,055 mhz core / 1,500 mhz memory)
Sapphire R9 390 Nitro 8GB (1,010 mhz core / 1,500 mhz memory)

Software:
Windows 10 64 bit
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
3DMark 11
3DMark
Fraps Professional
Steam Client
FurMark

Games:
Ashes Of the Singularity
Dirt Rally
Hitman 2016
Middle Earth: Shadow Of Mordor
Rise Of the Tomb Raider
Grand Theft Auto 5
Metro Last Light Redux

Additional equipment:
Leica S-E (006) medium format camera with 70mm F2.5 and 100mm F2 Leica lens.

We perform under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests games across five closely matched runs and then average out the results to get an accurate median figure. If we use scripted benchmarks, they are mentioned on the relevant page.

Game descriptions edited with courtesy from Wikipedia.

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8 comments

  1. I want to see an RX 480 XFire and MultiGPU review… Even an RX470 XFire review would be great… Zen should make it go fast…

  2. <<tw. ★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★::::::!ir266m:….,….

  3. Andrew J Duxbury

    I think you absolutely hit the nail on the head, rx470 4gb, and rx480 8gb as the only choices would have made the whole thing better and clearer for everyone. Even their own sales!

  4. 8gb pointless on a 470
    wow thats just so wrong
    several games already take more than 4gb.
    what’s pointless is 4gb on a 480

  5. Sashofan Sashofanov

    this is not about games, rx470 have weak muscles to carry out 8gb

  6. “this is not about games”? What do you mean with that?

    You essentially always pay for GPU power. A 8GB 470 might have too much VRAM, which is useless as worstcase, yet a 4GB 480 will have unspent GPU power when you have to reduce the textures cuz of VRAM. Increasing texture quality is only limited by VRAM and has no effect on the GPU-limited framerate.
    A surplus on VRAM is always better than a surplus of GPU power.

  7. Does anybody knows if this card really support 5 independent screens at once?
    Thanx in advance

  8. RX470 is actually have same design like RX480. I’ve the Sapphire Nitro RX470 8GB OC with default clock @1260 MHz that reach 5.1 TeraFlops which is same like the stock reference RX480.