AMD Launches Next Salvo Of Mainstream Polaris GPUs: Radeon RX 470 And RX460 Are Go

AMD's next generation GPU architecture, code named Polaris, was first launched in market with the affordable but midrange performance-targeted Radeon RX 480. Dropping in at a $199 to $239 MSRP, AMD positioned the RX480 to enable compelling VR experiences and robust DX11 and DX12 gaming performance at 1440p resolutions with maximum image quality.  Today, the company has officially announced the next Polaris price tier down its product stack, with the Radeon RX 470 and Radeon RX 460 targeted at mainstream gamers at even more aggressive price points.

The new cards making up AMD's three Polaris-based amigos, drop in a notch or two performance-wise below the Radeon RX 480, starting with the Radeon RX 470, which is a spry 2048 stream processor core, 32 compute unit beast with a clock speed of 926MHz and boost to 1206MHz.

The RX 470 offers 4.9 TFLOPs of performance, versus the RX 480's 5.8 TFLOP watermark, but AMD claims the product can handle top game titles like Rise of The Tomb Raider and Battlefield Hardline at 1080p with high image quality and anti-aliasing enabled. MSRP for the new Radeon RX 470 will be set at $149 for a 4GB GDDR5 variant and $179 for an 8GB-equipped card. AMD shows performance metrics of the card running anything from Battlefield 4 to Hitman and Doom, well above 60 fps and north of 100 fps in Doom specifically, at 1080p resolutions.

The AMD Radeon RX 460 is claimed to be built for the fast twitch eSports gamer. With 14 compute units (896 stream processors), 2.2 TFLOPs of throughput and a 128-bit memory interface (versus the RX 480 and 470's 256-bit IF), AMD claims this Radeon's frame rates are north of 90 FPS in eSports franchises like Rocket League, CounterStrike, DOTA 2 and Overwatch. In short, it's not a pixel crusher but for this popular use case and demographic, it will get the job done well. Pricing is set at $99 for a 2GB GDDR5 model and $119 for a 4GB GDDR5 version. AMD also notes this variant of Polaris will eventually make its way to notebooks as well, in a mobile version the company claims will offer a performance edge over NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 960M.

The new Radeons will make their way to market in volume early next month, with the Radeon RX 470 available 8/4 and the Radeon RX 460 touching down on 8/8. You can expect the usual suspects of AMD board partner OEMs to come out with semi-custom variants of the cards as well.

As always, we'll be putting these Radeons through their paces at HotHardware.com, with detailed benchmark data and analysis, in the weeks ahead.