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AMD Radeon R9 M470X

AMD Radeon R9 M470X in 2025: Is This Graphics Card Worth Considering?

Introduction

Although the AMD Radeon R9 M470X was released nearly a decade ago, it is still found in budget builds and laptops. By 2025, this model is no longer relevant for modern tasks, but it can be considered a temporary solution for basic needs. Let’s explore who and why might find this GPU useful today.

1. Architecture and Key Features

Architecture: The R9 M470X is based on the GCN (Graphics Core Next) 3rd generation microarchitecture, which at the time offered a good balance between performance and energy efficiency.

Manufacturing Process: The card is built on a 28 nm manufacturing process, which appears outdated by today's standards (5-6 nm for 2025 flagship models). This limits its capabilities in energy efficiency and transistor density.

Unique Features:

- Support for AMD FidelityFX (contrast adaptive sharpening, detail enhancement).

- No hardware acceleration for ray tracing (RT cores) or DLSS equivalents.

- FreeSync technology for synchronizing frame rates with the monitor.

2. Memory: Type, Size, and Performance

Type and Size: The R9 M470X uses GDDR5 with a capacity of 4 GB. For 2025, this is insufficient even for medium settings in modern games.

Bandwidth: The 128-bit memory bus provides a bandwidth of 96 GB/s. In comparison, even budget cards in 2025 (like the AMD RX 7600) offer 224 GB/s thanks to GDDR6 and a 128-bit bus.

Impact on Performance: The limited amount and speed of memory create a bottleneck in games with high-detailed textures (e.g., _Horizon Forbidden West_ or _Starfield_). At 1080p, it is still possible to achieve 30-40 FPS on low settings, but at 1440p and 4K, the card will struggle.

3. Gaming Performance

FPS Examples (on low settings, 1080p):

- _Cyberpunk 2077_: 22–28 FPS (without ray tracing).

- _Elden Ring_: 30–35 FPS.

- _Fortnite_: 45–50 FPS (with FSR 1.0 on “Performance”).

- _CS2_: 60–70 FPS.

Supported Resolutions:

- 1080p: Acceptable for less demanding titles.

- 1440p and 4K: Not recommended due to lack of power and memory.

Ray Tracing: The absence of hardware support makes RT effects unavailable. Software emulation (such as through Proton on Linux) reduces FPS to unacceptable levels.

4. Professional Tasks

Video Editing: In basic editors (DaVinci Resolve, Premiere Pro), the card can handle rendering at resolutions up to 1080p, but for 4K or effects, a more modern GPU will be required.

3D Modeling: Programs like Blender or Maya will operate slowly due to limited computational power. Support for OpenCL exists, but its performance is 2-3 times lower than that of modern Radeon RX 7000 or NVIDIA RTX 4000.

Scientific Calculations: Not suitable for serious tasks. There are no NVIDIA CUDA cores, and AMD's OpenCL implementation is outdated.

5. Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation

TDP: 75–100 W. This is acceptable for laptop versions, but requires thoughtful cooling in desktops.

Cooling Recommendations:

- At least 2-3 fans for ventilation in the case.

- For desktop versions, coolers with a heatsink (e.g., Arctic Accelero Mono) are suitable.

Cases: The minimum recommended size is Micro-ATX with good airflow.

6. Comparison with Competitors

Analogues from 2016-2017:

- NVIDIA GTX 960M: Comparable in performance but benefits from more stable drivers.

- AMD RX 460: Better optimized for DirectX 12.

Modern Budget Alternatives (2025):

- Intel Arc A580 (~$180): Supports ray tracing, 8 GB GDDR6.

- AMD RX 7600 (~$250): 8 GB GDDR6, FSR 3.0, three times higher performance.

7. Practical Tips

Power Supply: A 400 W PSU is sufficient (e.g., be quiet! System Power 10).

Compatibility:

- PCIe 3.0 x8 interface.

- Not compatible with new PCIe 5.0 standards without adapters.

Drivers: Official support from AMD ended in 2022. Enthusiast communities release unofficial updates, but stability is not guaranteed.

8. Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Low price (new units, if available, are $80–100).

- Supports FreeSync.

- Suitable for older games and office tasks.

Cons:

- No ray tracing or DLSS/FSR 3.0.

- High power consumption for its performance.

- Limited driver support.

9. Final Conclusion: Who is the R9 M470X Suitable For?

This graphics card is an option for:

1. Owners of older PCs looking to replace a burnt-out GPU without a full upgrade.

2. Users playing less demanding titles (indie games, classics from the 2010s).

3. Office systems where 3D graphics are not required.

However, for modern gaming, 4K editing, or working with neural networks, the R9 M470X is hopelessly outdated. In 2025, it is wiser to add $100–150 and select a new budget model that supports current technologies.

If you find the R9 M470X priced below $50 (used), it could be a decent temporary option. But remember: the future belongs to GPUs with FSR 3.0, AI acceleration, and energy efficiency.

Basic

Label Name

AMD

Platform

Mobile

Launch Date

May 2016

Model Name

Radeon R9 M470X

Generation

Gem System

Base Clock

1000MHz

Boost Clock

1100MHz

Bus Interface

PCIe 3.0 x16

Transistors

2,080 million

Compute Units

TMUs

Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) serve as components of the GPU, which are capable of rotating, scaling, and distorting binary images, and then placing them as textures onto any plane of a given 3D model. This process is called texture mapping.

Foundry

TSMC

Process Size

28 nm

Architecture

GCN 2.0

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

4GB

Memory Type

GDDR5

Memory Bus

The memory bus width refers to the number of bits of data that the video memory can transfer within a single clock cycle. The larger the bus width, the greater the amount of data that can be transmitted instantaneously, making it one of the crucial parameters of video memory. The memory bandwidth is calculated as: Memory Bandwidth = Memory Frequency x Memory Bus Width / 8. Therefore, when the memory frequencies are similar, the memory bus width will determine the size of the memory bandwidth.

128bit

Memory Clock

1200MHz

Bandwidth

Memory bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate between the graphics chip and the video memory. It is measured in bytes per second, and the formula to calculate it is: memory bandwidth = working frequency × memory bus width / 8 bits.

76.80 GB/s

Theoretical Performance

Pixel Rate

Pixel fill rate refers to the number of pixels a graphics processing unit (GPU) can render per second, measured in MPixels/s (million pixels per second) or GPixels/s (billion pixels per second). It is the most commonly used metric to evaluate the pixel processing performance of a graphics card.

17.60 GPixel/s

Texture Rate

Texture fill rate refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) that a GPU can map to pixels in a single second.

61.60 GTexel/s

FP64 (double)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy, while single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

123.2 GFLOPS

FP32 (float)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

1.932 TFLOPS

Miscellaneous

Shading Units

The most fundamental processing unit is the Streaming Processor (SP), where specific instructions and tasks are executed. GPUs perform parallel computing, which means multiple SPs work simultaneously to process tasks.

896

L1 Cache

16 KB (per CU)

L2 Cache

256KB

TDP

Unknown

Vulkan Version

Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics and compute API by Khronos Group, offering high performance and low CPU overhead. It lets developers control the GPU directly, reduces rendering overhead, and supports multi-threading and multi-core processors.

1.2.170

OpenCL Version

2.1

OpenGL

4.6

DirectX

12 (12_0)

Shader Model

6.5

ROPs

The Raster Operations Pipeline (ROPs) is primarily responsible for handling lighting and reflection calculations in games, as well as managing effects like anti-aliasing (AA), high resolution, smoke, and fire. The more demanding the anti-aliasing and lighting effects in a game, the higher the performance requirements for the ROPs; otherwise, it may result in a sharp drop in frame rate.

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

1.932 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

GeForce GTX 660 Rev. 2

2.021 +4.6%

GeForce GTX 680M

1.997 +3.4%

Radeon R9 M470X

1.932

GeForce GTX 1050

1.899 -1.7%

Quadro M3000 SE

1.854 -4%