AMD Radeon 400 series

Logo of the RX-400 models

The Radeon 400 series (code name: "Polaris") is a series of graphics chips from AMD and the successor to the Radeon R300 series . The Radeon RX 500 series in turn replaces the 400 series as its successor.

description

AMD presented the Radeon 400 series at Computex and announced the launch of the Radeon RX 480 for June 29, 2016. While Nvidia largely covered all market segments with its competing Geforce 10 series , AMD primarily aimed at the mid-range performance sector. AMD did not use products in the high-end or enthusiast sector. One focus of the Radeon 400 series are the two Polaris graphics processors (Polaris 10 and Polaris 11), which are using the GCN architecture for the first time in the 4th expansion stage. They are only used on the retail desktop models (recognizable by the "RX" abbreviation in the sales name); On the other hand, only graphics processors of older generations are used on the OEM and mobile models (sometimes under new sales names).

There are two different Polaris graphics processors: Polaris 10 and Polaris 11. The Polaris 10 GPU has a die area of ​​232 mm² and a total of 5.7 billion transistors. This has 2304 shader and 144 texture units in 36 clusters, as well as a 256 bit memory interface. With around. The Polaris 11 chip is around 3.0 billion transistors and a die area of ​​146 mm² compared to the Polaris 10 chip. 37% smaller, because it only has 1024 shader and 64 texture units in 16 clusters, and is accordingly less powerful. Both graphics processors are manufactured by Globalfoundries in the 14-nanometer FinFET process (14LPP), which enables a packing density of 24.57 million transistors per square millimeter. In comparison, the predecessor Fiji was manufactured in 28 nanometers and had approx. 39% fewer transistors per mm² with 14.93 million / mm². AMD states that the new manufacturing process improves performance per watt by a factor of 1.7 compared to TSMC's older 28 nm production. Due to additional architectural improvements, the factor should even be 2.8 compared to an older Radeon R9 270 . The Polaris graphics processors use the GCN 4.0 architecture. Compared to the GCN 3.0 architecture, the L2 cache, memory controller, command and geometry processor, compute units, multimedia unit and display engine have been revised. To improve energy efficiency, Polaris 11 masters “power gating” for the first time. This means that the GPU can completely switch off individual shader clusters (compute units), which significantly improves energy consumption at low loads.

The Polaris graphics processor was used for the first time in the Radeon RX 480 , which was introduced by AMD on June 10, 2016. This is used in full on the Radeon RX 480, with two versions with a 4 GB and an 8 GB video memory. The 8 GB version almost achieves the performance of the Geforce GTX 1060 (6 GB) from Nvidia (this has a performance that is around 5 - 6% higher than the Radeon RX 480). At a list price of € 256, this was presumed to have the best price-performance ratio in the trade press when it went on sale, which led to correspondingly positive reviews. For the 4 GB version, AMD set the list price at € 214. Since benchmark tests showed that the Radeon RX 480 is basically limited by its memory bandwidth, the fact that the memory clock has been reduced in the 4 Gbyte version, despite the identical chip clock, has a corresponding effect on the performance. The Radeon RX 480 is equipped with a 60 mm fan that is attached to the right side of the graphics card. Like NVIDIA, AMD is trying to develop a blower design, whereby the said radial fan draws in the cool air at the fan and presses it through the cooler. Most of the remaining warm air is blown out through the 2-slot slot cover. Significant progress has been made in terms of energy efficiency compared to the previous generation, but the level of the Nvidia competition was not reached. The fact that AMD violated the official PCI specifications with a power target of 170 watts and only one 6-pin connector caused massive criticism in the trade press. Numerous hardware testers were able to prove that the Radeon RX 480 sometimes draws significantly more than the officially permitted 75 watts via the PCI Express slot.

The Radeon RX 470 , which was released on August 4, 2016, is also based on the Polaris 10 graphics processor. However, this is partially deactivated on the Radeon RX 470. Four shader clusters are deactivated, so that only 2048 shader and 128 texture units are active. As with the Radeon RX 480, there is again a 4 and an 8 Gbyte version, but both versions now have the same memory clock. With a list price of € 215, the card was rated relatively positively in the trade press, partly due to the fact that Nvidia did not offer any direct competitors. AMD released the Radeon RX 470D exclusively for the Chinese market , in which four additional shader clusters were deactivated.

The Radeon RX 460 , which was presented on June 29, 2016, is based on a partially deactivated Polaris 11 chip and was presented in two versions, one with 2 GB VRAM and one with 4 GB VRAM. Of the 16 clusters, only 14 clusters were used in the Radeon RX 460. By default, 1.09 GHz was set as the standard clock and 1.2 GHz was selected as the boost clock. In benchmarks, the RX 460 of the Nvidia competition GTX 1050 had to be around. 32% give up. In contrast to the RX 480, no reference card of the RX 460 has been published. According to AMD, an RX 460 with 2 GB VRAM should cost 119 euros at release and an RX 460 with 4 GB VRAM should cost 139 euros. In general, the RX 460 was well received by the trade press. The high energy efficiency at partial load (power gating per compute unit) was particularly praised. However, it was often criticized that the graphics card only houses a partially deactivated Polaris 11 chip. A fully activated Polaris 11 chip would have given the graphics card a noticeable performance boost.

successor

→ Main article : AMD Radeon 500 series

The AMD Radeon 500 series followed pretty quickly, less than 10 months after the RX 480 was released, the entire 500 series was launched on April 18, 2017. The prices, but also the performance, are noticeably lower than those of a GTX 1070 or GTX 1080. This means that the target group has remained roughly the same.

Data overview

Graphics processors

Graphics chip	archi- tecture	production			units						L2 cache	API support				Video pro- cessor	Bus interface stelle
		production process	transis- interfere	The - area	ROP particle functions	ROPs	Unified shaders		Texture units			DirectX	OpenGL	OpenCL	volcano
							Stream processors	Shader - cluster	TAUs	TMUs
Oland	GCN 1	28 nm	1.04 billion	090 mm²	k. A.	08th	0384	06th	024	024	0256 kB	11.1	4.6+	1.2+	1.0	UVD 3.1	PCIe 3.0
Cape Verde			1.50 billion	123 mm²		16	0640	10	040	040	0512 kB
Bonaire	GCN 2		2.08 billion	160 mm²		16	0896	14th	056	056	0512 kB	12.0		2.0+	1.1	UVD 4.2
Tonga	GCN 3		5.00 billion	359 mm²		32	2048	32	128	128	0768 kB					UVD 5.0
Polaris 10	GCN 4	14 nm	5.7 0billion	232 mm²		32	2304	36	144	144	2048 kB					UVD 6.3
Polaris 11			3.0 0billion	123 mm²		16	1024	16	064	064	1024 kB

Desktop models

model	Official launch	Graphics processor (GPU)							Graphics memory			Performance data					Power consumption
		Type	Active units				Chip clock		Memory size	Storage cycle	Storage interface	Computing power (in GFlops )		Pixel fill rate	Texel fill rate	Memory bandwidth	TBP	Readings
			ROPs	Shader - cluster	ALUs	Texture units	default	Boost				SP (MAD)	DP (FMA)					Idle	3D load
Radeon R5 430	Jun 30, 2016	Oland	8th	6th	384	24	730 MHz	780 MHz	1-2 GB DDR3	900 MHz	128 bit	560	37	5.8 GP / s	17.5 GT / s	28.8 GB / s	50 W	k. A.	k. A.
Radeon R5 435				5	320	20th	1030 MHz	-	2 GB DDR3	1000 MHz	64 bit	659	41	8.2 GP / s	20.6 GT / s	16 GB / s	50 W
Radeon R7 430				6th	384	24	730 MHz	780 MHz	2-4 GB DDR3	900 MHz	128 bit	560	37	5.8 GP / s	17.5 GT / s	28.8 GB / s	50 W
									1-2 GB GDDR5	2250 MHz						72 GB / s
Radeon R7 435				5	320	20th	920 MHz	-	2 GB DDR3	1000 MHz	64 bit	589	37	7.4 GP / s	18.4 GT / s	16 GB / s	50 W
Radeon R7 450	Jun 30, 2016	Cape Verde	16	8th	512	32	1050 MHz	-	2 GB GDDR5	2250 MHz	128 bit	1075	65	16.8 GP / s	33.6 GT / s	72 GB / s	65 W	k. A.	k. A.
Radeon R7 455	Jun 30, 2016	Bonaire		12	768	48	1050 MHz	-	2 GB GDDR5	3250 MHz		1613	101	16.8 GP / s	50.4 GT / s	104 GB / s	100 W	k. A.	k. A.
Radeon RX 460	Aug 8, 2016	Polaris 11		14th	896	56	1090 MHz	1200 MHz	2-4 GB GDDR5	3500 MHz		1953	122	17.4 GP / s	61 GT / s	112 GB / s	75 W	10 W	070 W
Radeon RX 470D	Oct 21, 2016	Polaris 10	32	28	1792	112	926 MHz	1206 MHz	4-8 GB GDDR5	3500 MHz	256 bit	3319	207	29.6 GP / s	103.7 GT / s	224 GB / s	110 W	14 W.	125 W
Radeon RX 470	4th Aug 2016			32	2048	128	926 MHz	1206 MHz	4-8 GB GDDR5	3300 MHz		3793	237	29.6 GP / s	118.5 GT / s	211 GB / s	120 W	14 W.	138 W
Radeon RX 480	June 29, 2016			36	2304	144	1120 MHz	1266 MHz	4 GB GDDR5	3500 MHz		5161	323	35.8 GP / s	161.3 GT / s	224 GB / s	150 W	16 W	160 W
									8 GB GDDR5	4000 MHz						256 GB / s	150 W	16 W	164 W

Laptop models

model	Official launch	Graphics processor (GPU)							Graphics memory			Performance data					TBP
		Type	Active units				Chip clock		Memory size	Storage cycle	Storage interface	Computing power (in GFlops )		Pixel fill rate	Texel fill rate	Memory bandwidth
			ROPs	Shader - cluster	ALUs	Texture units	default	Boost				SP (MAD)	DP (FMA)
Radeon R5 M420	May 15, 2016	Oland	8th	5	320	20th	780 MHz	855 MHz	2 GB DDR3	1000 MHz	64 bit	499	k. A.	6.2 GP / s	15.6 GT / s	16 GB / s	20 W
Radeon R5 M430				5	320	20th	1030 MHz	-	2 GB DDR3	1000 MHz		659		8.2 GP / s	20.6 GT / s	16 GB / s	20 W
Radeon R5 M435				5	320	20th	780 MHz	855 MHz	4 GB GDDR5	2000 MHz		499		6.2 GP / s	15.6 GT / s	32 GB / s	20 W
Radeon R7 M440				5	320	20th	1021 MHz	-	4 GB DDR3	1000 MHz		653		8.2 GP / s	20.4 GT / s	16 GB / s	20 W
Radeon R7 M445				5	320	20th	780 MHz	920 MHz	4 GB GDDR5	2000 MHz		499		6.2 GP / s	15.6 GT / s	32 GB / s	20 W
Radeon R7 M460				6th	384	24	1100 MHz	1125 MHz	2 GB DDR3	900 MHz		844		8.8 GP / s	26.4 GT / s	14.4 GB / s	k. A.
Radeon R7 M465				6th	384	24	825 MHz	960 MHz	4 GB GDDR5	1000 MHz		634	k. A.	6.2 GP / s	15.6 GT / s	32 GB / s	k. A.
										1150 MHz	128 bit					73.8 GB / s
Radeon R7 M465X		Cape Verde	16	8th	512	32	900 MHz	925 MHz	4 GB GDDR5	1125 MHz		921	k. A.	14.4 GP / s	28.8 GT / s	72 GB / s	k. A.
Radeon R9 M470		Bonaire		12	768	48	900 MHz	1000 MHz	4 GB GDDR5	1500 MHz		1382		14.4 GP / s	43.2 GT / s	96 GB / s	75 W
Radeon R9 M470X		Bonaire		14th	896	56	1000 MHz	1100 MHz	4 GB GDDR5	1500 MHz		1792		16 GP / s	56 GT / s	96 GB / s	75 W
Radeon R9 M485X		Tonga	32	32	2048	128	723 MHz	-	8 GB GDDR5	1250 MHz	256 bit	2961		23.1 GP / s	92.5 GT / s	160 GB / s	100 W

Remarks

1. ↑ ^{a b} The date indicated is the date of the public presentation, not the date of availability of the models.
2. ↑ ^{a b} The specified performance values ​​for the computing power via the stream processors, the pixel and texel fill rate, as well as the memory bandwidth are theoretical maximum values ​​(with standard clock rate) that are not directly comparable with the performance values ​​of other architectures. The overall performance of a graphics card depends, among other things, on how well the available resources can be used or fully utilized. There are also other factors that are not listed here that affect performance.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} The specified clock rates are the reference data recommended or specified by AMD, the I / O clock (in brackets the effective clock) is specified for the memory clock. However, the exact clock rate can deviate by a few megahertz due to different clock generators, and the final definition of the clock rates is in the hands of the respective graphics card manufacturer. It is therefore entirely possible that there are or will be graphics card models that have different clock rates.
4. ↑ ^{a b} TBP / TDP values ​​do not represent the maximum power consumption.
5. ↑ The measured values ​​listed in the table relate to the pure power consumption of graphics cards that correspond to the AMD reference design. A special measuring device is required to measure these values; Depending on the measurement technology used and the given measurement conditions, including the program used to generate the 3D load, the values ​​can fluctuate between different devices. Therefore, measured value ranges are given here, each representing the lowest, typical and highest measured values ​​from different sources.
6. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} The model is an OEM product that is not available on the retail market.

Web links

• Manufacturer website for the Radeon RX 480
• Dimensions of the Radeon RX 480

Individual evidence

1. ↑ AMD Radeon RX 480 in the test: Fast and efficient with 8 GB for 260 euros (page 1). Computerbase, August 29, 2016, accessed August 15, 2017 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b c} AMD Radeon RX 480 in the test: Fast and efficient with 8 GB for 260 euros (page 3). Computerbase, June 29, 2016, accessed August 15, 2017 . 
3. ↑ AMD Radeon RX 480 in the test: Fast and efficient with 8 GB for 260 euros (page 2). Computerbase, June 29, 2016, accessed August 15, 2017 . 
4. ↑ GeForce GTX 1060 in the test: Three GP106s compared with the Radeon RX 480 (page 1). Computerbase, July 19, 2016, accessed August 15, 2017 . 
5. ↑ ^{a b} AMD Radeon RX 480 in the test: Fast and efficient with 8 GB for 260 euros (page 9). Computerbase, June 29, 2016, accessed August 15, 2017 . 
6. ↑ AMD Radeon RX 480 in the test (page 26). Hardwareluxx, June 29, 2016, accessed August 15, 2017 . 
7. ↑ AMD Radeon RX 480 in the test (page 7). Hardwareluxx, June 29, 2016, accessed August 15, 2017 . 
8. ↑ AMD Radeon RX 480 - built hard on the edge (page 12). HT4U.netu, June 29, 2016, accessed August 15, 2017 . 
9. ↑ AMD Radeon RX 480 in the test: Can Polaris counter against Pascal? (Page 9). tomshardware.de, June 29, 2016, accessed August 15, 2017 . 
10. ↑ AMD Radeon RX 470 in the test: From Asus, PowerColor and Sapphire with 4 and 8 GB. Computerbase, August 4, 2016, accessed August 15, 2017 . 
11. ↑ Radeon RX 470D: First test from China shows strong competition for the GTX 1050 Ti. PC Games Hardware, November 2, 2016, accessed on August 15, 2017 . 
12. ↑ GeForce GTX 1050 (Ti) in the test: Once perfect and once with too little memory (page 3). Computerbase, October 25, 2016, accessed August 15, 2017 . 
13. ↑ Radeon RX 460: Custom designs in the manufacturer overview. PC Games Hardware, August 21, 2016, accessed August 15, 2017 . 
14. ↑ AMD Radeon RX 460 in the test: With Gigabyte (2 GB) and Sapphire (4 GB) against GTX 950 (page 7). Computerbase, August 8, 2016, accessed August 15, 2017 . 
15. ↑ AMD Radeon RX 460 in the test: With Gigabyte (2 GB) and Sapphire (4 GB) against GTX 950 (page 8). Computerbase, August 8, 2016, accessed August 15, 2017 . 
16. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} Power consumption of current and past graphics cards. 3DCenter.org, February 23, 2014, accessed August 15, 2017 .