Polaris given a new lease of life in the run-up to Vega. What to do in the lull between the Radeon RX 400-series cards and launch of RX Vega? You could do nothing, put your feet up, and wait for the Vega-powered GPUs to proliferate from the premium space to the mainstream. Such an approach would take time. On the other hand, you could take another look at the incumbent RX 400-series, find ways to make it better, and then release said GPUs under the RX 500-series banner.

AMD is doing just that in the run-up to Vega, and the first two GPUs to get the numerical model makeover are the RX 580 and RX 470 GPUs, so let's take a look at what's new and what's not.