The AMD Radeon RX 590 Review, feat. XFX & PowerColor: Polaris Returns (Again)
by Nate Oh on November 15, 2018 9:00 AM ESTGrand Theft Auto V (DX11)
Now a truly venerable title, GTA V is a veteran of past game suites that is still graphically demanding as they come. As an older DX11 title, it provides a glimpse into the graphically intensive games of yesteryear that don't incorporate the latest features. Originally released for consoles in 2013, the PC port came with a slew of graphical enhancements and options. Just as importantly, GTA V includes a rather intensive and informative built-in benchmark, somewhat uncommon in open-world games.
The settings are identical to its previous appearances, which are custom as GTA V does not have presets. To recap, a "Very High" quality is used, where all primary graphics settings turned up to their highest setting, except grass, which is at its own very high setting. Meanwhile 4x MSAA is enabled for direct views and reflections. This setting also involves turning on some of the advanced rendering features - the game's long shadows, high resolution shadows, and high definition flight streaming - but not increasing the view distance any further.
The ever-popular GTA V has proven itself a very demanding game even on the latest hardware, despite its age. Overall NVIDIA cards usually fare much better on it, and the GTX 1060 6GB is no exception. Polaris' best efforts across generations have narrowed the gap but isn't enough to bring it into contention against the GTX 1060 6GB. The 2GB framebuffer of the GTX 960 isn't sufficient for 1440p and falls behind the R9 380 4GB with completely unplayable performance, though at 1440p both the R9 380 4GB and the GTX 960 lack the raw horsepower to drive gameplay at that resolution anyway.
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Kriswithak - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
I would love to see if the improved process offers better efficiency.With the RX480 4gb, I undervolted the card and saw a significant decrease in load power consumption.
With the RX580 8gb, I dropped the boost clocks a bit and dropped the voltage as well, and only used 6 pin power connector.
I would like to see the rx590/580/480 at similar reference/boost clocks, then undervolted to lowest possible stable and see what the frame per watt comparison is.
Nfarce - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
Just another example of AMD shooting their R&D wad at the APU/CPU segment and ignoring the GPU segment. There is ZERO reason to buy this fail over Nivdia unless you have already bought a Freesync monitor and a much older AMD GPU, which monitors, by the way, do work with Nvidia GPUs when locking down the v-sync tool. I have a Freesync 75Hz monitor ( 32" 1440p AOC) and love it with my GTX 1070 Ti locking in frames (bought it for $369 on NewEgg in a promo sale). Said 1070 Ti doesn't even need to breathe hard. Minimum FPS never comes close to hitting 75 FPS. Not only is it 30+% faster, but it also consumes nearly 20% less power under load than this card. Yeah, that's worth the extra $80 for my 1070 Ti in my book. You get what you pay for. I really hope AMD starts using some of their Ryzen revenue that they've been taking in for - nearly three years now mind you and not including their revenue stream from game console APUs - into upping their dedicated GPU game. Because they have a long way to go to match Nvidia in the upper tiers where the real price margin revenue is made. Nobody makes money on low and mid range GPUs where AMD has always targeted.eva02langley - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
You are missing the point here, Lisa Su said that decision are took 3-5 years in advance for their roadmap.Polaris was already a thing and just making a 12 nm was an easy thing to do and was filling a gap.
People tend to forget that the 8GB RX 580 MSRP is actually 240$, not 200$ which is for the 4GB version. 30$ more is not such a step and still the cost per FPS is one of the lowest.
With a 100$+ of game bundle to add to it, there is no question that the value is there.
Flunk - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
Slightly overclocked RX 480 from two years ago? Wake me when AMD actually releases a new GPU.Cyborg997 - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
Can't believe this s*** with an AMD. 3 years with the same chips. What the f*** please give us something worth our money. Still have my Fury 9 runningAssimilator87 - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
While everyone upped their resolution to UHD, I went the opposite direction and am running a CRT at 720p. My 7970's still running strong lol. CPU market is fire right now, but GPUs so boring =\piroroadkill - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
So it sits somewhere between the 1060 6GB and 1070, most of the time closer to the former, and yet consumes a lot more power than either card. No thanks. People don't want noisy, hot systems these days without actually getting some performance to back it up.eva02langley - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
It is actually quieter... check higher... seriously... people.Lolimaster - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
It's really sad that 2 years after, performance per dollar went down.2 years more and we will have an APU with similar power than the RX580 on a $150 chip...
ItsAlive - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
Now undervolt and overclock that gtx 1060, Mine was able to drop over 100mv, lowered power limit to 75%, but still overclocked 200/400 core/mem clocks and uses 75w max at full load. Temps typically run mid 60s with stock fan settings and its near silent. Its a mini card that is probably 1/3 the size of the RX590 and I bought it over a year ago for $250.If a stock gtx1060 uses typcially 120 watts max (mine would before the undervolt), then total system power for an undervolted card according to the charts in the article would look like this:
GTX1060/RX590/Fatboy
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BF1: 210w/363w/379w
Furmark: 206w/330w/362w
I would be interested to see an undervolted RX590 vs undervolted GTX1060 for a better comparison.