The AMD Radeon RX 590 Review, feat. XFX & PowerColor: Polaris Returns (Again)
by Nate Oh on November 15, 2018 9:00 AM ESTPower, Temperature, and Noise
As always, we'll take a look at power, temperature, and noise of the Radeon RX 590. As a custom-only specification, this means that we will be looking at solely AIB vendor designs. With the RX 590, we already know what to expect with existing RX 580 boards and coolers.
As this is a new GPU, we will quickly review stock voltages and clockspeeds as well.
| AMD RX Series Video Card Voltages | ||||
| Boost | Idle | |||
| Radeon RX 590 | 1.1563V | 0.8000V | ||
| Radeon RX 580 | 1.1625v | 0.7625v | ||
| Radeon RX 480 | 1.0625v | |||
Power Consumption
For all the gaming performance gains that the RX 590 has made, it came with the higher clockspeeds, and to bring those higher clockspeeds came more power. Already, TBPs have notably increased from the RX 480's 150W to the RX 580's 185W, and now to the RX 590's 225W. Which is already past RX Vega 56's 210W reference board power spec.
Idle power consumption doesn't show anything out of the ordinary.
The RX 590's load power consumption is a slightly different story. For the RX 580 launch, we mused that this is where AMD paid the piper. For the RX Vega launch, I commented that the piper had then taken AMD to the cleaners. For the RX 590 today, I thought there wasn't any more the piper wanted to take, but there was.
From the wall, the RX 590 now pulls 30 to 45W more than the RX 580 in Battlefield 1. The difference in FurMark is even starker, with the RX 590 now drawing 45 to 80W more. Naturally, the power delta gets higher when comparing to the RX 480, let alone the GTX 1060 6GB FE. In Battlefield 1, that's 110W or more system consumption than the GTX 1060 6GB FE for what is panning out to be around 10% faster performance. It's clear that the RX 590 is not in the same league - or anywhere close - to the GTX 1060 in terms of power efficiency.
Temperature
With all that power, heat and temperature can easily become an issue. But as both a non-reference launch and a product refresh, the featured open air axial fan designs are tried-and-true, and already configured to dissapate similar thermals.
Noise
Likewise with noise, the RX 590 can benefit from zero dB functionality, where fans turn off under certain temperatures.
Additionally, a quick glance at RX 590 power consumption at -25% and -50% power limits show that like the RX Vega, RX 480, and RX 580, Polaris 30 is well past the optimal point on the voltage curve with the clocks at hand.
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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
--------------------------------
BF1: 210w/363w/379w
Furmark: 206w/330w/362w
I would be interested to see an undervolted RX590 vs undervolted GTX1060 for a better comparison.