The AMD Radeon RX 590 Review, feat. XFX & PowerColor: Polaris Returns (Again)
by Nate Oh on November 15, 2018 9:00 AM ESTFar Cry 5 (DX11)
The latest title in Ubisoft's Far Cry series lands us right into the unwelcoming arms of an armed militant cult in Montana, one of the many middles-of-nowhere in the United States. With a charismatic and enigmatic adversary, gorgeous landscapes of the northwestern American flavor, and lots of violence, it is classic Far Cry fare. Graphically intensive in an open-world environment, the game mixes in action and exploration.
Far Cry 5 does support Vega-centric features with Rapid Packed Math and Shader Intrinsics. Far Cry 5 also supports HDR (HDR10, scRGB, and FreeSync 2). This testing was done without HD Textures enabled, a new option that was recently patched in.
Far Cry 5 shows the same trends as Battlefield 1, with the RX 590 splitting the difference between the GTX 1070 FE and GTX 1060 6GB FE. At 1440p, that level of performance brushes close to the 60fps milestone, not a surprising feat as the original RX 480 8GB proves itself on par with the GTX 1060 6GB FE. Like Battlefield 1, this is the general space that the RX 580 wants to be in, where its performance can act as a spoiler for the GTX 1070 FE and mitigate increased prices and power draw.
As we'll see later, the lower VRAM options in this upper mainstream segment make it clear that 8GB is really the new level of broadly sufficient video memory, especially for cards expected to be in service for a few years. As it so happens, Far Cry 5 released a free 29GB patch adding toggleable HD Textures, which we will look into benchmarking. Generally, high-resolution texture packs are a simple way of increasing visual fidelity without significantly hurting framerates, provided the card has enough framebuffer. This can especially benefit those mainstream cards, particularly those on 1080p rendered on larger displays, as every passing year is often another exercise in figuring out what quality settings to dial down.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
136 Comments
View All Comments
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.