The AMD Radeon RX 590 Review, feat. XFX & PowerColor: Polaris Returns (Again)
by Nate Oh on November 15, 2018 9:00 AM ESTBattlefield 1 (DX11)
Battlefield 1 returns from the 2017 benchmark suite, the 2017 benchmark suite with a bang as DICE brought gamers the long-awaited AAA World War 1 shooter a little over a year ago. With detailed maps, environmental effects, and pacy combat, Battlefield 1 provides a generally well-optimized yet demanding graphics workload. The next Battlefield game from DICE, Battlefield V, completes the nostalgia circuit with a return to World War 2, but more importantly for us, is one of the flagship titles for GeForce RTX real time ray tracing, although at this time it isn't ready.
We use the Ultra preset is used with no alterations. As these benchmarks are from single player mode, our rule of thumb with multiplayer performance still applies: multiplayer framerates generally dip to half our single player framerates. Battlefield 1 also supports HDR (HDR10, Dolby Vision).
Battlefield 1 has made the rounds for some time, and after the optimizations over the years both manufacturers generally enjoy solid performance across the board. Here, the RX 590 clockspeeds firmly place it in the slot below the GTX 1070. The difference isn't world-changing, but because multiplayer framerates are often about half of singleplayer, the boost could have value for multiplayer fiends.
Here, the GTX 1060 6GB Founders Edition already starts off behind the original reference RX 480 8GB, and the higher clocks permit the RX 590 to make up ground on the GTX 1070 Founders Edition. For the RX 590, this level of performance is where it wants to be - creeping up on the GTX 1070 and firmly faster than its Polaris predecessors, the GTX 1060 6GB, and older-generation enthusiast-grade cards like the GTX 980. In practice, the competition will be factory-overclocked GTX 1060 6GB cards rather than the reference Founders Edition, and so there will be less room to maneuver.
The trend continues for 99th percentiles, which are arguably more important than averages when it comes to fast-paced shooters.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
136 Comments
View All Comments
AMD#1 - Tuesday, November 20, 2018 - link
Well, they released a card this year for the consumer market. My hopes are that Navi will be a better option against NVIDIA RTX, good that Radeon will not support RT. Let NVIDIA first support DX12 with hardware shader units, instead of hanging on to DYING DX11.silverblue - Wednesday, November 21, 2018 - link
A couple of reviews seem to be showing the Fatboy at similar power consumption (or slightly higher) levels to the 580 Nitro+ (presumably the 1450MHz version) and Red Devil Golden Sample. That's not so bad when you factor in the significantly increased clocks, but the two 580s hardly sipped power to begin with, and basic 580s don't really perform much worse for what would be much lower power consumption. AMD has a product that kind of bridges the gap between the 1060 and the 1070, but uses more power than a 1080... hardly envious, really. The Fatboy has rather poor thermals as well if you don't ramp the fan speed up.The 590s we're getting are clocked aggressively on core but not on memory; what would really be interesting is a 590 clocked at 580 levels, even factory overclocked 580 levels. Would it be worth getting a 590 just to undervolt and underclock the core, make use of the extra game in the bundle (once they launch, that is), and essentially be running a more efficient 580? I'd be tempted to overclock the memory at the same time as that appears to be where the 580 is being held back, not core speed.
silverblue - Wednesday, November 21, 2018 - link
I'll be fair to the Fatboy; it does have a zero RPM mode which would explain the thermals.WaltC - Sunday, December 2, 2018 - link
I just bought a Fatboy...to run in X-fire with my year-old 8GB RX-480 (1.305GHz stock)...! As I am now gaming at 3840x2160, it seemed a worthwhile alternative to dropping $500+ on a single GPU. Paid $297 @ NewEgg & got the 3-game bundle. I read one review by a guy who X-fired a 580 with a 480 without difficulty--and the performance scaled from 70%-90% better when X-Fire is supported. Wouldn't recommend buying two 590's at one time, of course, but for people who already own a 480/580, the X-Fire alternative is the most cost-effective route at present. Gaming sites seem to have forgotten about X-Fire these days, for some reason. Of course, the nVidia 1060 doesn't allow for SLI--so that might be one reason, I suppose. Still, it's kind of baffling as the X-Fire mode seems like such a no brainer. And for those titles that will not X-fire, I'll just run them all @ 1.6GHz on the 590...Until next year when AMD's next < $300 GPU launches...! Then, I may have to think again!quadibloc - Friday, December 7, 2018 - link
Oh, so Global Foundries does now have a 12 nm process? I'm glad they're doing something a little better than 14 nm at least.