The AMD Radeon RX 590 Review, feat. XFX & PowerColor: Polaris Returns (Again)
by Nate Oh on November 15, 2018 9:00 AM ESTMiddle-earth: Shadow of War (DX11)
Next up is Middle-earth: Shadow of War, the sequel to Shadow of Mordor. Developed by Monolith, whose last hit was arguably F.E.A.R., Shadow of Mordor returned them to the spotlight with an innovative NPC rival generation and interaction system called the Nemesis System, along with a storyline based on J.R.R. Tolkien's legendarium, and making it work on a highly modified engine that originally powered F.E.A.R. in 2005.
Using the new LithTech Firebird engine, Shadow of War improves on the detail and complexity, and with free add-on high resolution texture packs, offers itself as a good example of getting the most graphics out of an engine that may not be bleeding edge. Shadow of War also supports HDR (HDR10).
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, to which Shadow of War is the sequel, was notorious for its VRAM-hungry nature. For Shadow of War, we have Ultra textures enabled, which balloons the in-game required VRAM meter to more than 8GB even at 1080p. But as it is largely for texture caching, only a fraction of that 8GB is necessary to keep things going smoothly, so here, the raw GPU performance remains most important. The solidly mainstream GTX 960 and R9 380 are not fast enough in the first place.
In any case, the RX 580 already edges out the GTX 1060 6GB Founders Edition so the RX 590 only adds to that advantage. But the GTX 1070 being so far ahead, the RX 590 is not even close to approaching those framerates.
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eva02langley - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
Who the hell is using SFX?There is plenty of small form factor case using regular ATX standard.
Unless you use Silverstone cases, SFX is not even a matter.
JoeyJoJo123 - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
I am using a Silverstone case and a SFX power supply. Not that either of the two matter in regards to an RX590 announcement.duploxxx - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
hard to find any psu below 500w these days....Gasaraki88 - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
Unless the 1060 GDDR5X version comes out... which is soon.eva02langley - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
GDDR5X is only having an impact at higher resolutions than 1080p... which the 1060 GTX is clearly not aiming at.eva02langley - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
Exactly, this is selling at the same price as a 1060 GTX and offer a game bundle, it is brainless and right before christmas.Unlike a lot of people here, I think it is the best new card of the year. RTX was such a disaster and especially more with BF5 benchmarks.
ragenalien - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
Still viable for smaller cases that have stricter heat requirements.Uelmo - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
I bought my GTX titan X I bought in mid 2016 for cheaper than current price rtx 2080 ti , it's sad that GPU advancement has slowed , my card can still good with best :(goatfajitas - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
Boy oh boy, if AMD keeps pushing like this by next year they will be as fast as Nvidia was in 2016.mapesdhs - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
Problem is, far too many gamers just don't buy AMD even when they do have something genuinely competitive or objectively better. Many people use them merely as a means of buying a cheaper NVIDIA option when the latter drops its prices. I've even seen people say such dumb things as they hope AMD will release something good so they can buy a cheaper NVIDIA card. With such a consumer mindset, there's no incentive for AMD to target the high end at all. AMD are going after the mainstream, which is where the volume is. If they can do well there then they can build the brand recognition and aim higher later.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guK2XoFbPFw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USMlET3L7mA