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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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