The AMD Radeon RX 590 Review, feat. XFX & PowerColor: Polaris Returns (Again)
by Nate Oh on November 15, 2018 9:00 AM ESTTotal War: Warhammer II (DX11)
Last in our 2018 game suite is Total War: Warhammer II, built on the same engine of Total War: Warhammer. While there is a more recent Total War title, Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia, that game was built on the 32-bit version of the engine. The first TW: Warhammer was a DX11 game was to some extent developed with DX12 in mind, with preview builds showcasing DX12 performance. In Warhammer II, the matter, however, appears to have been dropped, with DX12 mode still marked as beta, but also featuring performance regression for both vendors.
It's unfortunate because Creative Assembly themselves have acknowledged the CPU-bound nature of their games, and with re-use of game engines as spin-offs, DX12 optimization would have continued to provide benefits, especially if the future of graphics in RTS-type games will lean towards low-level APIs.
There are now three benchmarks with varying graphics and processor loads; we've opted for the Battle benchmark, which appears to be the most graphics-bound.
Along with GTA V, Total War: Warhammer II is the other game in our suite where the GTX 1060 6GB FE remains in the lead even against factory-overclocked RX 590s. NVIDIA hardware all fare well here, and for the RX 590 it has at least made up enough ground to nip at the GTX 1060 6GB FE's heels. And while the RX 590 represents a decent jump from R9 390 levels, it is still priced higher and draws more power than the GTX 1060 6GB.
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rtho782 - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
So, a 16% increase in price since June 2016, 30 months ago, gets us 22% higher clocks with the same memory bandwidth, and 50% more power consumption.I'm not very excited by this for some reason.
Galcobar - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
It's likely a reference to the Harley-Davidson Fatboy, which is a big cruiser even by HW standards. Probably hoping to capitalize on its continuing media presence in such productions as Sons of Anarchy and Terminator Genisys (not so much Wild Hogs).Galcobar - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
Bother, replied to the wrong comment...Dr. Swag - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
Who in the world thought xfx fatboy was a good gpu name?!?"Hey I was thinking of buying the fatboy."
"Dude the fatboy actually runs pretty cool."
Seriously wtf is that name?
plonk420 - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
it would have been an amazingly awesome promo if Fallout 76 came with it...PeachNCream - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
Yes, that's some awful branding and who knows how that one found its way onto a retail box. The name on the box doesn't mean anything in relationship to the card's performance, but someone over at XFX was smoking something good and someone else was asleep at the approval button helm.ianmills - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
If we think of electricity as food I think fatboy is a great name for the 590!PeachNCream - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
Hah, that's a good (and funny) point!Galcobar - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
It's likely a reference to the Harley-Davidson Fatboy, which is a big cruiser even by HW standards. Probably hoping to capitalize on its continuing media presence in such productions as Sons of Anarchy and Terminator Genisys (not so much Wild Hogs).PeachNCream - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
It seems derogatory in any case, as if a clever way to toss out an insult in the general direction of the customers. As for media presence, I don't know. I've heard of Terminator movies before, but haven't seen anything past the second movie. Sons of Anarchy, I think is a cable TV series IIRC, but not as many people pay attention to television. For instance, I haven't even owned a television in the last 18 years and don't bother with streaming media aside from the occasional YouTube clip. It seems that aside from the very old, that's more the norm than the exception. As well, I think those big motorcycles aren't very popular either. Isn't the company that sells them in a little financial trouble these days?