The AMD Radeon RX 590 Review, feat. XFX & PowerColor: Polaris Returns (Again)
by Nate Oh on November 15, 2018 9:00 AM ESTGrand Theft Auto V (DX11)
Now a truly venerable title, GTA V is a veteran of past game suites that is still graphically demanding as they come. As an older DX11 title, it provides a glimpse into the graphically intensive games of yesteryear that don't incorporate the latest features. Originally released for consoles in 2013, the PC port came with a slew of graphical enhancements and options. Just as importantly, GTA V includes a rather intensive and informative built-in benchmark, somewhat uncommon in open-world games.
The settings are identical to its previous appearances, which are custom as GTA V does not have presets. To recap, a "Very High" quality is used, where all primary graphics settings turned up to their highest setting, except grass, which is at its own very high setting. Meanwhile 4x MSAA is enabled for direct views and reflections. This setting also involves turning on some of the advanced rendering features - the game's long shadows, high resolution shadows, and high definition flight streaming - but not increasing the view distance any further.
The ever-popular GTA V has proven itself a very demanding game even on the latest hardware, despite its age. Overall NVIDIA cards usually fare much better on it, and the GTX 1060 6GB is no exception. Polaris' best efforts across generations have narrowed the gap but isn't enough to bring it into contention against the GTX 1060 6GB. The 2GB framebuffer of the GTX 960 isn't sufficient for 1440p and falls behind the R9 380 4GB with completely unplayable performance, though at 1440p both the R9 380 4GB and the GTX 960 lack the raw horsepower to drive gameplay at that resolution anyway.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
136 Comments
View All Comments
Manch - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
Harley Davidson --> Harley Owners Group --> H.O.G. --> Also nickname for Harleys --> Fatboy is what you call a big actual hog. Nothing derogatory. SMDH. Step out of the basement every now and then! ;)PeachNCream - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
Why lace something with an insult? You were doing pretty good until you got to that point.Manch - Sunday, November 18, 2018 - link
It was just a joke! Hence the wink ;)Allan_Hundeboll - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
I Fatboy is better than many of the other vendors meaningless names. It's easy to remember and the fact that we are even discussing it proves that it succeed in standing out from all the other namesmapesdhs - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
Reminds me of the derision that was everywhere when AMD announced the EPYC name, but now it's become the popular source for various amusing memes in AMD's favour.Fatboy on the face of it sounds crude perhaps, but it has consonants, and it's memeable.
Mr Perfect - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
Personally, I'm hoping they release a mITX length card under the name Fatboy Slim.Lord of the Bored - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
Honestly, I thought it was inspired by Fat Man and Little Boy.Xex360 - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
AMD are nowhere compared to nVidia, even 2 years after Pascal they can't compete the 590 should at least be on the level of the 1080 not the 1060.neblogai - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
AMD have cards at 1080/2070 price point, and offer a better deal- lower price, Freesync, and 3 highest tier games for free. RX590, while not as great deal as RX570/580, also comes with those 3x €60 games- while nVidia's GTX1060 did not get any speed upgrade since release, nor a more competitive price, nor any new tech.CiccioB - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
AMD has a better price. Stop.They just can't stop discounting their GPUs to not be erased in the graphics market.
This GPU is not going to make nvidia loose any sleep and they can continue selling Turing at whatever price they want.
nvidia today is simply a generation ahead on the same PP. Let's see what will happen at 7nm, when AMD will most probably come out with another GCN pearl ws Turing successor.
Maybe at 7nm at the end of 2019 GCN will start consuming like Pascal 3.5 years older.