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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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.