The AMD Radeon RX 590 Review, feat. XFX & PowerColor: Polaris Returns (Again)
by Nate Oh on November 15, 2018 9:00 AM ESTBattlefield 1 (DX11)
Battlefield 1 returns from the 2017 benchmark suite, the 2017 benchmark suite with a bang as DICE brought gamers the long-awaited AAA World War 1 shooter a little over a year ago. With detailed maps, environmental effects, and pacy combat, Battlefield 1 provides a generally well-optimized yet demanding graphics workload. The next Battlefield game from DICE, Battlefield V, completes the nostalgia circuit with a return to World War 2, but more importantly for us, is one of the flagship titles for GeForce RTX real time ray tracing, although at this time it isn't ready.
We use the Ultra preset is used with no alterations. As these benchmarks are from single player mode, our rule of thumb with multiplayer performance still applies: multiplayer framerates generally dip to half our single player framerates. Battlefield 1 also supports HDR (HDR10, Dolby Vision).
Battlefield 1 has made the rounds for some time, and after the optimizations over the years both manufacturers generally enjoy solid performance across the board. Here, the RX 590 clockspeeds firmly place it in the slot below the GTX 1070. The difference isn't world-changing, but because multiplayer framerates are often about half of singleplayer, the boost could have value for multiplayer fiends.
Here, the GTX 1060 6GB Founders Edition already starts off behind the original reference RX 480 8GB, and the higher clocks permit the RX 590 to make up ground on the GTX 1070 Founders Edition. For the RX 590, this level of performance is where it wants to be - creeping up on the GTX 1070 and firmly faster than its Polaris predecessors, the GTX 1060 6GB, and older-generation enthusiast-grade cards like the GTX 980. In practice, the competition will be factory-overclocked GTX 1060 6GB cards rather than the reference Founders Edition, and so there will be less room to maneuver.
The trend continues for 99th percentiles, which are arguably more important than averages when it comes to fast-paced shooters.
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neblogai - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
For me, and many other people 2080 or 2080Ti might as well not exist. I'd never buy any GPU priced like that. In fact, I'd never even buy a €300+ card. Also- power use is not an issue- at 200W+, it is easy to cool, not noisy, and savings in electricity cost from having a GTX1060 would be only €5-10 per year (at 20 hour gaming per week, which I do not achieve). And in a sub-€300 market- nVidia has not offered anything for 2.5 years. So it is certainly better deal to buy a faster RX590 and get a €180 AAA game bundle for free, compared to similarly priced, slower GTX1060. There are other reasons as well, like Freesync, and futureproofing like 8GB of VRAM and better driver support (because nVidia will be moving toward doing optimizations for 20xx series).eva02langley - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
It is a polaris card. Everybody knew what to expect. I am not sure what you are talking about.Navi is due next year and the contender will be the 2070 RTX. I am going to speculate a tag price of 300$ which is a whole 200-300$ less than a RTX.
mapesdhs - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
Xex360, AMD is not trying to compete because just don't buy them, so what's the point? There market and brand awareness simply isn't there to support a high end product stack atm, not until gamers stop being so irrational and actually buy AMD when they are objectively the more sensible option, whether based on price, performance or some combination of metrics.Cooe - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
"but now built on GlobalFoundries' 12nm process"Sorry, Nate, but ya got that one wrong. Polaris 30 is being fabbed at TSMC, just like the rest of AMD's GPUs.
eva02langley - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
... sure....porcupineLTD - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
Where are people getting this from?Ryan Smith - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
Note that we currently have no information cooroborating the use of TSMC. And indeed it seems incredibly unlikely given AMD's WSA, and the fact that Polaris 30 has the exact same die size as Polaris 10. TSMC and GF's 12nm processes are not identical, porting a chip to TSMC would given you different geometry dimensions.lmcd - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
Just like the rest of AMD's...https://www.anandtech.com/show/10446/the-amd-radeo...
GPUs. Right.
maroon1 - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
What a jokeOnly 12% faster but also cost and consume more power than RX580 (and 108watt more than GTX 1060 at load)
It adds noting new. It just fills the big gap between RX580 and vega56
dr.denton - Saturday, November 17, 2018 - link
"It adds noting new. It just fills the big gap between RX580 and vega56"Literally all it was ever intended to do. Polaris is a 2 year old mid range GPU design, how do you expect anything revolutionary from that?