XFX AMD RX 590
Polaris returns... again.
With all the attention that high end cards have been receiving in recent months, it’s sometimes easy to forget that they’re very expensive parts, well outside the budgets of ‘normal’ consumers. The vast majority of gamers running 1080p screens look for more worldly options including the GTX 1060, RX 580 and now RX 590. We patiently await genuinely new mid-range entrants, but while we do that, let’s take a look at the RX 590, the third iteration of the venerable Polaris architecture.
The RX 590 is essentially a faster version of the capable RX 580, which is itself a refresh of the RX 480. The RX 590’s main change is the switch from a 14nm GPU to one manufactured with a 12nm process. This allows the RX 590 to provide higher clock speeds, though it does come with the cost of higher power consumption. It’s clear that AMD is pushing to extract the maximum performance from this GPU.
AMD sampled us with the unusually named XFX Radeon RX 590 Fatboy. It’s a custom factory overclocked design featuring 8pin and 6 pin power connectors and a beefy 2.5 slot twin axial fan heatsink. It’s quite a step up from the original noisy AMD Polaris blower coolers. It comes with a healthy set of video outputs consisting of three DP 1.4, one HDMI 2.0b and a single Dual Link DVI. There’s also a performance/quiet mode BIOS switch. It’s not the most gorgeous card we’ve ever seen, but it gets the job done.
The RX 580’s performance is quite good. It closes the gap to the likes of the GTX 1070 and RX Vega and can happily game at 1440p, though it’s better suited to 1080p gaming. The worry for AMD is what Nvidia is no doubt cooking up. Ultimately it’s that future card that will determine where the RX 590 sits. For now, the RX 590 is the 1080p king. We weren’t so impressed with the increased temperatures and power consumption of the RX 590. In fact we measured almost 100w greater power draw than the GTX 1060. We really want a new mid-range architecture!
AMD is bundling some very desirable games with the RX 590, which goes a long way to explaining its price premium. Resident Evil 2, The Division 2 and Devil May Cry 5 are probably worth $200 all together.
The RX 590 does exactly what we expect. It’s a bit faster than the RX 580 at the expense of higher power consumption. It costs a bit more too. While it’s faster than the ageing GTX 1060, if you’re not interested in the value adding games, the RX 590 it’s not a very compelling purchase at this time and price. If you’re in the hunt for a mid-range GPU, the RX 580 remains an almostas-good and better value option (and you can still choose from two of those three games). The wait goes on for something that really gets us excited in the super competitive mid-range battleground.