Final words and conclusion
Final words and conclusion
What are we going to do with the RX 590 and what market relevance does this GPU still have? These are the two questions that came to mind when the first card arrived. I find it a somewhat difficult to position product. At least AMD didn't name it RX 680. When push comes to shuffle, this is a year 2016 GPU based on a smaller die fabbed at the 12nm node. That brings in more leeway in terms of performance as the product can clock higher. Your power consumption would normally be lower with a smaller fabrication process (lower voltage required), however, by pushing the GPU to the max by boosting the clock frequency, that benefits dissipate into thin air. Most games will offer 5 maybe 10% performance increases with the refresh GPU, some less. Considering this is a 2016 refresh GPU, the user base will already have purchased a 480/580 in the past two-year update cycle. For them, this product has not much relevance. And therein lies my answer towards the initial two questions. It, however, remains to be a very solid performer in the 1080p and even QHD resolutions.
Performance
The Radeon RX 590 is a small notch faster compared to the 580, but really a bit all over the place; fast in fill-rate limited games, a little less with GPU stringent ones. Overall you are looking at a product that still competes with the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti and 1060 really well. So in the year 2018, any RX 580 or 590 8GB is still a valid choice for 1080p and even 1440p gaming.
Pricing
The price level. The Radeon RX 590 will sit in a 279 USD price range. That will vary a bit based in AIB SKUs and model of course, but the reality is that you can purchase the Radeon RX 580 quite a lot cheaper. If you do a quick search for an 8GB model, you can spot them at 209 EUR / USD. With this in mind, I expect the RX 590 to drop in value fast though.
Cooling and Noise levels
The cooling on the Fatboy is below par compared to the bigger names and brands. It looks a bit cheap with thin plastic, the temperatures run close towards 80 Degrees C and the thermal images show a card is getting hot. The card can deal with it sure, but it's substandard towards what other brands are offering.
Power Consumption
We rate the RX 590 at roughly a 225~229 Watts TDP measured under full gaming load. That definitely is on the high side. We also expect the number will vary a bit depending on the clock state (throttle) but also if you overclock the product you'll pass that value with a decent amount. Keep in mind that this figure is indicative as some games utilize a bit more, others a little less.
Overclocking
The RX 590 from XFX has been pushed hard already we could get ~1600 MHz out of it, 1600 MHz is nice with an increased power limiter, it does not throttle (at the cost of more power draw though). Memory wise we expect it can reach 9.0 Gbps on the 8GB memory though.
Final Words
The Radeon RX 590 is more of the same that we have been testing well over two years now. Yes, performance went up a notch, yes the card still works very decently in Full HD and Quad HD resolutions and yes it tweaks nicely. The technology, however, is getting more dated. So for the RX 590 to be a success pricing needs to be great, AMD targets this as a 269 to 279 USD product. Relevance wise, hey the product is faster than a GTX 1060 overall, and NVIDIA is charging you 250 bucks for that. In closing, Polaris remains to be a sound architecture. Strictly speaking from pure shader engine performance it's still a product that performs really decent in 1080p and well enough in 1440p. So if you have not upgraded in the past 3 years, hey it might be the product you are looking for. While performance is all the same and in line with other brands we do recommend you a card with some better cooling though. While it will not be a huge issue for the card, the XFX cooling solution is rather sub-standard compared to other brands as the card runs a bit too hot in pale comparison, that is backed by what we are seeing on the thermal images. Then again, if XFX prices this product incredibly cheap it might turn out to be a proper value offering, make sure to vent your PC well though.
Recommended Downloads
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- 3DMark FireStrike + Time Spy
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