Radeon RX 590 Review -Benchmarks And Specification

Rx 590

So it's that time of the year again when everyone starts launching new products to get those key holiday sales.

Radeon RX 590 Review

It's also been a pretty interesting season for the GPU market as well with the new RTX series from Nvidia but it didn't go as planned as it should have been in the first place did it. I mean we're months into the launch and there still isn't a game that supports any of the features at the RTX series GPUs we're supposed to offer.

So that sort of sets the stage for this article because as it stood AMD didn't really have anything new from their Radeon graphics division and that causes an issue especially at this time of the year.

So they had to dig deep into their past and to come up with this the Rx 590. So why don't we go ahead and talk about the specs and benchmarks and all that kind of stuff?

So this is the RX 590 or in this case the XFX Rx 590 fat boy. That's right I just said the fat boy and that's exactly what XFX is calling this thing so keyboard warriors you're more than welcome to grow as much as you want in the comments.

Now the RX 590 isn't really new because it uses the same four generation GCN Polaris architecture found in the RX 480 and RX 580. That's right AMD is once again using a design that was first launched about two and a half years ago.

This thing has more lives than a cat the only difference is that they're using a 12-nanometer manufacturing process instead of the 40 nanometers used on the Rx 580. It really is too bad that Vega isn't being addressed with this new process and supposedly AMD has no plans to change that right now.

Specifications

Rx 590 specification

So as you can see with the specs the updated manufacturing process has allowed AMD to take the RX 580 to increase its core frequency and simply create the rx 590 as a pre overclocked version.

The claim is that we should see a 10 to 15% frame rate boost, so not all that much more than what a user overclocked are 580 can achieve so while the rx 580 is meant to compete against in videos gtx 1060 6gb.

This new card is supposed to perform a bit above that. XFX has given this card a thirty-five megahertz overclock but that won't amount to any additional performance. Even with a twelve-nanometer core, there's a huge jump in power consumption, since the Polaris architecture wasn't designed to operate at such high clock speeds. Just to give you an idea that 225 watts is 10 watts more than what Nvidia rates there RTX 2080 ad and that's pretty crazy. Of course, pricing had to factor into this - and that's where I think AMD may have a winner. I mean we really didn't need a pre-overclocked Rx 580 but at its price of $280, it should be pretty competitive against Nvidia. The GTX 1066 gabite goes for around $250 to $290 on Amazon right now so that's right in line with the arts 590.

The problem might come with how the arcs 590 aligns with the current state of RX 580 pricing you see AMD's board partners have been very aggressive and you can actually find some examples like Emma size armor for $210 and power colors red dragon for $220.

 Free Gifts with RX 590

Honestly, this might cause the arcs 590 to look like a pretty poor value even before it launches but there's one more perk I wanted to talk about. 

When you purchase an RX 590 or a PC equipped with one you'll also get three free upcoming games - there's Devil May Cry 5 and the division two that are due to launch in March of 2019. While Resident Evil 2 remake should be out in January all things considered that's well over a hundred fifty dollars of free games.

But they're only valuable to someone who actually wants them. Plus the offer is only good for a limited time so we can't really take them into consideration for the Rx 590'S long-term value.

Overview

 

Rx 590 overview

Okay so onto the XFX RX 590 Fat Boy. Yeah that's probably the last time I'm going to call that name but let's read about a closer look at this card and see what it offers.

So this is one thick card that has two large fans and is much wider than we're used to. Basically due to the heat produce by the overclocked Polaris Core XFX needed to supersize their hietzing design and that means it also takes up two and a half inch slots and is just over ten and a half inches long.

Now to feed its hunger for power this rx 590 is equipped with an 8 pin and a 6 pin power connector layout and you can actually see how the heat sings huge heat pipes sneak around this area. It's pretty impressive but it also goes to show how AMD did everything they could to squeeze performance out of their old architecture

The backplane has a cool design but it's mostly for show since it doesn't actively cool any components here.

So that's it for the overview and now on to the benchmarks now

Benchmarks

Benchmarks of  COD: WWII

Benchmarks of  Battlefield 1

Benchmarks of Far cry 5

In order to keep things even we're gonna be comparing this Rx 590, with MSI mech, Rx 580, the EVGA GTX 1060 superclocked and the EVGA gtx 1070 gaming.

Power consumption

Power consumption of Rx 590

First of all how much power the card sucked down and all I have to say is that this is pretty concerning for the RX 590. It looks like AMD push their Polaris course so far that it now requires almost as much juice as the rtx 2080.

I was prepared for this but wow guys these are some extremely high numbers for a sub $300 GPU. Even though power consumption is high it looks like XFX has been able to keep temperatures pretty much under control.

At 80 degrees they are higher than what our MSI rx 580 MEK achieved but remember that core is obviously pushing out a massive amount of heat. Luckily the XFX rx 590 remained pretty quiet throughout our testing period but it definitely wasn't the quietest GPU in these charts but remember at 47 decibels it won't be annoying in the least and luckily it didn't exhibit any coil whine.

Main Review / Conclusion

So, guys, it's pretty obvious that the RX 590 is being launched to capture those Christmas season sales and aim these struggling to find ways to keep their current graphics card stay relevant.

But I was where the RX 580 did and the RX 590 wouldn't be separate enough to make the refresher line worth a while. Well, it turns out that just from a raw performance standpoint. There wasn't much to worry about. Personally, I think this new card is perfectly suited for people who want a budget-friendly GPU that can kick butt at 1080p while delivering great performance at 1440p.

The GTX 1066 gigabyte though it's really more comfortable gaming at 1080p and the 6-gigabyte frame buffer can be limiter above that. The 590 is just way more adaptable.

I really like how the RX 590 is positioned against the RX 580 since its performance increases ranged from around 7% to 10% at 1440p while 1080p more of a boost. The only problem here is that AMD's facing the exact same issue Nvidia did when the rth series launched the older cards are so well priced the newer ones don't look like a good value right now you can find an RX 580 for 210 to $220 and the 50 to $60 premium for the 590 just doesn't seem worth it unless if you want those free games.

Now according to AMD the RX 590 is the perfect upgrade for four to five-year-old systems but there's also a little problem with that story this thing is a hungry little guy. The XFX card we have sucked down more power than a gtx 1070, as a matter of fact, it needs about as much power as in RTX 2080 and that's pretty crazy that and the 6 + 8 pin power connector layout might force a PSU upgrade for older systems.

Honestly guys I really like the Rx 580 but AMD's obviously trying to push their palettes architecture a little bit further than it was originally designed to and that means the power consumption numbers are huge in comparison to frame rates.

Now if your system can handle it this might be an awesome upgrade but I would also make sure to check the Rx 580 prices before taking the plunge.