Sapphire Radeon RX 590 Nitro+ Special Edition 8 GB

[GoldenX]

Man these last 3 years have been boring in the GPU space.

 

[lexluthermiester]

RX 590 which can't overclock

Did you miss the part of the review where W1zzard OC'd the card? He didn't push it too far but it was still a decent effort which is likely to be pushed further by enthusiasts..

Then there is the GTX 1060 GDDR5X waiting in the wings, which could very well be a performance monster, while Polaris has nothing left in the tank.

That's a good point. And that card would likely be an unofficial "1060Ti".

I would say "good try AMD"... but that would imply an attempt was made.

To be fair this is a good mid-range card. AMD wasn't going for an RTX buster here. It's also fair to say that was a good effort as transitioning from 14nm to 12nm may seem like a small step but the engineering involved is considerable.

 

[W1zzard]

Seems the quiet Bios looses 3-4% for just 2 dbA less

Going from 31 to 29 dBA is a HUGE difference

 

[holyprof]

Going from 31 to 29 dBA is a HUGE difference

Absolutely right, approx 1.584 times, in terms of sound pressure. So really big. Only someone that doesn't undestand logarithmical scales can't get it.
Not only 1.5 times is much, but also 29 dB (A) is close to the noise background in most rooms so it might make a low noise (31db) seem inaudible (29dB).

 

[neatfeatguy]

Meets the performance and power draw of a 980Ti (stock) card that came out almost 3.5 years ago.....

Once you factor in the fact that a lot of the 980Ti out there can overclock like mad and that even the 1060 or 1070 can overclock decent, this RX 590 feels like a last ditch effort from AMD to make it feel like they're still in the GPU game. Its kind of like when a baseball team is down by 20 runs and they rally for an inning and close the gap, so instead of the score being 24 to 4, it's now 24 to 12.....they still lose, but they wanted the other team to know they're still here.

It kind of feels like it's too little, too late from AMD.

 

[jabbadap]

Going from 31 to 29 dBA is a HUGE difference

Not really. It's on the brink of noticeable level of change in loudness but I would not call that huge.

Absolutely right, approx 1.584 times, in terms of sound pressure. So really big. Only someone that doesn't undestand logarithmical scales can't get it.
Not only 1.5 times is much, but also 29 dB (A) is close to the noise background in most rooms so it might make a low noise (31db) seem inaudible (29dB).

Sound pressure is a field quantity so it's approx 1.259 times more of sound pressure. Then again it's even little less in human ear loudness factor, which doubles in every +10dB of pressure decibels.

 

[Markosz]

This is highly disappointing...
Worse performance / dollar than 580, one of the worst performance / watt gpu even though it's 12nm. No more OC headroom left.
Not good, AMD, not promising for the future.

 

[B-Real]

With the 3 games bundled, its an OK for the price too. But I just realized that ALL cards are in the new game bundle: RX570 and 580 buyers can choose 2 of the 3 games while RX 590 and Vega buyers get the 3 games, which is super nice.

RX 590 which can't overclock beats GTX 1060 by 10%. GTX 1060 can easily be overclocked to pull that 10% back. GTX 1060 costs $50 less and consumes 25% less power.

Then there is the GTX 1060 GDDR5X waiting in the wings, which could very well be a performance monster, while Polaris has nothing left in the tank.

I would say "good try AMD"... but that would imply an attempt was made.

You just forgot the 180 $ worth 3 games for AMD.

 

[WikiFM]

Fatboy has two fans, as does this... Or are you talking about some other XfX card, that I'm not aware of?

I meant triple slot, not fans my mistake, yes I was talking about Fatboy.

Going from 31 to 29 dBA is a HUGE difference

For me Huge difference is saying that 81 C on load is fine on Fatboy, I would increase the fans speed to lower that at least to 75 C, anyway the game's sound should be much louder than the GPU's fans so I will not notice, but perhaps you do, you prefer hot as hell but quiet as whisper, for me is otherwise.

 

[Rebe1]

Now let us just see what some enthusiasts of UV + OC can squeeze from this card. 1620 MHz without even touching power limit looks rly promising, can we beat here 1700 MHz?

 

[Basard]

after both are overclocked

Oh yeah.... Forgot about that. Those are beasts for OC.

 

[Turmania]

Really wanted to see AMD enter with a bang but 240wattage gpu for roughly same performance as competitor produced 2 years ago with half the power usage is no success.this really shows how far amd has dropped from the competitor unfortunately.

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

now this is how the Polaris SHOULD have performed; albeit a little too late IMO... But, still getting beaten by its bigger sibling, the Vega 56 across all benches.

 

[Turmania]

There I was complaining about new RTX cards power consumption was too much, well this card consumes more power than RTX 2080... Really shows how far AMD has fallen.

 

[WikiFM]

It is funny to compare 590 with 980 Ti and 2080, the 3 of them consume around 220 W, but 980 Ti is a 3.5 years old card in 28 nm that is still 4% faster, and 2080 is 2x faster using a 12 nm process as 590. Price is AMD's only weapon.

 

[Assimilator]

Did you miss the part of the review where W1zzard OC'd the card? He didn't push it too far but it was still a decent effort which is likely to be pushed further by enthusiasts..

I did read that section, and a ~5% uplift in performance is hardly anything to write home about.

However other sites that reviewed RX 590 have used MSI Afterburner to get unlocked core voltage, and they are seeing an extra 10% performance from stock, which does put it ahead of GTX 1060 by an appreciable amount. So if we're comparing apples to apples, non-OC'd RX 590 beats non-OC'd GTX 1060, and OC'd RX 590 beats OC'd GTX 1060.

Therefore it is accurate to say that AMD finally has a card that convincingly beats the GTX 1060.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I did read that section, and a ~5% uplift in performance is hardly anything to write home about.

It's a starting point. 5% on a simple easy try usually means more can be had with a more delivered effort.

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

10% gain from stock for a refreshed Polaris with some OC is still something. But, it's a little too late as it is when 7nm Navi is coming close & Nvidia still taking the lead in the benchmarks leaderboard.

 

[Valantar]

10% gain from stock for a refreshed Polaris with some OC is still something. But, it's a little too late as it is when 7nm Navi is coming close & Nvidia still taking the lead in the benchmarks leaderboard.

I think that's the exact reason for launching this: AMD saying "we're doing something" while waiting for Navi to arrive. It's not a bad card for a refresh on a slightly tweaked node, but as you imply, it's not very consequential. Scoring some easy points in the short term to make the long-term wait seem shorter. Just too bad the pricing is this bad.

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

and with how hard it is to get a Vega 56, let alone the 64, I think AMD now is in a bind coz 2018 is coming to an end, their product stack is lacking in performance & value department etc.

 

[ShurikN]

THe more I look at these cards the more I think "Thank god AMD will no longer have meaningful products on GloFo".
The only upside is that now they can probably maintain 580 performance levels at lower power consumption, so a laptop release is a possibility. Which they desperately need.

 

[Aldain]

RX 590 which can't overclock beats GTX 1060 by 10%. GTX 1060 can easily be overclocked to pull that 10% back. GTX 1060 costs $50 less and consumes 25% less power.

Then there is the GTX 1060 GDDR5X waiting in the wings, which could very well be a performance monster, while Polaris has nothing left in the tank.

I would say "good try AMD"... but that would imply an attempt was made.

LOL what?? What a load of BS , the fatboy can be user OC to 1680 Mhz and it will beat the user OC 1060 , as for that Gddr5x it brings nothing to the table for the 1060..

 

[Shaky156]

Dear techpowerup,@W1zzard
Ive joined this forum for a request.
If its possibe, could you please add gpu compute benchmarks to the reviews.
Thank you

 

[W1zzard]

Dear techpowerup,@W1zzard
Ive joined this forum for a request.
If its possibe, could you please add gpu compute benchmarks to the reviews.
Thank you

we had eth mining and nobody seemed interesting.

what real-life test do you propose?

 

[Shaky156]

we had eth mining and nobody seemed interesting.

what real-life test do you propose?

If possible, geekbench4 gpu compute, opencl, cuda, tensorflow, compubench, folding @ home.

Thank you