# Sapphire Radeon RX 590 Nitro+ Special Edition 8 GB



## W1zzard (Nov 15, 2018)

Sapphire's RX 590 Nitro+ Special Edition features an overclock on both the GPU and memory. What really helps against the GTX 1060 is that Sapphire included a "quiet" BIOS that rivals noise levels of the best GTX 1060 cards we ever tested.

*Show full review*


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## pky (Nov 15, 2018)

> With the default BIOS the card is already very quiet, reaching only 31 dBA. The real kicker is the "quiet" BIOS, which is whisper quiet—as quiet as the best GTX 1060 Ti cards that we tested!


When do we expect the GTX 1060 Ti reviews?


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## Basard (Nov 15, 2018)

Hm, 980ti performance....   and it's quiet.....  Well, it isn't horrible.


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## W1zzard (Nov 15, 2018)

pky said:


> When do we expect the GTX 1060 Ti reviews?


Fixed, you wouldn't believe how often I wrote "RTX"


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## SIGSEGV (Nov 15, 2018)

nice card and great review.
I do agree with the author, if it's priced around 240-250 then it'd make a solid profit for AMD.


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## Capitan Harlock (Nov 15, 2018)

Wizzard can you please do the Monster Hunter World benchmarks you have done so far without *Volume Rendering Quality*  turn on ?
Because that is not even necessary for the game.
Run better without it and show misleading results .


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## cucker tarlson (Nov 15, 2018)

Finally,a mid-range card that can match 980Ti stock. It's what rx480 was hyped to be. Although it delivers the performance of 980Ti at the same power draw despite using 12nm. Multi monitor power draw is too damn high as well. All in all, cooling a 200W card is not a problem nowadays, so it's a good buy for mid-range, but a rather "premium" mid-range card at $280. I feel like its good but overpriced. $50 over 580, just too much for what it offers,which is extra 100-150MHz.


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## RealNeil (Nov 15, 2018)

Good review. Nice performance improvement with the smaller silicone design. They also do crossfire, while 1060s are SLI gimped. Interesting development indeed. 
I wonder what numbers you could get if you ran both of your 590 cards in crossfire?  (yeah, sorry about making more work for you)


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## cucker tarlson (Nov 15, 2018)

RealNeil said:


> Good review. Nice performance improvement with the smaller silicone design. They also do crossfire, while 1060s are SLI gimped. Interesting development indeed.
> I wonder what numbers you could get if you ran both of your 590 cards in crossfire?  (yeah, sorry about making more work for you)


well,they do crossfire, but at $560 you can get a 1080ti and smash a pair of those.


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## RealNeil (Nov 15, 2018)

This is a good move on AMD's part. Buy into decent performance for a fair price and be able to combine it with another card later on. 
Sure, NVIDIA still offers SLI on some of their cards, but only on the most expensively priced offerings.


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## newtekie1 (Nov 15, 2018)

After reading both reviews, it seems AMD has really pushed the core as far as it's going to go as far as MHz is concerned.  There really isn't any headroom left on the RX 590.


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## cucker tarlson (Nov 15, 2018)

$230 for 580 that can hit 1500MHz, then next year they launch the same chip on 12nm which tops at 1600MHz at $280. That's friggin innovative.


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## 0x4452 (Nov 15, 2018)

An OC 1060 is begging to enter the review graphs


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## rtwjunkie (Nov 15, 2018)

So this has perfectly cemented itself as a 1920x 1080 card, maybe even the best choice.  I think that’s great! 1440p, not so much.


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## Vya Domus (Nov 15, 2018)

0x4452 said:


> An OC 1060 is begging to enter the review graphs



Unlikely to change much, people always praise Pascal for more overclocking headroom compared to Polaris/Vega but in reality it's not like that. My 1060 overclocked doesn't see a huge improvement because Nvidia's boost algorithm is merciless and clocks down the card a lot further than the more rigid clocks AMD use. Pascal's well kept TDP levels come with a cost.


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## Deleted member 158293 (Nov 15, 2018)

This card may very well make it into my guest rig to take over from the venerable 280x parked there for years.  Although the 280x still handles 1080 really well...

It's more a "want to" upgrade rather than a "need to" I guess.


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## Divide Overflow (Nov 15, 2018)

Nice review W1zzard!
I should be receiving mine later today so I can retire my 290x.  It should tide me over until custom cooling Navi solutions are reviewed later next year.  AMD really does need to improve on their power efficiency, as well as performance though.


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## Valantar (Nov 15, 2018)

A decent performance increase for a port to a slightly tweaked process node, but that pricing? No thanks. 

Impressed by that cooler, though. Hope it sticks around for Navi.


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## Casecutter (Nov 15, 2018)

Thanks for this W1zzard!  
At this point this exact Sapphire is $280 at Egg, I figured it would be more being this same card in 580 trim had maintained at $300 more often than not.  Was hoping it had a little more oomph for 1440p, but this still is about where I figured.  Stinks that in Wattman they aren't giving more OC'n on the memory, as I think that what could've let it get a slight more of a stride.  This for $280, or 20% more to step into a pedestrian GTX 1070 at $335?  So yeah if today you can swing $50 extra it's a toss-up, until you say you can get a FreeSync 1440p dial-back a setting here-n-there and find a smooth immersive gameplay that is what this might really be it's win.


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## W1zzard (Nov 15, 2018)

Uploaded new charts with performance data for the quiet BIOS


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## jabbadap (Nov 15, 2018)

Basard said:


> Hm, 980ti performance....   and it's quiet.....  Well, it isn't horrible.



While yeah it's in the same ball park as dead old dog called gtx980ti FE(perf+power), that old dog will leave this one to dust after both are overclocked(AIB custom model gtx980tis are already out of touch for this).



SIGSEGV said:


> nice card and great review.
> I do agree with the author, if it's priced around 240-250 then it'd make a solid profit for AMD.



Solid profit for selling it for less? I kind of doubt there's a lot of new buyers left on this perf/price bracket. So take as much  money as you can first and after sales stalls, make a very good looking discount to get rid of the rest stock. I surely hope this won't be very long living product before 7nm Navi takes over.


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## WikiFM (Nov 15, 2018)

Seems the quiet Bios looses 3-4% for just 2 dbA less, same watts at load, not worthy. Also this Sapphire cooler seems much better than the XFX, that is 6 C hotter and 2 dbA noiser, even that XFX is a triple slot one that OCs the same and consumes 14 W more and is a tiny slower than the Sapphire.


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## lexluthermiester (Nov 15, 2018)

rtwjunkie said:


> I think that’s great! 1440p, not so much.


Unless one turns down the AA. I know I keep saying that, but it's a valid point.


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## jabbadap (Nov 15, 2018)

WikiFM said:


> Seems the quiet Bios looses 3-4% for just 2 dbA less, same watts at load, not worthy. Also this Sapphire cooler seems much better than the XFX, that is 6 C hotter and 2 dbA noiser, even that XFX is a triple fan one that OCs the same and consumes 14 W more and is a tiny slower than the Sapphire.



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



lexluthermiester said:


> Unless one turns down the AA. I know I keep saying that, but it's a valid point.



Well turning down AA is a personal preference, some can do it some just can't stand aliasing. And off course it's highly depending on monitor DPI. Some 15" 1440p laptop screen won't need that much of AA while some 30" monitor does.


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## Assimilator (Nov 15, 2018)

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.


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## GoldenX (Nov 15, 2018)

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


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## lexluthermiester (Nov 15, 2018)

Assimilator said:


> 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..


Assimilator said:


> 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".


Assimilator said:


> 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.


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## W1zzard (Nov 15, 2018)

WikiFM said:


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


Going from 31 to 29 dBA is a HUGE difference


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## holyprof (Nov 15, 2018)

W1zzard said:


> 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).


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## neatfeatguy (Nov 15, 2018)

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.


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## jabbadap (Nov 15, 2018)

W1zzard said:


> 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.



holyprof said:


> 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.


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## Markosz (Nov 15, 2018)

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.


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## B-Real (Nov 15, 2018)

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.



Assimilator said:


> 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.


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## WikiFM (Nov 15, 2018)

jabbadap said:


> 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.



W1zzard said:


> 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.


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## Rebe1 (Nov 15, 2018)

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?


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## Basard (Nov 15, 2018)

jabbadap said:


> after both are overclocked


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


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## Turmania (Nov 16, 2018)

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.


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## Tsukiyomi91 (Nov 16, 2018)

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.


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## Turmania (Nov 16, 2018)

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.


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## WikiFM (Nov 16, 2018)

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.


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## Assimilator (Nov 16, 2018)

lexluthermiester said:


> 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.


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## lexluthermiester (Nov 16, 2018)

Assimilator said:


> 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.


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## Tsukiyomi91 (Nov 16, 2018)

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.


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## Valantar (Nov 16, 2018)

Tsukiyomi91 said:


> 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.


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## Tsukiyomi91 (Nov 16, 2018)

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.


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## ShurikN (Nov 16, 2018)

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.


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## Aldain (Nov 16, 2018)

Assimilator said:


> 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..


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## Shaky156 (Nov 16, 2018)

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


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## W1zzard (Nov 16, 2018)

Shaky156 said:


> 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?


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## Shaky156 (Nov 16, 2018)

W1zzard said:


> 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


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## Valantar (Nov 16, 2018)

Shaky156 said:


> 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


AnandTech does quite thorough compute benchmarking.


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## Shaky156 (Nov 16, 2018)

Valantar said:


> AnandTech does quite thorough compute benchmarking.



I do check and i am a big fan of anandtech reviews, but i believe they are somewhat bias with their benchmarks in cpus and gpus, their comparison list is not as extensive as techpowerup.
The more comparable data the better.
For example from anandtech the compubench benchmark shows the nvidia 1070, but not the 1080. The rx590 defeats the 1080 in the compubench n-body simulation benchmark, that is one example.


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## Valantar (Nov 16, 2018)

Shaky156 said:


> I do check and i am a big fan of anandtech reviews, but i believe they are somewhat bias with their benchmarks in cpus and gpus, their comparison list is not as extensive as techpowerup.
> The more comparable data the better.
> For example from anandtech the compubench benchmark shows the nvidia 1070, but not the 1080. The rx590 defeats the 1080 in the compubench n-body simulation benchmark, that is one example.


I think that's a consequence of them having a wider test portfolio - TPU does more games, but less non-gaming tests, and have more cards (and seem to do more GPU reviews in general vs. AT's focus on in-depth tech explanations); AT has a wider test portfolio but fewer games, and generally include fewer comparisons in their graphs. Sadly there's a limit to just how much testing you can squeeze in between receiving a review unit and the embargo lifting. Then again, AT has Bench, but sadly it seems they've been slow to include recent review units in the results database there. My solution is always to check multiple sources, as no single source is likely to cover every interesting data point.


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## Casecutter (Nov 16, 2018)

Valantar said:


> AMD saying "we're doing something" while waiting for Navi to arrive


Not to rival you on this, Seeing that AMD is slowly amputating itself from GloFo, and all their comingling as to wafer agreements I think this was what AMD could do.  It was all GloFo could provide within that without a lot of engineering funds/time from AMD.  I think this was all AMD had as a "course/finale" at GloFo.  AMD kind of took it for many reasons we don't always comprehend.  This probably was the best way to stay in their agreement, till they can finish the 7nm Navi, and offer some last thrust.   

I just wonder if AMD is being press by GloFo to change all their production to 12nm, ceding GloFo to settle into a concurrence in production.  If that's the direction GloFo press's what will the RX580/570 end up being?  Just 12nm at the same clock just lower power, and improve OC'n?

Honestly this is working for AMD as Nvidia has to toil with reducing their channel inventory but maintain their current pricing.  They can't bring anything new to the market while their abundance of Pasqual remains.


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## Valantar (Nov 16, 2018)

Casecutter said:


> Not to rival you on this, Seeing that AMD is slowly amputating itself from GloFo, and all their comingling as to wafer agreements I think this was what AMD could do.  It was all GloFo could provide within that without a lot of engineering funds/time from AMD.  I think this was all AMD had as a "course/finale" at GloFo.  AMD kind of took it for many reasons we don't always comprehend.  This probably was the best way to stay in their agreement, till they can finish the 7nm Navi, and offer some last thrust.
> 
> I just wonder if AMD is being press by GloFo to change all their production to 12nm, ceding GloFo to settle into a concurrence in production.  If that's the direction GloFo press's what will the RX580/570 end up being?  Just 12nm at the same clock just lower power, and improve OC'n?
> 
> Honestly this is working for AMD as Nvidia has to toil with reducing their channel inventory but maintain their current pricing.  They can't bring anything new to the market while their abundance of Pasqual remains.


I doubt GF can push AMD to move everything to 12nm given that they just announced the I/O die for Rome on 14nm (and it's confirmed to be GF making them). Then again, I can't imagine 12nm requiring significant equipment upgrades from 14nm, so it would be kind of odd if GF didn't plan to upgrade all 14nm production to 12nm in time - but for the I/O die with loads of components that don't really scale with node shrinks I'm betting AMD went for the cheapest of the two by design. Still, might this be the reasoning for the stealth-launched 2048-SP RX 580 - might it actually be a cut-down 590 with matching clocks? And if so, will they launch an even further cut down 570 refresh? I suppose we'll see over the next few months. 

Still, you're probably right that the wafer agreement is part of why AMD is launching this card now, pushing for a short-term increase in orders from GF before they can truly ramp production of I/O dice and other stuff to keep them within the terms of the agreement when Navi moves the majority of GPU production to TSMC. Not doing this might leave them "owing" GF an unreasonable amount of production that they then wouldn't need.


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## theravenesia (Nov 16, 2018)

wish i've that vga card


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## B-Real (Nov 19, 2018)

WikiFM said:


> 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.View attachment 110656


RX590 temperatures are well in the right region. We are not speaking of 290X 90ish degrees. 75ish degrees don't do harm to the GPU, and in terms of electricity bill, the extra consumption compared to the 1060 doesn't seem in the bill when you play games ~2-3 hours on weekdays and -6 hours in the weekends.


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## Tsukiyomi91 (Nov 19, 2018)

@B-Real all are within margins, after all.


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## John Naylor (Nov 19, 2018)

0x4452 said:


> An OC 1060 is begging to enter the review graphs





Assimilator said:


> 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.



And that's not even an AIB card... The MSI (101.1) outperformed the stock (97.5) card by 3.7% ...applying that makes the 1060 number 74.14 or a 7.3% faster









Shaky156 said:


> I do check and i am a big fan of anandtech reviews, but i believe they are somewhat bias with their benchmarks in cpus and gpus, their comparison list is not as extensive as techpowerup.



Since Anandtech got purchased by product placement firm (Purch group) I stopped reading ... same reason I left THG.


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## Valantar (Nov 19, 2018)

John Naylor said:


> Since Anandtech got purchased by product placement firm (Purch group) I stopped reading ... same reason I left THG.


Unlike Tom's, it doesn't seem like AT has changed on the editorial level since being bought - they still provide technical insight that's second to none (and still have the slowest/weirdest publishing cycle and selection of reviews in the tech media ). I suppose that's hard to avoid when half your editorial team has a PhD in whatever they're covering. The biggest difference I've seen is more annoying ads, but those are thankfully easily blocked.


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## Vayra86 (Nov 20, 2018)

B-Real said:


> RX590 temperatures are well in the right region. We are not speaking of 290X 90ish degrees. 75ish degrees don't do harm to the GPU, and in terms of electricity bill, the extra consumption compared to the 1060 doesn't seem in the bill when you play games ~2-3 hours on weekdays and -6 hours in the weekends.



You sure about that? We're talking literally double the power consumption here. Its like running 1060's in SLI and I can guarantee you, you will see it on your bill (I could literally spot the difference when adding a 2nd GTX 660 back in the day). Even at a conservative 4 hours per day of usage, you'll be looking at a steep premium if you consider using the GPU for 3 years. I haven't done the exact math, but 30-50 EUR/year is reasonable to think of. That is 90 EUR on top right there, across three years and a single GPU purchase. And its most likely going to be more.

This is a real factor that should be considered with RX 590. Its going way off the charts compared to an only slightly slower predecessor. Feels a bit like the midrange Vega.


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## onliniak (Nov 24, 2018)

Good review.

20FPS+ in 4K and 50FPS+ in 1440p (for people who upgrade from Intel HD Graphics). But too close to RX 580 ($50 cheaper). Plus for normal price, noise and temperatures. Maybe worth for 1440p or light 4k, but for 1080p ? Maybe in 2020 … not everyone needs 60 frames, for some people 25 is OK.

Well-priced only without taxes-> we pay $370 in Poland. $100 = 23% = "free games".
https://www.x-kom.pl/p/462827-karta...n-rx-590-nitro-special-edition-8gb-gddr5.html


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## Valantar (Nov 24, 2018)

onliniak said:


> Maybe worth for 1440p or light 4k, but for 1080p ? Maybe in 2020 … not everyone needs 60 frames, for some people 25 is OK.


I get that one's standards are adjusted based on experience and what is attainable, but the difference in experience in any game with even moderate focus on movement between 25fps and 60 is night and day. Increasing the resolution before reaching 60-ih fps is just maintaining a sub-par expectation on your part. It's definitely worth it for 1080p.


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## holyprof (Nov 25, 2018)

Not a very good card in my opinion. I would have preferred a 580 with lower power draw and slightly higher boost clock (than existing 580) instead. Sure one can buy a 590 and downclock to 580 clocks and/or undervolt it but not at that price.
I recently bought a new pc to serve as a backup to my main one and picked Ryzen 3 2200G with Vega graphics and I'm very happy with it. It's nearly as fast as an intel i3 + nvidia 1030 but cost the same as if the gpu was for free. And all of this drawing not much power (probably less than the mentioned (i3+1030). I wish AMD had a gpu like that. Well, one can dream.


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## Ravenas (Nov 27, 2018)

Does anyone know if the PowerColor RX 590 has a thermal backplate, or do they have what XFX has with the Fatboy (a piece of metal)?


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## Valantar (Nov 27, 2018)

Ravenas said:


> Does anyone know if the PowerColor RX 590 has a thermal backplate, or do they have what XFX has with the Fatboy (a piece of metal)?


Good question. I looked through Videocardz' entire review roundup, and not a single review of the Red Devil had bothered to remove the backplate (it screws in from behind the cooler, so you can remove the cooler without removing the backplate). That's pretty lazy.


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## W1zzard (Nov 27, 2018)

Valantar said:


> Good question. I looked through Videocardz' entire review roundup, and not a single review of the Red Devil had bothered to remove the backplate (it screws in from behind the cooler, so you can remove the cooler without removing the backplate). That's pretty lazy.


Powercolor knows who to send their samples to .. we'll take the card apart completely and didn't get one


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## Ravenas (Nov 27, 2018)

W1zzard said:


> Powercolor knows who to send their samples to .. we'll take the card apart completely and didn't get one



Still shocked that we saw no OEM aftermarket cards for Vega 64.


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## AppleSauceMacintosh (Dec 15, 2018)

I really appreciate all the testing you did on this card. I took the plunge and installed it in my 2012 Mac Pro to take advantage of 4 K and the great resolution... thanks for all your counsel.


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## V1TRU (Jan 17, 2019)

Hi, i'm waiting this card.
I read that rising core frequencies to 1600mhz reduce consumes by 20w on load and boost slightly performances.
How is even possible?
Thanks


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## FordGT90Concept (Jan 17, 2019)

My card doesn't go higher than 1560 MHz and when it does, it's only briefly because the power limitations on the card will force it to drop to around ~1340 MHz for continuous load.


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## Ravenas (Aug 26, 2019)

W1zz I have a ASUS 290X Matrix I’m thinking of replacing with this 590 for my son’s computer. Do you have relative performance gains as far as a percentage for gaming in 1080p?


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## FordGT90Concept (Aug 26, 2019)

290X ~= 390 and 590 is about 25% faster than 390 with lower power consumption


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## lexluthermiester (Aug 26, 2019)

Ravenas said:


> W1zz I have a ASUS 290X Matrix I’m thinking of replacing with this 590 for my son’s computer. Do you have relative performance gains as far as a percentage for gaming in 1080p?


Unless you can get a 590 for a great price, get an RX5700 instead. Far better performance and much better power and heat profiles.


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## Ravenas (Aug 27, 2019)

For approximately $150 more.


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## lexluthermiester (Aug 27, 2019)

Ravenas said:


> For approximately $150 more.


True, but worth it if you can afford such.


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## Ravenas (Aug 27, 2019)

lexluthermiester said:


> True, but worth it if you can afford such.



I agree with the power consumption improvements, however, I think the 5700 is a bit overkill for 1080p. Damn good 1440p GPU though.


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## lexluthermiester (Aug 27, 2019)

Ravenas said:


> I agree with the power consumption improvements, however, I think the 5700 is a bit overkill for 1080p.


That's an interesting point of view. Kinda depends on the games being played. However look at it this way, by purchasing a 5700 you will be future proofing the system in question for at least two years. If your budget is a limitation, the holiday season is coming up and there will be sales. Might be worth it to wait a few months for a good deal. Not trying to tell you the RX590 is a bad card, only the RX5700 is the better value and will last you much longer.


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## RealNeil (Aug 27, 2019)

GT90 is right. I went from a pair of 290X Sapphire cards in Crossfire to a pair of 390X in Crossfire and got very little gain from it.
The 590 is proven to be a lot better in Benchmarks. IDK % points, but I'm willing to bet it will be a nice upgrade for him.


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## lexluthermiester (Aug 27, 2019)

RealNeil said:


> GT90 is right. I went from a pair of 290X Sapphire cards in Crossfire to a pair of 390X in Crossfire and got very little gain from it.
> The 590 is proven to be a lot better in Benchmarks. IDK % points, but I'm willing to bet it will be a nice upgrade for him.


Agreed, it would a good upgrade.


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## Ravenas (Aug 28, 2019)

RealNeil said:


> GT90 is right. I went from a pair of 290X Sapphire cards in Crossfire to a pair of 390X in Crossfire and got very little gain from it.
> The 590 is proven to be a lot better in Benchmarks. IDK % points, but I'm willing to bet it will be a nice upgrade for him.



Thanks. Really just looking to allow him to play any game on a 1080p monitor. Bought him a Ryzen 3600 and a B450 motherboard too.


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## lexluthermiester (Aug 28, 2019)

Ravenas said:


> Thanks. Really just looking to allow him to play any game on a 1080p monitor. Bought him a Ryzen 3600 and a B450 motherboard too.


Very nice!


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## AlwaysHope (Aug 28, 2019)

Still rocking an R9 Nano for 1080P!


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## GoldenX (Aug 28, 2019)

If Vega can be used on APUs, why are we still on Polaris?


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## Valantar (Aug 28, 2019)

GoldenX said:


> If Vega can be used on APUs, why are we still on Polaris?


Because Vega isn't really any faster per CU than Polaris for non-compute tasks, and Polaris is cheap and easy to make? Making a new Vega die to replace the current Polaris models with near-zero performance gain would be rather silly. Beyond that, Polaris is slowly but surely being replaced by Navi, but until then it still performs well.


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## FordGT90Concept (Aug 28, 2019)

Nice thing I noticed about this card is that most of the time it is running ZeroRPM (fans aren't spinning).  Honestly, it's pretty rare for the card to make any sound at all.


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## RealNeil (Aug 28, 2019)

Ravenas said:


> Thanks. Really just looking to allow him to play any game on a 1080p monitor. Bought him a Ryzen 3600 and a B450 motherboard too.


It'll be a nice system for him.


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## Ravenas (Aug 29, 2019)

FordGT90Concept said:


> Nice thing I noticed about this card is that most of the time it is running ZeroRPM (fans aren't spinning).  Honestly, it's pretty rare for the card to make any sound at all.



Oh well well I checked your system specs, you are a proud owner. Thanks for the feedback!


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## evolucion8 (Dec 3, 2019)

WikiFM said:


> 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.View attachment 110656



Except that the RTX 2080 has a die size that is three times bigger, complex and more expensive to manufacture. And still 2.5 times smaller than the GTX 980 Ti while being as fast, The RX 590 was never meant to be a high performance part, was meant to be a performance part that would offer similar performance to previous top end GPUs at a much smaller die size, much lower price and less heat and power consumption.


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## WikiFM (Dec 7, 2019)

evolucion8 said:


> Except that the RTX 2080 has a die size that is three times bigger, complex and more expensive to manufacture. And still 2.5 times smaller than the GTX 980 Ti while being as fast, The RX 590 was never meant to be a high performance part, was meant to be a performance part that would offer similar performance to previous top end GPUs at a much smaller die size, much lower price and less heat and power consumption.



I was talking just about power efficiency, in which 590 took 3.5 years to catch 980 Ti. Yes 2080 is 3 times bigger yet consumes the same and is 2 times faster. So 590 hasn't less heat and consumption than 980 Ti or 2080.


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