Friday, November 15th 2019
MSI Prepares Another Version of AMD Radeon RX 580 Armor Graphics Card
While AMD is giving all signs of being preparing to release their latest entries into the midrange graphics card market in the form of theRX 5500 and RX 5300 series of graphics cards based on Navi, AMD's AIB partners are giving the slow burn on existing inventories of AMD's Polaris graphics chips. MSI, in this case, seems to have bet on a slight redesign of their previously-released RX 580 Armor and Armor MK2.
Changed is the color scheme - MSI went full black on this one. There's also a redesigned PCB, a redesigned I/O bracket (which keeps four display connectors), and a new cooler shroud. The heatsink's surface area also seems to have been increased, which should provide lower operating temperatures (anything beyond that, such as higher overclockability and longer lifespan, are speculations). The redesigned Armor keeps the single 8-pin PCIe power connector. No other details are available at time of writing.
Source:
Videocardz
Changed is the color scheme - MSI went full black on this one. There's also a redesigned PCB, a redesigned I/O bracket (which keeps four display connectors), and a new cooler shroud. The heatsink's surface area also seems to have been increased, which should provide lower operating temperatures (anything beyond that, such as higher overclockability and longer lifespan, are speculations). The redesigned Armor keeps the single 8-pin PCIe power connector. No other details are available at time of writing.
30 Comments on MSI Prepares Another Version of AMD Radeon RX 580 Armor Graphics Card
I mean, how many do they have that they would consider pushing another new design? Wouldn't that be a waste of time and money if they didn't have a lot of cards sitting somewhere, collecting dust...?
And I quite like their current AMD motherboards - I can't complain with my B450 Gaming Plus.
@Raevenlord you should check before posting theories like this:
"AMD's AIB partners are giving the slow burn on existing inventories of AMD's Polaris graphics chips "
You've referenced Videocardz as a source, but they haven't suggested anything of the sort.
So, MSI seems to have updated their lowly Armor (construction/cost) part to keep a respectable 1080p card as today's for the "Entry" status. Now if this can be priced at $160 and rebates can get it like $145 it's nice BfB.
Until 7nm becomes easily available in quantities AMD needs (which is: next year - when Apple moves to 5nm), AMD will have to look for workarounds.
Zen2 CPUs got a 14nm I/O (which was quite smart). Zen2-based APUs (next year) will likely still use 14nm Vega GPUs (not so smart if true).
With GPUs AMD went the more obvious route. They push 7nm to the expensive parts and keep making 14nm Polaris and Vega to temporarily fill the lower end.
Keep in mind they've contracted MILLIONS of 7nm Navi GPUs to Sony and Microsoft. :)
OOF
Or, they look to do a quick dirty "re-name" to 6X00 with even-numbers once the Big Navi shows in say mid-2020 and these SKU's juggle down a notch in nomenclature and price points.
Of course TSMC would love to be an exclusive manufacturer of high-profit CPUs, so maybe they're playing the long game - hoping that one day AMD will raise prices and be able to pay more.
Anyway, whatever supply of 7nm AMD has, it remains quite limited and contracted for a long period. On the other hand: AMD's has to supply a huge number of Navi chips next year, while Zen2 (especially for servers) is their current flagship product.
Navi GPU for PC is the least important 7nm product AMD makes at the moment. It would be quite weird if they decided to waste 7nm on it.
But hey: in 2 months we'll know what's inside next gen APU.
If it turns out to be a 14nm Vega, will you find the "7nm being crowded" idea more probable? :)
Everything is in a good place right now to purchase APART from gpu's, they are massive bs.
And we dont need this card to go on any longer, it was last gen a year after the RX480 came out.... this just needs to go and we need to move on.