Sapphire Radeon RX 590 NITRO+ Special Edition Detailed

[btarunr]

Sapphire is developing a premium variant of its upcoming Radeon RX 590 series, called the RX 590 NITRO+ Special Edition, much like the "limited edition" branding it gave its premium RX 580-based card. Komachi Ensaka accessed leaked brochures of this card, which will bear an internal SKU code 11289-01. The brochure also confirms that the RX 590 features an unchanged 2,304 stream processor count from the RX 580, and continues to feature 8 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 256-bit wide memory interface. All that's new is improved thermals from a transition to the new 12 nm FinFET silicon fabrication process.

The Sapphire RX 590 NITRO+ SE ships with two clock-speed profiles, that can be probably toggled on the hardware by switching between two BIOS ROMs. The first profile is called NITRO+ Boost, and it runs the GPU at 1560 MHz, and the memory at 8400 MHz (GDDR5-effective). The second profile, called Silent Mode, reduces the engine clock boost to 1545 MHz, and the memory to 8000 MHz. For both profiles, the fan settings are unchanged. The fans stay off until the GPU is warming up to 54 °C, and spins at its nominal speed at 75 °C. It cuts off at 45 °C. The nominal speed is 0 - 2,280 RPM and the maximum speed is 3200 RPM.



Sapphire's RX 590 NITRO+ features a similar product design to its RX 580 NITRO+ Limited Edition, which detachable fans ventilating a dense aluminium fin-stack heatsink, which draws heat from the GPU over a pair of 8 mm-thick heat pipes. The card draws power from a combination of 6-pin and 8-pin PCIe power connectors. The underlying PCB is slightly different from that of its predecessor, in that Sapphire appears to have switched to higher current chokes for its 6-phase VDDC VRM. The company is also using a premium 8-layer PCB. Pricing of the card is up in the air, although an eager beaver Newegg marketplace reseller in Canada has it up for $499.



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[xkm1948]

1560. Can this reach 1070 level? I mean default without overclocking 1070

 

[spnidel]

1560. Can this reach 1070 level? I mean default without overclocking 1070

on userbenchmark the 1070 is faster than the rx 480 and 580 by 31% and 27% respectively, the clock speed difference between the 480 and 580 is around 80mhz
based on that, this 200mhz uplift compared to the 580 means the 1070 would still be somewhere around 15-20% faster, provided the card is not memory bottlenecked
I doubt it'll reach 1070 level performance

 

[Jism]

What's the TDP. If it's equal to the current RX580 at 180W then it's a good shrink. If it's sitting at 200W at those clocks then it's not really a succesfull refresh. The memory speed improvement (2100MHz) is marginal to the 2000Mhz the RX580 has.

This RX590 does'nt have all the needed CU's/ROPS in order to beat the 1070. Even at 1700Mhz it still woud'nt come close to the 1070ti.

 

[M2B]

This is what the RX 480 Shoud have been.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

I honestly fail to see the point of this GPU. Even at these clock speeds, it wont match the now 2 year old 1070. AMD undoubtedly had to invest resources into porting polaris to 12nm?

But why? Maybe a future console will use a 12nm polaris/zen+ combo? Navi is supposed to be 7nm, I dont see the point of putting any money into polaris at this point.

 

[Casecutter]

This is the same build, memory spec's, and AUX power as the Special Edition... nothing new there. But at 1560 MHz (vs the 1430Mhz) that's like 9-10% more clock. But it might not be like saying it's just OC'd, especially if it can stay in boost more. But this is what been expected for a while, and in all probably run like a Fury X / 980Ti which would be a good place.

AMD undoubtedly had to invest resources into porting polaris to 12nm?

I'd bet GloFlo wanted them to move and consolidate around 12Nm, I'd say AMD between what was some normal retool of litho plates, and a little aid in pricing from GloFo it probably end up a wash in the long run.

 

[Steevo]

Old school AMD/ATI move, move a known architecture to a new process with maybe a single respin and see what happens, then...... profit?

I am interested in seeing numbers and OC capability, perhaps it will OC like a mofo and be able to take the voltage required to do so with better cooling.

 

[prtskg]

I honestly fail to see the point of this GPU. Even at these clock speeds, it wont match the now 2 year old 1070. AMD undoubtedly had to invest resources into porting polaris to 12nm?

But why? Maybe a future console will use a 12nm polaris/zen+ combo? Navi is supposed to be 7nm, I dont see the point of putting any money into polaris at this point.

Better than refresh of 480 into 580. Some minimal investment to get 10+% gain in performance is good, I think.

 

[Vayra86]

This is just a cheap way to have a new GPU in name. I don't see it as much more. Yes its a small bump, and yes it will net a few %, but this won't change much.

 

[Turmania]

really depends on the price if this will be hit or not. If they go around 300 USD it will be not a great move, 250 or less depending on the cooler solution used it can be a hit, since Nvdia has not released a direct successor to gtx 1060 yet. I said it before, AMD should have used 7nm process on this card and go for more raw speed whilst bringing down the power consumption to gtx 1060 levels at least. it is quite weird to have a 200W rx 580/590 series when double performance 2070 series uses less power, might not be a worry for some, but for mini itx case users this can be a serious problem.

 

[Casecutter]

If they go around 300 USD it will be not a great move, 250 or less depending on the cooler solution used it can be a hit

Exactly, If AMD places the MSRP on the lower end it will sell.

but for mini itx case users this can be a serious problem

Well I'd say AMD is just "making hay" in the masses, and less looking to tap the folks (3-5%) into mini ITX gaming machines.

And I sure hope Sapphire sends this to W1zzard for review.

 

[Blueberries]

Tell me I'm not the only one bothered by the heat-pipes being in the wrong place in that diagram of a video card in the first picture.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Pricing of the card is up in the air, although an eager beaver Newegg marketplace reseller in Canada has it up for $499.

That price seems a lot higher than it should be. One can get a 1080 for that price.

 

[Divide Overflow]

That price seems a lot higher than it should be. One can get a 1080 for that price.

Now listed on Amazon for $279 USD.
https://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-Bac...=1542247440&sr=8-3&keywords=radeon+rx+590+8gb