AMD RX 580 8GB assessment: the best-value graphics card you’ll be able to jam into your gaming PC

When the AMD RX 580 first arrived within the workplace it was a little bit of a disappointment. Not solely have been we hoping the 500-series GPUs would herald a brand new world of Vega-based graphics playing cards (which ended up being their very own distinctive model of disappointing), nevertheless it was barely any completely different from the RX 480 that had landed a yr earlier.

But a yr and a half, and one crypto mining increase later, the RX 580 has managed to ship on the ‘fine wine’ promise that AMD attaches to all of its silicon. It’s now the graphics card that we might suggest as one of the best GPU to drop into your gaming rig… until you may have an infinite cash tree and may spend $1,200 on an RTX 2080 Ti anyhow.

It’s an impressively highly effective, well-priced graphics card, with a relatively enormous pool of video reminiscence and a flair for coping with trendy graphics APIs. And at simply $210 ($195) it has little or no competitors available in the market, with Nvidia’s GTX 1060 solely giving it pause in a number of DX11 titles and nonetheless being dearer on the entire.

Though it does have somewhat extra competitors within the mainstream market now, as AMD has simply launched its ‘new’ RX 590 graphics card. In itself it’s only a average 12nm die shrink of the Polaris GPU on the coronary heart of the outdated RX 580, nevertheless it’s additionally a well timed reminder that AMD’s mainstream graphics playing cards are your greatest guess for great-value gaming efficiency proper now.

AMD RX 580 specs

Polaris Enhanced. That’s what AMD referred to as the up to date 500-series of graphics playing cards, however they have been by no means anticipating to encourage anybody that spent their money on a last-gen Polaris card to improve. Despite calling the GPUs on the coronary heart of each the brand new RX 580 and RX 570 Polaris 20 it’s nonetheless actually the identical 14nm Polaris 10 chip they used, to nice impact, within the RX 480 and RX 470 playing cards.

The ‘enhanced’ bit comes from the truth that 12 months on from the preliminary Polaris launch each the 14nm FinFET expertise and the 4th Gen GCN structure used within the newest AMD Radeon playing cards had a full yr to mature. That means the manufacturing course of and yields improved and the ensuing GPUs have been extra strong.

That’s the principle cause AMD have been in a position to launch RX 580 playing cards with a better base clock pace than the reference RX 480 playing cards noticed at launch. The base/enhance clocks of the unique RX 480 have been 1,120MHz and 1,266MHz respectively, whereas the reference spec of the RX 580’s Polaris 20 chip is about at 1,257MHz and 1,340MHz. With the overall tightening up of the GPU’s manufacturing course of AMD can ship out playing cards utilizing just about the earlier chip’s peak efficiency as a place to begin to work up from.

Though in the event you have been hoping for a similar 40 compute unit, 2,560 core, Polaris GPU Microsoft shipped with the AMD-powered Xbox One X you’d be disenchanted. Outside of the reference clock pace bump the RX 580 is similar GPU beast because the RX 480. The core configuration is equivalent – the 14nm Polaris 20 within the new card remains to be sporting 36 compute models (CUs) with 2,304 stream processors unfold out throughout them. Alongside which can be the identical 144 texture models and 32 ROPs.

The reminiscence system is similar too, with 8GB of GDDR5 delivering a full 256GB/s of reminiscence bandwidth. And, just like the 400 collection playing cards, there are each 4GB and 8GB variations of the RX 580, in addition to the RX 570.

All that appears to have actually modified then, clockspeed hike apart, is the brand new RX 580 playing cards have a better TDP to permit for the improved clockspeeds the brand new designs are transport with. Those clockspeeds above are simply the advised reference design specs, however the reality AMD by no means created any reference samples for the brand new playing cards was indicative of their refresh/rebadge standing, and likewise that almost all RX 580 playing cards could be costly manufacturing unit overclocked ones even when the costs weren’t being artificially boosted by the gluttonous mining group.

Our XFX pattern runs at 1,366MHz, whereas the Asus STRIX card hits a heady 1,411MHz out of the field. The unique STRIX version of the RX 480, however, runs at a default 1,330MHz. That itself was a reasonably hefty enhance in factory-overclock phrases, however the brand new variant from Asus is sort of 100MHz forward of that.

AMD RX 580 benchmarks

AMD RX 580 efficiency

The RX 580 is simply somewhat behind the newer RX 590 by way of general gaming efficiency, and usually there’s solely ever a number of frames per second on common between them. That’s one thing of a shock given the considerably larger clock speeds provided by the up to date, 12nm playing cards.

That’s probably not the important thing battleground for the RX 580, nevertheless. How it performs towards the Nvidia GTX 1060 is the place the true battle is, and that’s much more attention-grabbing. On the entire the AMD Graphics Core Next structure has the sting in general gaming efficiency. There are a number of cases the place the Nvidia GPU holds sway, however that’s solely ever in last-gen DirectX 11 games. In the extra trendy APIs, and DirectX 12 particularly, the AMD silicon has the GeForce card beat.

When you are taking a step up in gaming decision the improved reminiscence subsystem of the AMD card involves the fore. With one other 2GB of GDDR5 reminiscence, and a wider 256-bit reminiscence bus, the RX 580 in 8GB trim is best in a position to take care of the rigours of high-res textures and the additional general pixel rely.

That’s to not say the GTX 1060 isn’t nonetheless a terrific performer at this finish of the market, it most actually is, however when the efficiency is so shut pricing turns into a good greater consideration. And when the RX 580 simply has the sting on gaming body charges general, and the sting in pricing, it doesn’t look good for the GeForce card.

Where the Nvidia GPU does have a big edge, nevertheless, is within the traditional GeForce effectivity. Back within the Maxwell days Nvidia made a play for effectivity when it was unable to motion a silicon die shrink, and that transfer remains to be paying off. The GTX 1060, outdoors of its reference cooler design, usually runs cooler than the RX 580, however positively attracts far much less energy to game at nearly the identical stage.

AMD RX 580 verdict

The RX 580 is hands-down the best-value graphics card in the marketplace right now. With the pricing issues of the mining increase instances a distant reminiscence, the RX 580 8GB playing cards will be picked up for as little as $210 (£195), and that’s a comparative discount. Given the actual fact the closest Nvidia competitor card is $250 (£220) it’s powerful to suggest the dearer GeForce GPU’s barely weaker general efficiency.

The two mainstream super-middleweight GPUs have been going toe-to-toe since they have been each launched, swapping blows frequently, however with an increasing number of newly launched games favouring the improved reminiscence system of the AMD card the RX 580 is the mainstream GPU we’d suggest. Even over the quicker, mildly up to date 12nm RX 590 too.