The best graphics card is rarely the most expensive model. Yes, Nvidia holds the crown for the extreme performance market, and the high-end market as well, but one look at the Steam Hardware Survey tells a well-known truth: The majority of gamers are using midrange or lower graphics cards. The top four GPUs are all midrange parts costing less than $300, and they account for more than 35 percent of the market. The GTX 1070 comes in fifth at around 4 percent market share, and the 1080 Ti only accounts for 1.5 percent of users. With nearly a $200 gap between the RX 580 and RX Vega 56 (less now thanks to some sales), AMD hopes to fill the void with a new $279 RX 590.
Architecture: Polaris 30
Lithography: TSMC 12nm FinFET
Transistor Count: 5.7 billion
Die Size: 232mm2
Compute Units: 36
CUDA Cores: 2,304
Render Outputs: 32
Texture Units: 144
Base Clock: 1469MHz
Boost Clock: 1545MHz
Memory Speed: 8 GT/s
GDDR5 Capacity: 8GB
Bus Width: 256-bit
TDP: 175W
This isn't just a rehash of the previous Polaris GPUs like the RX 570/580 (which were a rehash of the RX 470/480). The new RX 590 GPU uses TSMC's enhanced 12nm process. That leads to lower power and higher clockspeeds, which is good news. But AMD didn't do a die shrink with the 590—transistor counts and die size are the same, so really it's about improving thermals and efficiency. There's also no 4GB model to muddy the waters this round, which is just as well considering how poorly 4GB and lower GPUs are holding up with higher quality settings in the latest games.
Looking at the RX 580 8GB for comparison, the main difference is that the 590 has a turbo clock of 1545MHz, compared to 1340MHz. Nominal power is rated at 175W TDP, though actual TDP will vary by the graphics card manufacturer. AMD sent us the XFX RX 590 Fatboy for the launch, as it won't be providing any 'reference' models. The XFX card comes with a slight factory overclock of 1580MHz, which should be typical of most custom AIB models.
Still, it's hard not to be a bit disappointed at the outset. A 200MHz boost in clockspeeds is welcome news, but we're looking at an architecture that's over two years old. A straight process shrink is about the easiest update to any microprocessor that can be done, and some would argue that Nvidia would have been better off releasing a less expensive Pascal update than the new GeForce RTX line. Personally, I'd rather see larger changes, but RX 590 and the Polaris 30 architecture are all we're getting for now. (Where's the 7nm love? Hopefully coming in early to mid 2019.)
As far as competition goes, right now Nvidia has left a gaping hole in its lineup. The RTX 2070 sits at $499, and the GTX 1080 is being phased out. I'm not sure if the GTX 1070 and 1070 Ti will stick around much longer, but right now they start at around $350 (after mail-in rebate). The next step down in pricing is a rather large drop, with the cheapest GTX 1060 6GBsitting at $230. Considering the RX 580 8GB already typically beats the GTX 1060 6GB, at least from the performance perspective, this should be an easy win for AMD. I expect Nvidia will have an answer with a new midrange GPU sometime in early to mid 2019—though it's still not clear if that will be an RTX 2060, maybe a GTX 2060, or something else.
If AMD were only going up against the GTX 1060 6GB, the RX 590 would look a lot better. The problem is there are a lot of RX 580 8GB cards still available, and at all-time low prices thanks to the end of the cryptocurrency fever. Multiple cards are available for $200, which is bad news for the RX 590. It's faster, but it's also $80 more expensive, at least going by MSRP. But AMD has something to sweeten the deal, and depending on your taste in games, it's pretty darn good.
The initial RX 590 cards (at participating retailers) will come with a coupon for three free games—highly anticipated games for many, though none of the games are out yet. You'll get codes for the Resident Evil 2 remake (slated to launch January 25, 2019), The Division 2 (March 15, 2019), and Devil May Cry 5 (March 8, 2019). It's a bit of an odd bundle with the games all several months or more from release, but at least you won't already own them. Whether or not they're any good remains to be seen, but it's potentially $150-$180 in added value—one of the best gaming bundles we've seen in several years.
With no architectural changes to discuss—you can read about the Polaris architecture in our RX 480 launch review—let's move on to performance. AMD's GCN architectures have proven better at DirectX 12 games for the most part, but often come up short in DX11 games. Our current test suite includes six DX12 titles, seven DX11 games, and one Vulkan game. All GPUs are tested with the 'best' API, which means DX12 for AMD, but DX11 in a few cases (specifically Total War: Warhammer 2) for Nvidia.
Intel Core i7-8700K @ 5.0GHz
NZXT Kraken X62
Gigabyte Z370 Aorus Gaming 7
2x8GB G.Skill TridentZ RGB DDR4-3200
Samsung 970 Evo 1TB
Samsung 860 Evo 4TB
EVGA SuperNova P2 1000W
Corsair Carbide Air 740
Something I've been trying to do with GPU launches of late is to check out overclocking potential. My experience with the RX 580/570 and RX 480/470 was relatively unimpressive for overclocking, but the RX 590 did okay. I managed a fully stable 1650MHz overclock on the GPU core (only 4.4 percent more than the XFX factory OC), but the GDDR5 I was able to max out the slider in MSI Afterburner at 9GT/s. I did have to increase GPU fan speeds a bit, but ended up with a peak of 75C during my full test suite and fan speed of around 60 percent. I'll include both 'stock' (factory overclocked) and manual overclocking results for the 590 in the charts.
Nvidia's RTX line.
RADEON RX 590 SPECIFICATIONS
Architecture: Polaris 30
Lithography: TSMC 12nm FinFET
Transistor Count: 5.7 billion
Die Size: 232mm2
Compute Units: 36
CUDA Cores: 2,304
Render Outputs: 32
Texture Units: 144
Base Clock: 1469MHz
Boost Clock: 1545MHz
Memory Speed: 8 GT/s
GDDR5 Capacity: 8GB
Bus Width: 256-bit
TDP: 175W
This isn't just a rehash of the previous Polaris GPUs like the RX 570/580 (which were a rehash of the RX 470/480). The new RX 590 GPU uses TSMC's enhanced 12nm process. That leads to lower power and higher clockspeeds, which is good news. But AMD didn't do a die shrink with the 590—transistor counts and die size are the same, so really it's about improving thermals and efficiency. There's also no 4GB model to muddy the waters this round, which is just as well considering how poorly 4GB and lower GPUs are holding up with higher quality settings in the latest games.
Looking at the RX 580 8GB for comparison, the main difference is that the 590 has a turbo clock of 1545MHz, compared to 1340MHz. Nominal power is rated at 175W TDP, though actual TDP will vary by the graphics card manufacturer. AMD sent us the XFX RX 590 Fatboy for the launch, as it won't be providing any 'reference' models. The XFX card comes with a slight factory overclock of 1580MHz, which should be typical of most custom AIB models.
Still, it's hard not to be a bit disappointed at the outset. A 200MHz boost in clockspeeds is welcome news, but we're looking at an architecture that's over two years old. A straight process shrink is about the easiest update to any microprocessor that can be done, and some would argue that Nvidia would have been better off releasing a less expensive Pascal update than the new GeForce RTX line. Personally, I'd rather see larger changes, but RX 590 and the Polaris 30 architecture are all we're getting for now. (Where's the 7nm love? Hopefully coming in early to mid 2019.)
As far as competition goes, right now Nvidia has left a gaping hole in its lineup. The RTX 2070 sits at $499, and the GTX 1080 is being phased out. I'm not sure if the GTX 1070 and 1070 Ti will stick around much longer, but right now they start at around $350 (after mail-in rebate). The next step down in pricing is a rather large drop, with the cheapest GTX 1060 6GBsitting at $230. Considering the RX 580 8GB already typically beats the GTX 1060 6GB, at least from the performance perspective, this should be an easy win for AMD. I expect Nvidia will have an answer with a new midrange GPU sometime in early to mid 2019—though it's still not clear if that will be an RTX 2060, maybe a GTX 2060, or something else.
If AMD were only going up against the GTX 1060 6GB, the RX 590 would look a lot better. The problem is there are a lot of RX 580 8GB cards still available, and at all-time low prices thanks to the end of the cryptocurrency fever. Multiple cards are available for $200, which is bad news for the RX 590. It's faster, but it's also $80 more expensive, at least going by MSRP. But AMD has something to sweeten the deal, and depending on your taste in games, it's pretty darn good.
The initial RX 590 cards (at participating retailers) will come with a coupon for three free games—highly anticipated games for many, though none of the games are out yet. You'll get codes for the Resident Evil 2 remake (slated to launch January 25, 2019), The Division 2 (March 15, 2019), and Devil May Cry 5 (March 8, 2019). It's a bit of an odd bundle with the games all several months or more from release, but at least you won't already own them. Whether or not they're any good remains to be seen, but it's potentially $150-$180 in added value—one of the best gaming bundles we've seen in several years.
With no architectural changes to discuss—you can read about the Polaris architecture in our RX 480 launch review—let's move on to performance. AMD's GCN architectures have proven better at DirectX 12 games for the most part, but often come up short in DX11 games. Our current test suite includes six DX12 titles, seven DX11 games, and one Vulkan game. All GPUs are tested with the 'best' API, which means DX12 for AMD, but DX11 in a few cases (specifically Total War: Warhammer 2) for Nvidia.
INFINITE SKIPPER GPU TESTBED
Intel Core i7-8700K @ 5.0GHz
NZXT Kraken X62
Gigabyte Z370 Aorus Gaming 7
2x8GB G.Skill TridentZ RGB DDR4-3200
Samsung 970 Evo 1TB
Samsung 860 Evo 4TB
EVGA SuperNova P2 1000W
Corsair Carbide Air 740
Something I've been trying to do with GPU launches of late is to check out overclocking potential. My experience with the RX 580/570 and RX 480/470 was relatively unimpressive for overclocking, but the RX 590 did okay. I managed a fully stable 1650MHz overclock on the GPU core (only 4.4 percent more than the XFX factory OC), but the GDDR5 I was able to max out the slider in MSI Afterburner at 9GT/s. I did have to increase GPU fan speeds a bit, but ended up with a peak of 75C during my full test suite and fan speed of around 60 percent. I'll include both 'stock' (factory overclocked) and manual overclocking results for the 590 in the charts.
Nvidia's RTX line.
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