[EDIT: this is a failed hypothesis, see next post. It may be that there are users with insufficient watts in the psu out there, but the problem I've been having was not solved by more power.]
toms hardware analysis of RX 590
radeon rx 590 power consumption on Anandtech
So....looking around on different fora, I am not alone in having epic problems with keeping the Nitro RX 590 stable. I was messing with drivers, going in to UEFI and trying to reduce voltage, messing around with AMD software and fiddling with things I did not understand and getting into trouble--driver installations up the wazoo. But it was a member of these fora who, looking at my video of a crash using Unigine Superposition run, commented: "If I didn't know you had a 850 watt Seasonic I'd say that was not enough watts in the psu." Bing bing bing! For me that was the best answer of the week. I better go back and award best answer to that man. I am grateful.
So I did a couple of things. in no particular order. First off, I did a careful, not a casual, assessment of my psu requirements. I have been in the habit, for example, of leaving out things that I didn't think were significant, including my anachronistic habit of keeping two DVD/RWs on the build. When I did that, it turns out that my "recommended" psu level from Corsair was 700 watts. Well, I have 850. No problem right?
Wrong? ! I believe that these power estimators are somewhat outdated. As graphics cards grow more hungry, their variance increases. So the RX 590 runs at about 250 watts but it spikes to 300 or even 360, depending on whose measurements you believe. By contrast, the R9-380, that I've been using without incident and which did not crash during any benchmark, caps at around 200 watts. I don't know its spike level, but I do know I can run Unigine Superposition on the R9-380 gpu all day and it never seems to mind. By contrast, my brand new RX 590 would seem to be fine for normal usage and even a couple of the older bench marks (UserBench), but it would crash often during Passmark's transition from 2d to 3d and almost always as soon as Unigine Superposition would launch and "as often as not" with Unigine Heaven.
Apparently the psu needs to be sized to the variance, that is to the worst spikes. Higher performing psus put out a lot more watts than they did a few years ago, and I'm not sure that the "how to build your pc" utilities on the net have kept up. They are reasonable for average types of uses and demand, but you have gpus now that are working 0 to 400 watts and 0 to 500 watts rather than 0 to 200 and less. And though their average watt output may be much lower, the spikes will kill performance. The gpu sends a spike-y demand for power, the psu says "sorry I can't do that," and the gpu responds by sending you into a green soup, a black hangup, or some other behavior.
One thing I've learned from a different hobby (astronomy gear) is that computers with insufficient power never quite fail in the same way. They act like drunks, and do many unpredictable things. Green screen, red screen, black screen, it's the luck of the draw. Maybe you'll get a freeze. Anyhow I think many users (like me) have been often been chasing things like UEFI adjustments, updates, repeated driver downloads--all good stuff to do. But it might be the case that the new "important thing to consider" is the power maximum of the psu. Really, I can't say when one should pursue a software fix (new drivers, update bios), it's certainly cheaper to do, though some activities (uninstalling gpu drivers and flashing BIOS come to mind) are a bit stomach churning for some of us. There might be a certain appeal to pursuing the cost free solutions first, though it's always dicey if you can brick the system. The alternative of buying a new psu may not have much appeal either. But I must say I was really startled to see this Nitro RX 590, which had been giving me nothing but grief, snap to attention and perform on a 1050 watt psu. So I'm putting it out there that you can be underpowered at 850 watts.
Greg N
toms hardware analysis of RX 590
radeon rx 590 power consumption on Anandtech
So....looking around on different fora, I am not alone in having epic problems with keeping the Nitro RX 590 stable. I was messing with drivers, going in to UEFI and trying to reduce voltage, messing around with AMD software and fiddling with things I did not understand and getting into trouble--driver installations up the wazoo. But it was a member of these fora who, looking at my video of a crash using Unigine Superposition run, commented: "If I didn't know you had a 850 watt Seasonic I'd say that was not enough watts in the psu." Bing bing bing! For me that was the best answer of the week. I better go back and award best answer to that man. I am grateful.
So I did a couple of things. in no particular order. First off, I did a careful, not a casual, assessment of my psu requirements. I have been in the habit, for example, of leaving out things that I didn't think were significant, including my anachronistic habit of keeping two DVD/RWs on the build. When I did that, it turns out that my "recommended" psu level from Corsair was 700 watts. Well, I have 850. No problem right?
Wrong? ! I believe that these power estimators are somewhat outdated. As graphics cards grow more hungry, their variance increases. So the RX 590 runs at about 250 watts but it spikes to 300 or even 360, depending on whose measurements you believe. By contrast, the R9-380, that I've been using without incident and which did not crash during any benchmark, caps at around 200 watts. I don't know its spike level, but I do know I can run Unigine Superposition on the R9-380 gpu all day and it never seems to mind. By contrast, my brand new RX 590 would seem to be fine for normal usage and even a couple of the older bench marks (UserBench), but it would crash often during Passmark's transition from 2d to 3d and almost always as soon as Unigine Superposition would launch and "as often as not" with Unigine Heaven.
Apparently the psu needs to be sized to the variance, that is to the worst spikes. Higher performing psus put out a lot more watts than they did a few years ago, and I'm not sure that the "how to build your pc" utilities on the net have kept up. They are reasonable for average types of uses and demand, but you have gpus now that are working 0 to 400 watts and 0 to 500 watts rather than 0 to 200 and less. And though their average watt output may be much lower, the spikes will kill performance. The gpu sends a spike-y demand for power, the psu says "sorry I can't do that," and the gpu responds by sending you into a green soup, a black hangup, or some other behavior.
One thing I've learned from a different hobby (astronomy gear) is that computers with insufficient power never quite fail in the same way. They act like drunks, and do many unpredictable things. Green screen, red screen, black screen, it's the luck of the draw. Maybe you'll get a freeze. Anyhow I think many users (like me) have been often been chasing things like UEFI adjustments, updates, repeated driver downloads--all good stuff to do. But it might be the case that the new "important thing to consider" is the power maximum of the psu. Really, I can't say when one should pursue a software fix (new drivers, update bios), it's certainly cheaper to do, though some activities (uninstalling gpu drivers and flashing BIOS come to mind) are a bit stomach churning for some of us. There might be a certain appeal to pursuing the cost free solutions first, though it's always dicey if you can brick the system. The alternative of buying a new psu may not have much appeal either. But I must say I was really startled to see this Nitro RX 590, which had been giving me nothing but grief, snap to attention and perform on a 1050 watt psu. So I'm putting it out there that you can be underpowered at 850 watts.
Greg N
Last edited:
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