Radeon RX 590 Allegedly Up to 9 Percent Faster Than GeForce GTX 1060

King_V

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Huh... I had my doubts. I wanted this refresh to be a real thing, but was really wondering if it was just wishful thinking.

But it looks like it may be legit, now. I hope.


In any case, when testing cards, is it possible to add ultrawide resolutions to the mix of benchmarks?

I don't know how widespread it actually is for gaming, but I imagine there are a number of 2560x1080 and 3440x1440 users out there these days.

I've generally been guesstinating that
2560x1080 would be about 3/4 of the frame rate of 1920x1080
3440x1440 would be about 3/4 of 2560x1440
3840x1600 would be about 4/3 of 3840x2160

However, I'm pretty sure that estimating it as "proportional to the number of pixels" is probably extremely questionable, accuracy-wise.


But I can't be the only one interested in seeing ultrawide resolutions included in the benchmarks, can I?
 

King_V

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This actually brings up something else I'm interested in. Once all these cards are out and available, a performance roundup, with current drivers, of all 5 variants of the 1060, and including the RX 570, 580, and 590. Ideally with both 4 and 8GB variants of the 570 and 580, so we can get a real picture of where and how the VRAM limit becomes an issue (something that really hurts the 3GB variant of the 1060, on certain games - we know this with Nvidia, but where does the having only 4GB vs 8GB come into play for AMD cards?)

As to the second point, the added power consumption, while not a good look for AMD, may pale alongside the fact that it works with FreeSync.

I was actually considering a GTX 1070 for my son's computer, but may consider the RX 590 as my son's monitor is a 34" LG ultrawide (2560x1080) with FreeSync in the range of 50-144, and the LFC feature.
 


Thats what I was wondering as the new GTX 1060 will be its main competition. AMD really needs to get something more competitive in the high end TBH. Otherwise we wont see price drops again.
 

tim.hotze

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If this is based on a 12nm shrink of the 580, which itself is essentially a binned 480, it means that AMD will still be iterating off of a design that was available for sale in June 2016. You don't spend the money for the shrink for a "bridge" product that will be on shelves for a few months - so it probably means it'll be well over 3 years before AMD has any "new" technology in the sub-$400 market. (The cost of HBM2 really ties their hands with lowering prices on Vega.)
 

King_V

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This article made no mention of the RTX 2060 (unreleased, and no real mention from Nvidia) at all. This is completely irrelevant to the article. If any RTX 2060 comes out, it's extremely likely that it would carry similar price to the current 1070/1070Ti.

The "new" GTX 1060 that people are referring to is the GDDR5X equipped version that uses a cut down GP104 rather than a GP106.
 

The same goes for Nvidia. The GTX 1060 came out around the same time, and now we're getting another, slightly faster 1060. Yawn. Between mining messing up prices in the first half of the year, and incredibly mediocre graphics card launches in the second half, [strike]2019[/strike] 2018 must be one of the worst years on record for graphics cards. These cards are already well over 2 years old and still seeing minor refreshes at similar price points. And even if Nvidia launches a "2060" within the next few months, I certainly wouldn't expect much more than 1070 performance, likely at around 1070 pricing, seeing how their recently launched RTX cards have shifted product names to higher price points, without providing any substantial boost to performance in existing games.

I suspect AMD may launch the RX 590 for around $250 though, and adjust pricing of their existing lineup accordingly. Already, you can find some RX 580 8GB cards for not much more than $200 after rebate, and RX 570s for as little as $150 after rebate. That could still allow for the possibility of them launching a new 7nm card for around $350 or so early next year.
 

TJ Hooker

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Sort of tangential, but as a little PSA I just wanted to mention that the power consumption of Polaris cards (and AMD cards in general) can often be improved significantly through undervolting (with no detriment, or even a small improvement, to performance). Not that it's going to catch up to a 1060 in terms of efficiency, but it narrows the gap a bit.
 

bit_user

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Um... you mean 2018?

I feel like 2017 was also pretty tame, though the Titan Xp and 1080 Ti launched in March/April. You could sort of ignore Vega's launch, since its performance, pricing, and availability kept it largely irrelevant to the mainstream. About the biggest impact it probably had was to scare Nvidia into launching the 1080 Ti at an almost surprisingly reasonable price.
 

t99

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Eh, doesn't look to exciting. What is this suppose to compete with going forward? I guess if it's priced at 250$ or less and the 2060 is at 300 to 330 then it would be the go to card for 60fps at 1080p and a great choice for anyone who does not have a 470 / 1060 or better.

It's a no brainer at the cost of a 1060, but how much will a 2060 be? I wouldn't move from an rx480 to a 590 and gain maybe 20% (10% from 480 to 580 and 10% from 580 to 590). I rather tweak my settings and oc a bit more.

This might be just enough of a boost to run this next generation of AAA games at 60fps 1080, games like cyberpunk 2077 which the 480/580/1060 Will probably come just shy of 50fps near max settings.

I want to support AMD, don't like the way Intel operates. They feel kind of like Apple in the sense that at times it seems like they purposely hold back a bit because they know people will buy their product. Unfortunately it looks like I will have to move from a rx480 to a 2060 unless they have something much better coming.

A 580 can crossfire with a 480, will a 590 as well?
 

hannibal

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Really good middle range card! If these test Are accurate... so some salt untill we get this card tested in some respectable site. This comes to the segment where there still is bang for the buck, unlike in any higher price gategory at this moment.
 

alextheblue

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If you're considering a 1070, you're only a few bucks shy of a Vega 56. Why not get that instead, especially with a decent FreeSync display? I am not saying a 590 would be a bad choice, but it's not exactly competing with a 1070.

All of the cards you mentioned are in a different class. They'll price this more closely to the 1060, it's main competition. They may have to sell down 570/580 stock first though...
 

Yes, I noticed that as soon as I came back to the thread. : P


2017 wasn't quite so bad, in that these cards were only around a year old at that point. The RX 500 series was more or less a refreshed 400 series, but only came around 10 months later, so not that much was expected of it. After 2 1/2 years, it's reasonable to expect a lot more though. Plus RX 480s were readily available in the sub-$200 range in the first half of the year, and we're only now starting to see graphics card prices return to what they were like in early 2017 for a given level of performance.

And on Nvidia's end, the 1080 Ti launched for the same price as the 1080 while offering a lot more performance, while the 1080's price dropped by a fair amount. So there were actually some good performance per dollar gains early in the year, at least at the high-end, even if mid-range pricing got quite bad in the latter half of 2017.

And sure, RX Vega wasn't exactly a competitive product when it launched, but that was largely due to mining, which was already causing extreme shortages of AMD's cards months before Vega came out (AMD taking too long to launch Vega didn't help either). By the time Vega cards were released, it didn't make much sense for AMD to price them aggressively, and they were sold out for months even at prices that didn't make them all that attractive for gaming.


My guess is that they probably will, though anything better released in the first half of 2019 will likely be priced upward of $300. I suspect that may apply to the 2060 as well though, seeing as the 2070 starts at $500, and Nvidia is still refreshing the 1060. AMD will supposedly be announcing more about their 7nm endeavors in January, so perhaps more might be known then.
 

s1mon7

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Oct 3, 2018
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"Than 1060"? Really, 1060?

I really look forward to the days when I can consider an AMD GPU again. Sucks that they have nothing, and their newest card is literally at half the performance of the lowest end newest Nvidia card (the 2070).

I look forward to Freesync in 4K. It might as well be Intel who delivers that performance first, even if I really wish it was AMD soon.
 

neblogai

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For one thing- that is not true. AMD's newest cards are Vega56/64, and they are of similar level to GTX2070. And, nVidia also does not offer anything at Polaris10 tier, but rebrands.

 
Aug 9, 2018
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No matter the pricing. A 580 and a 1060 are legacy products with no future. A 1080 is not much slower than a 2080. 10% performance increase means nothing. Nvidia has a monopoly on Graphic cards. Tiny and incremental performance increases and high prices are a sure sign of that business model. The article is sort of nonsensical synthetic and assumptive. Commonly refered to as ad journalism.
 

King_V

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I've actually been keeping my eye on the Vega 56 cards, but:
1 - Most (not all) are rather bulky, and may not fit in his case... or rather, the card would fit in the case were it not for the consideration of the PCIe connectors preventing putting on the side panel.

2 - Oddly, for a 210W card, the Vega 56s I've seen generally require 2 8-pin PCIe connectors. I'd have to therefore get a new PSU

3 - While I occasionally see one single Vega 56 model available for 1070-ish price (typically closer to 1070Ti), most seem to go above $400.


You're right in that the 590 isn't competition for the 1070. The situation is that the 1070 is a bit of overkill, and the 1060 or 580 would fall a bit short. Since there's nothing really in between, well, the situation I have is there.

A 580 MIGHT actually cut it with the LFC, FreeSync and Chill, to keep the smoothness going.

Hence why a 590 might do it, or do it a bit better than the 580. Or, the 1060 GDDR5X, if Nvidia worked with Gsync. Since it doesn't . . well, that's a no go.

The 590 will be the most potent of the Polaris cards, and given the LFC and FreeSync on the monitor, would keep things smooth.

If I wound up with a 1070, my son would probably set things to 60 or 75 Hz, Vsync, and the 1070 would breeze through it.

If I were to get a Vega 56 (assuming I could find one that fits and does NOT need more than a single 8-pin or dual 6-pin connectors), I'd probably go with the power save BIOS to get it close to it's best fps/watt point, and it probably would, like the 1070, breeze through 2560x1080 if we maxed the Chill setting at 60-75.
 

Another option, if you didn't need a card for some months, might be to see what AMD's 7nm cards have to offer. AMD is apparently going to be discussing their 7nm CPUs and GPUs at CES in January, but it's difficult to say when the actual consumer products will come out. I would guess probably around Q2 for the CPUs, matching the last two Ryzen launches, but I'm not so sure on the graphics cards. If they could offer a Vega successor with lower power requirements and pricing, then that could potentially be worth considering though. I'd like to think that they might launch something relatively early in the year, but it's difficult to say whether widespread 7nm production would be ready by then.

I was kind of hoping Nvidia would give in and support FreeSync in addition to G-sync for their newest generation of cards, but that doesn't seem to be the case. That would have been something that might have helped justify some of the price increases, and unlike RTX and DLSS, wouldn't need to rely on as-yet nonexistent support in games. I suspect they may eventually though, once competition improves at the higher-end. And I doubt there's anything preventing them from adding the feature to their existing cards via a software update, aside from them being bent on selling pricey monitor chipsets to enable adaptive sync on their cards.