Amazon has a whole new stockpile of the Radeon RX580‘s back in stock. Get them while they are hot and before they sell out!
RX 580 Hashrates for Mining
Results:
======================
*1250 – Core Clock
*2250 – Memory Clock
*-96 Vol – Voltage at MSIafterburner
*70% – FAN Speed
31.0-31.5 MH/s – Mining ETH
110-115 – Watts per card / GPU-Z and Msiafterburner
============================================
*1200 – Core Clock
*2250 – Memory Clock
*-96 Vol – Voltage at MSIafterburner
*70% – FAN Speed
30.8-31.5 MH/s – Mining ETH
91-96 – Watts per card / GPU-Z and Msiafterburner
============================================
*1175 – Core Clock
*2250 – Memory Clock
*-96 Vol – Voltage at MSIafterburner
*60% – FAN Speed
30.8-31.3 MH/s – Mining ETH
90-93 – Watts per card / GPU-Z and Msiafterburner
============================================
*1120 – Core Clock
*2250 – Memory Clock
*-96 Vol – Voltage at MSIafterburner
*60% – FAN Speed
29.45-30.1 MH/s – Mining ETH
75-76 – Watts per card / GPU-Z and Msiafterburner
============================================
*1130 – Core Clock
*2080 – Memory Clock
*-96 Vol – Voltage at MSIafterburner
*70% – FAN Speed
30.1-30.04 MH/s – Mining ETH
75-77 – Watts per card / GPU-Z and Msiafterburner
RX 580 Review
The RX 500 series is a refresh of Polaris, bringing about newer, faster SKUs based on the existing Polaris 10 and 11 GPUs. Also joining the family is a newer, smaller GPU, Polaris 12, which will be the basis of the Radeon RX 550. AMD is using an updated revision of Polaris for all of these products, so there are some minor clockspeed improvements and a new memory state that have been baked into the RX 500 family that is not present in the RX 400 family, which makes the new RX 500 parts a bit more interesting.
AMD Radeon RX Series Specification Comparison | ||||||
AMD Radeon RX 580 (8GB) | AMD Radeon RX 570 | AMD Radeon RX 480 (8GB) | AMD Radeon RX 470 | |||
Stream Processors | 2304 (36 CUs) |
2048 (32 CUs) |
2304 (36 CUs) |
2048 (32 CUs) |
||
Texture Units | 144 | 128 | 144 | 128 | ||
ROPs | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 | ||
Base Clock | 1257MHz | 1168MHz | 1120MHz | 926MHz | ||
Boost Clock | 1340MHz | 1244MHz | 1266MHz | 1206MHz | ||
Memory Clock | 8 Gbps GDDR5 | 7Gbps GDDR5 | 8 Gbps GDDR5 | 6.6Gbps GDDR5 | ||
Memory Bus Width | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | ||
VRAM | 8GB | 4GB | 8GB | 4GB | ||
Transistor Count | 5.7B | 5.7B | 5.7B | 5.7B | ||
Typical Board Power | 185W | 150W | 150W | 120W | ||
Manufacturing Process | GloFo 14nm | GloFo 14nm | GloFo 14nm | GloFo 14nm | ||
Architecture | GCN 4 | GCN 4 | GCN 4 | GCN 4 | ||
GPU | Polaris 10 | Polaris 10 | Polaris 10 | Polaris 10 | ||
Launch Date | 04/18/2017 | 04/18/2017 | 06/29/2016 | 08/04/2016 |
At the high end is AMD’s new midrange contender, the Radeon RX 580. Like the RX 480 before it, this is a fully enabled Polaris 10 GPU. Taking advantage of their manufacturing gains, AMD is bumping up the boost clock by 6%, from 1266MHz to 1340MHz. Meanwhile the base clock – which has proven somewhat arbitrary on RX 480 since it rarely throttles anywhere near that much – is increasing by 12%, from 1120MHz to 1257MHz.
One thing RX 570 gets that RX 580 does not is a memory speed bump. On RX 470 AMD set the SKU standard at the somewhat odd 6.6Gbps; for RX 570, this is now a full 7Gbps, for a 6% increase in memory bandwidth. Polaris 10 in general likes memory bandwidth, so as you can see in our companion RX 570 review, this works out well for the RX 570. The standard memory configuration here will be for 4GB of VRAM, however AMD has mentioned that we should expect to see some 8GB cards as well, though none of these are on the launch list they’ve provided.
Besides supporting higher clockspeeds overall, the higher TBPs of the RX 580 and RX 570 mean that these cards power throttle less often than their predecessors. To be clear, they still throttle, but the average degree of throttling across our game set is lower than with the earlier cards. This means that the RX 580 and RX 570 should be running closer to their maximum clockspeeds more often. It removes a bit of headroom, but it will improve performance.
Adding the fully unlocked factory overclocks into the mix, and we find that throttling is further reduced. The factory overclock BIOSes on these cards have even higher power limits, so even with their higher clockspeeds, they throttle less often. The PowerColor Red Devil RX 580 never averages below 1360MHz in a game, and the Sapphire Nitro+ RX 570 only shaves off all of 10MHz in two of our games. This is also why the factory overclocked cards are as fast as they are; the higher boost clocks are part of the story, but the reduced throttling further boosts performance over the baseline cards.
As for load power consumption, this is where AMD pays the piper, so to speak. Roughly in-line with AMD’s TBPs, power consumption at the wall has increased by a bit over 20W for both the RX 580 and RX 570 relative to their predecessors. At this point the RX 570 is approaching 300W, and the RX 580 is just shy of 325W. This puts the power consumption of the RX 570 at 10W under the GeForce GTX 1070, while the RX 580 is 17W above it. It goes without saying both are well above the GTX 1060 cards that AMD is competing with in terms of performance.
Throwing in the factory overclocks further pours on the power. The Nitro+ system needs 330W here, and the Red Devil system 360W, each around 35W more than their reference-clocked configurations. Bear in mind that this is total system power, so part of the increase comes from the higher CPU power consumption that results from higher framerates, but given the limited framerate difference from the factory overclock, the bulk of the power increase here does come from the cards themselves.
Moving to load noise, both cards continue to impress. The Sapphire RX 570 card, even when it’s running in its full factory overclock condition, barely gets above the noise floor; it’s dissipating 150W (or more) of heat in near silence. PowerColor’s Red Devil RX 580 fares similarly well; it’s under 40db(A) at AMD’s reference clocks, and only finally hits 42dB(A) when fully factory overclocked. Open air coolers have their strengths and weaknesses, but one thing is for sure: manufacturers have increasingly honed their hardware and fan speed algorithms, and these days are producing consistently awesome results.
To get the elephant in the room out of the way first, power efficiency has taken a noticeable hit with the Radeon RX 580 and Radeon RX 570. AMD has opted to pour everything into performance rather than fighting a war with NVIDIA they can’t win. As a result their performance and their pricing will dictate their success in the market. Otherwise if you need a power efficient card for a mITX build or smaller air conditioning bill, look elsewhere.
As for the competitive landscape then, AMD’s situation has improved, though I fear by not enough. Across the full spread of games in our benchmark suite, the RX 580 and GTX 1060 6GB change lead a few different times, so the RX 580 is able to best NVIDIA’s best in absolute performance in the right games. The problem for AMD is that those games appear to be too few; as a result the RX 580 trails the GTX 1060 by an average of 7% at both 1080p and 1440p. AMD has narrowed the gap somewhat – this was an 11% deficit with the RX 480 – but not by enough. And coupled with AMD’s worse power efficiency, this puts AMD in a tough spot. The biggest challenge right now is that GTX 1060 prices have come down to the same $229 spot just in time for the RX 500 series launch, so AMD doesn’t have a consistent price advantage.
But regardless of the overall position of the RX 580 and RX 570, both PowerColor’s Red Devil RX 580 and Sapphire’s Nitro+ RX 570 left me impressed. Their hulking size feels a bit out of place, but I can’t argue with the build quality. Both cards are very well built, and both cards are nearly whisper silent while gaming, even with their full factory overclocks in place. Those factory overclocks in turn add around another 5% to their framerates, coming as a mix of improved clockspeeds and reduced/eliminated power throttling. The combination of build quality and improved performance means that, if nothing else, PowerColor and Sapphire have earned their price premiums within the Radeon RX 500 series.