Radeon Rx 590 Fatboy 8gb Oc+

The $1,199 Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition is a fantastic video-card choice if you're on a window-shopping spree. Once real cash changes hands, though, most of us will dial that back to a mid-level breadsaver similar the new $279 AMD Radeon RX 590 for our gaming needs. Thinking of the Radeon RX 590 as a souped-upwards Radeon RX 580 is accurate, since that'due south exactly what it is, as the GPU core is unchanged. Nosotros already like the Radeon RX 580 for what it is: a skilful graphics card for high-frame-rate 1080p and fluid 1440p gaming in today's AAA titles. The Radeon RX 590 is an even improve performer; it showed double-digit percentage gains in our tests over the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060, which remains, stubbornly, in a similar price bracket. The Radeon RX 580 costs substantially less, and so if you want the most performance for your dollar, we give it the border, but the Radeon RX 590 is the new midrange rex if raw speed, regardless of power draw or overall value, is your target.

You Can Trust Our Reviews

Say Hello to Polaris...Again

The "Polaris" architecture on which the Radeon RX 590 is based debuted in 2016 on the Radeon RX 480. (Hit the review link for the full details on Polaris.) That graphics processor (GPU) was succeeded in 2017 by the Radeon RX 580. Both cards shared the number of compute units (36), stream processors (2,304), and texture units (144), and both had a 256-chip memory bus, making them much the aforementioned at heart. Most, if not all, of the performance boost from the Radeon RX 580 came from its higher clocks. AMD, in short, got meliorate at making its ain product.

Similar Products

History repeated itself in late 2018. The Radeon RX 590 has the same overall specifications equally the Radeon RX 580 (and, consequently, the Radeon RX 480). What makes it slightly more radical than the RX 480-to-RX 580 transition is its move to a 12nm FinFET fabrication process. It's arguably a tweaked version of the 14nm process that was used for the Radeon RX 480 and the Radeon RX 580, merely let technicalities exist technicalities.

The newer process lets AMD eke out even more functioning from the Polaris architecture. The Radeon RX 590 has a core clock that is untouchable by Radeon RX 580 standards: i,469MHz. That's a 12 percent increase over the i,257MHz clock on the Radeon RX 580, and a 31 pct increase over the 1,120MHz clock of the Radeon RX 480. I'll detail later on in this review how much overhead remains in the Radeon RX 590 for overclocking.

Despite its more advanced fabrication, the Radeon RX 590'due south boosted cadre clock comes at a price. Its board power rating is a whopping 225 watts, the very aforementioned carried past the gobs-faster Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Founders Edition. The Radeon RX 580 was rated for virtually xviii percent less ability (185 watts), although its core clock was merely about 14 percent lower. These diminishing returns are a tell-tale indicator that AMD is stretching the limits of the Polaris GPU architecture. (The Radeon RX 480 was rated for simply 150 watts.)

Just AMD'southward focus with the Radeon RX 590 isn't on performance per watt: It's on performance per dollar. At that place'due south no camouflaging that the Radeon RX 590's selling bespeak is its price. As I blazon this, AMD is sweetening the deal with a promo that gets you three gratis games with a Radeon RX 590 purchase, and they're non no-proper noun titles: Tom Clancy'due south The Division 2, Resident Evil 2, and Devil May Cry 5 are all AAA-level. It'due south smart marketing and a simple reminder that, when budgeting for a new gaming rig or graphics card, you also need to budget for, well, games. This kind of promo is a potential deal-maker in the Radeon RX 590's price-conscious market segment.

The XFX Difference

XFX is an AMD lath partner; the company takes AMD'due south reference GPUs and designs its own graphics cards effectually them. That includes (but isn't limited to) the cooling solution, the excursion-board design, the power commitment, and aesthetics. AMD doesn't produce a Radeon RX 590 board of its ain, so in that location's no "baseline" card to reference for comparisons.

Prices for Radeon RX 590 models range from $259 to $309, with this XFX card, the Radeon RX 590 Fatboy, sitting pretty at AMD's recommended price of $279. The Fatboy is the only Radeon RX 590 model that XFX offers. The Radeon RX 590 Fatboy and most other Radeon RX 590 graphics cards I found were in stock at online east-tailers like Newegg as I typed this review. That'south a good thing; new graphics cards are ofttimes backordered for months subsequently debut. (Nvidia's GeForce RTX twenty series is a recent example.)

The core clock varied among Radeon RX 590 models I saw from vendors such equally Asus and PowerColor. The XFX Radeon RX 590 Fatboy ships at 1,580MHz, a significant bump over the 1,469MHz clock AMD lists as the baseline for the RX 590. In fact, the XFX card had the highest core clock that I saw amid Radeon RX 590 models available every bit of this writing. The standard Radeon RX 590 core clock must have been bourgeois indeed, as all competing cards I institute were nigh 100MHz college, at the minimum.

Taking a Board(walk)

Surveying the competing Radeon RX 590 models, the two-fan cooler on the XFX Radeon RX 590 Fatboy is a common approach, although the pricey $309 Asus Strix RX 590 8G Gaming(Opens in a new window) uses a larger three-fan solution. I'll talk over cooling performance later. For now, let'south do a walk-around of the carte du jour I have.

The Radeon RX 590 Fatboy's cooling solution and overall board design are mostly identical to those of the XFX Radeon RX 580 GTS XXX Edition. This is a large graphics card for a mid-level performer. At 10.6 inches long, it's almost an inch longer than the GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition.

The aluminum-finned heatsink and copper heatpipes are manifestly visible through its cooling-fan blades...

The carbon-cobweb look on the plastic shroud is a nice detail, but it'south difficult to run into this pattern in the dark depths of a desktop case.

The four heatpipes are more plainly visible from the board'due south lesser border...

The acme edge shows more heatpipe action. Note the shroud on the heatsink spreads across the ii-slot backplate; this card is 2.1 inches thick, pregnant it will have ii-and-a-half slots in your desktop. It's unusual for a midrange graphics card to be that thick. Its 4.9-inch height is also oversize.

Here you lot can see evidence of the Radeon RX 590's high power requirements, in the grade of an eight-pin and a half-dozen-pivot power connector...

A bluish LED over either connector provides minor visual bling; that's the only lighting on this card. XFX recommends a minimum power supply rating of 550 watts.

The backplate houses a standard set of video-out ports: an HDMI ii.0b connector, three DisplayPort 1.3 connectors, and legacy DVI-D.

The aluminum backplate on the underside of the card caters to both strength and cooling...

Competing Radeon RX 590 boards also have backplates, and they weren't an uncommon sight on the Radeon RX 580, either. They're good to have for strength/stiffening reasons alone. It'south also noteworthy that the Radeon RX 590 Fatboy is backed past a 3-year warranty.

Performance Testing

PC Labs ran through a series of DirectX xi- and 12-based synthetic and existent-world benchmarks on the XFX Radeon RX 590 Fatboy. The examination rig is equipped with an Intel Cadre i7-8700K processor, 16GB of One thousand.Skill DDR4 memory, a solid-state boot drive, and an Aorus Z370 Gaming vii motherboard.

The analysis volition pit the Radeon RX 590 against the GeForce GTX 1060 and the Radeon RX 580, with a smattering of higher-cease cards thrown in for adept mensurate. The realistic gaming resolutions for the Radeon RX 590 are 1080p and 1440p; a 4K resolution is more often than not out of its achieve in today's AAA titles without considerably lowering the detail settings.

Notation that the Radeon RX 590 Fatboy was left at its default 1,580MHz core clock for all testing. (I'll particular overclocking later this department.) This will be a criterion-by-benchmark walkthrough, and so if you don't intendance about the blow-by-blow, skip to the decision for the summary.

Synthetic Benchmarks

3DMark Fire Strike Ultra

Synthetic benchmarks can be good predictors of real-world gaming performance. Futuremark's circa-2013 Burn Strike Ultra is still a become-to for 4K-based gaming. We're looking simply at the graphics subscore, not the overall score.

The XFX Radeon RX 590 Fatboy performed nigh 12.v pct better than the XFX Radeon RX 580 GTS XXX Edition, or not quite a one-to-one correlation with its xv.half-dozen percentage increase in core clock. On the other hand, the Radeon RX 590 Fatboy crushed the GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition with a 23 percent advantage. All three cards are cemented in the midrange segment; the GeForce GTX 1070 Founders Edition is clearly in the side by side functioning tier.

3DMark Time Spy and Time Spy Extreme

This is Futuremark'south DirectX 12-enabled benchmark for predicting the operation of DirectX 12-enabled games. It uses major features of the API, including asynchronous compute, explicit multi-adapter, and multi-threading.

The gap between the XFX Radeon RX 590 and the GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition is alarmingly halved in this test at the standard setting, and farther reduced to but 9 percentage in the Radeon RX 590's favor at the Extreme setting. A win is a win, yet; the Radeon RX 590 Fatboy is definitively faster than the GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition in both tests, a claim the Radeon RX 580 couldn't make with confidence.

Unigine Superposition

Our last synthetic benchmark is Unigine's 2017 release, Superposition. This benchmark does contain ray tracing, but information technology's washed in software, non hardware, and thus doesn't utilise the RT cores of the RTX 20 series.

The XFX Radeon RX 590 Fatboy reclaims its 20-percent-plus lead on the GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition in this benchmark at the 1080p Extreme settings, but it couldn't maintain that at the higher resolutions. This isn't the first time I've seen odd conclusions from the 4K and 8K optimized settings in this benchmark, and then allow's move on.

Real-Globe Gaming

The following benchmarks are games that you can play. The charts themselves will list the settings used (typically the highest in-game presets and, if bachelor, DirectX 12).

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Square Enix'south latest Tomb Raider title is our first existent-globe test. This game is well-optimized for the PC platform, merely very demanding at its higher visual quality settings.

The 1080p resolution is somewhat express by our examination rig's processor. Focusing on the 1440p numbers, the XFX Radeon RX 590 Fatboy demonstrates its biggest proceeds yet over the GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition: 31 percent.

Given that this game uses a large amount of video memory at the examination settings, the Radeon RX 590 Fatboy and Radeon RX 580 GTS XXX Edition may take held an advantage with their 8GB of video retention over the GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition, which has only 6GB of memory. (By the way, if you're because a GeForce GTX 1060, avoid the 3GB versions for this very reason: Games are going to start using more than and more than video memory. The aforementioned goes for the Radeon RX 580; avert the 4GB versions. The Radeon RX 590 is only available in 8GB configurations.)

Ascent of the Tomb Raider

The 2015 predecessor to Shadow of the Tomb Raider is all the same a great criterion.

The disparities betwixt the XFX Radeon RX 590 Fatboy and the GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition aren't equally pronounced here every bit they were in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, merely they're still substantial. A 60fps average at 1440p is noticeably smoother than 51fps.

Far Cry 5 and Far Cry Primal

The fourth and fifth installments in the Far Cry series are based on DirectX 11, but all the same demanding. We're looping these benchmark charts together since they benchmark similarly.

Now that's interesting; suddenly the GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition closed the gap with the XFX Radeon RX 590 Fatboy. Let's run into if this continues.

Terminal Fantasy 15

We'll accept a respite from fps-based benchmarks for Concluding Fantasy XV.

The GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition once again turns the tables on the Radeon RX 590 Fatboy. The before 3DMark synthetic tests showed that the AMD card has more brute processing power, then information technology's more likely that this benchmark and the Far Cry games in a higher place are only better suited to running on Nvidia hardware.

World of Tanks Encore

This is another non-fps-based benchmark that'due south available as a complimentary download. Information technology's non super-demanding, but information technology is however a reliable test.

The downhill slide continues for the XFX Radeon RX 590 Fatboy. It's not a bad performer; it's but not outperforming the GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition every bit information technology predictably should.

Tom Clancy: The Division

A 2016 release that remains tough to handle, here'south our final DirectX 12-specific game exam.

The XFX Radeon RX 590 Fatboy returns to its 20 to 30 percent gains over the GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition.

It's hard to explain all the swings nosotros've seen in the criterion tests, though ane truth survived through all: The GeForce GTX 1060 normally will be eclipsed by the Radeon RX 590, and not by a piffling amount.

There's Always Room for Overclocking

The Radeon RX 590 Fatboy runs at a core (or what XFX calls a "True") clock of 1,580MHz. However, XFX advertises information technology with an "OC+" rating, meaning information technology's qualified for a balmy overclock. On the Radeon RX 590 Fatboy, it'due south a small 20MHz bump on the cadre and no increase to the memory clock.

I used the AMD WattMan utility to apply the overclock past following the OC+ tutorial on XFX's website. Information technology took about three minutes. Below are the results of before-and-afterward benchmarking. (Note that I ran these benchmarks on a different test rig than PC Labs used for the formal benchmarks section in this review, then the numbers aren't comparable. My exam rig has a Core i7-7700K processor and 16GB of RAM.)

	RX 590 Fatboy (Overclocked With AMD's WattMan)	RX 590 Fatboy (Stock)	Overclock Vs. Stock
3DMark Fire Strike Ultra (Graphics Score)	3,671	3,681	< 1%
3DMark Fourth dimension Spy (Graphics Score)	4,857	4,790	+ane.4%
Rise of the Tomb Raider (ane,920x1,080, Very High Preset, DX 12)	87fps	87fps	Even
Rise of the Tomb Raider (3,840x2,160, Very Loftier Preset, DX 12)	31fps	31fps	Even
Far Weep 5 (1,920x1,080, Ultra Preset)	81fps	81fps	Even
Far Cry v (iii,840x2,160, Ultra Preset)	30fps	30fps	Even

A tiny overclock equates to a tiny performance proceeds; the graphics portion of the scores for 3DMark Burn Strike Ultra and 3DMark Time Spy were each less than two per centum higher with the OC+ settings applied. A measurable departure wasn't detectable in the game benchmarks, either. These are inappreciably unpredictable results for such a small-scale bump on the cadre frequency.

I tried my mitt at manually overclocking the Radeon RX 590 Fatboy using my overclocking utility of selection, MSI Afterburner. My goal was a "safe" overclock, one where I'd push the card as far as it could go without increasing the cadre voltage. I used 3DMark Burn Strike for stability testing.

I began by bumping the Radeon RX 590 Fatboy's power limit to its maximum (+50) and so incrementally increasing the memory clock, stopping along the way to practise stability testing. Eventually I reached ii,250MHz from the default clock of 2,000MHz. Encouraged by that, I started upping the core clock from its base of operations of 1,580MHz. The highest stable core clock I reached was ane,637MHz; any higher and the stability test crashed after a few minutes. Every graphics card is different, so you could do amend (or worse) than I did.

These are comparative benchmarks showing the functioning differences with the Radeon RX 590 Fatboy overclocked using my manual overclock settings versus the stock card:

	RX 590 Fatboy (Overclocked With AMD'due south WattMan)	RX 590 Fatboy (Stock)	Overclock Vs. Stock
3DMark Burn down Strike Ultra (Graphics Score)	3,917	iii,681	+6%
3DMark Time Spy (Graphics Score)	5,081	four,790	+6%
Ascent of the Tomb Raider (1,920x1,080, Very High Preset, DX 12)	92fps	87fps	+vi%
Ascent of the Tomb Raider (3,840x2,160, Very High Preset, DX 12)	33fps	31fps	+half dozen%
Far Cry 5 (1,920x1,080, Ultra Preset)	85fps	81fps	+5%
Far Cry v (3,840x2,160, Ultra Preset)	32fps	30fps	+seven%

The 3DMark Burn down Strike Ultra graphics score improved 6.iv percent with the transmission overclocking. That's a respectable gain and cost nothing but nigh an hour of trial and fault to accomplish. The overclock translated into the existent world, as well, with both Rise of the Tomb Raider and Far Cry 5 showing boilerplate fps gains.

A few actress frames per second at a 1080p resolution may not be noticeable when the Radeon RX 590 is pushing shut to triple-digit frame rates in those titles, but it doesn't injure. In a similar vein, a few fps isn't plenty of a heave to make either game playable at a 4K resolution with the settings I used. If yous take the middle basis with a 1440p resolution, even so, a few fps should be noticeable given the Radeon RX 590 produces between 50fps and 60fps in these titles at that resolution without overclocking.

The Radeon RX 590 indeed has headroom for overclocking despite the fact its core clock is much higher than that of the Radeon RX 580. Again, I coaxed as much performance as I could without increasing the core voltage, but you could likely get farther with more voltage. In XFX'due south OC+ tutorial, they plainly state y'all should have fun overclocking beyond the OC+ settings. That's what it's all about. Don't look to overclocking equally a miracle solution; if the Radeon RX 590 (or whatsoever other graphics bill of fare for that thing) isn't fast enough for you out of the box, then it'south not going to be fast enough with overclocking, either. Even among graphics cards that overclock especially well, such as the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 family, the functioning gains from overclocking are rarely outside of the single-digit range.

Keep It Cool

With the manual overclocking settings outlined in a higher place, I logged a 10-minute (20-loop) run through the 3DMark Fire Strike Stability test to observe the core clock stability and GPU temperature of the Radeon RX 590 Fatboy. I did the testing in a 68 caste F room.

The retentiveness clock I set (2,250MHz) remained constant throughout, then I left it off the nautical chart. I should have left the core clock off by that same logic; it remained dead-even at 1,637MHz, which is exactly what I was hoping to see. In that location'due south clearly no shortage of ability in this card. The GPU temperature averaged 73 degrees C and peaked at 77 degrees C, both of which are more than than acceptable.

The twin fans are whisper-quiet. Notation the exhaust air goes into the case, so you'll need to ensure good airflow. This cooling design wouldn't be ideal in a cramped case environs. For that, a blower-style cooler like the one on the GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition is better-suited.

A Good Value, Merely Don't Ignore the RX 580

The AMD Radeon RX 590 brings a compelling value argument to the mid-level graphics bill of fare market. Its average functioning gain over the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB was xiv percent across all our constructed and real-world benchmarks. The advantage exceeded thirty percent in several game titles.

Simple economics brand gains like that impossible to ignore. The $279 cost of the XFX Radeon RX 590 Fatboy makes it an easy alternative to the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB, which is property steady in the $250-to-$300 range. The XFX model we reviewed isn't even the cheapest Radeon RX 590; some were going for $259 at this writing. AMD's promotion of iii free AAA-level titles with a Radeon RX 590 purchase further sweetens the deal.

The Radeon RX 590 faces its stiffest competition from inside its own firm: the existing Radeon RX 580, which can routinely be found in the lower-$200s (and, every bit nosotros wrote this, occasionally under $200 with rebates). The Radeon RX 590 was 12 percent faster overall than Radeon RX 580, which, although significant, isn't probable to make the difference betwixt playability and unplayability in nigh gaming scenarios. That's particularly true for 1080p gaming, where both cards routinely average over 60fps in today's titles.

Also in the Radeon RX 580's value favor: AMD is running a similar promotion with the Radeon RX 580, in its case for two gratis AAA titles. Even if the game titles don't interest y'all, the operation-per-dollar value nevertheless tilts slightly to the Radeon RX 580.

Only if you tin fork over a petty extra (only tin't stretch to the $350-plus for the coming-to-market GeForce RTX 2060), the Radeon RX 590 is a worthy upgrade. This is the new king of the loma among midrange (divers as nether-$300) graphics cards from the POV of raw grunt. It even responds well to overclocking for added value and fun. Just sentinel your electricity bill; while it won't hit your wallet like a top-tier card, its 225-watt power rating will certainly make it swallow ability similar one.

The Bottom Line

If you ignore ability consumption, the Radeon RX 590 is the best-performing midrange carte you can buy (as tested in this XFX model), showing double-digit gains over the GeForce GTX 1060. Even so, the existing Radeon RX 580 has the economic edge.

Similar What You're Reading?

Sign upwards for Lab Report to get the latest reviews and top product advice delivered right to your inbox.

This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or chapter links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Employ and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at whatever time.

Radeon Rx 590 Fatboy 8gb Oc+,

Source: https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/xfx-radeon-rx-590-fatboy

Posted by: cliffordregatian.blogspot.com

Share this post