XFX GTS Radeon RX 580 Black Review

We must admit to being a tad surprised by how well the Radeon RX 580 series has withstood the test of time. While yes, we are using one of the better examples of what the Radeon RX 580 / Polaris 20 XTX has to offer, the fact remains this is a video card that is one and nearing two generations out of date. As we saw throughout the testing stages this low $200 priced card is still more than capable of handling modern video game demands at 1080P and even 1440P resolutions to some extent. So much so it still gives NVIDIA GTX 10 and 16-series cards a run for their money in these two critical resolution arenas. Such a run for their money that it is actually difficult to point to any one model and say ‘this is the best value series available’. Instead the answer is a bit more nuanced and variable depending on what you want from your next purchase. Though the very fact that there is no clear answer is in our opinion a win on points for AMD and their Radeon RX 580 (or at the very least XFX and their GTS Black edition).

The reason for this nice surprise is three-fold. Firstly, game drivers for this series are about as razor sharp as they are going to get; whereas the bleeding edge NVIDIA GTX 16-series come with drivers that are best described as ‘rough’. As time goes by the Radeon RX 580’s will start ‘slowing down’ in comparison as NVIDIA’s driver team optimizes the 16-series firmware, and AMD stops spending as much time on a (soon to be) two gens out of date class of cards. Thus, this reason is most likely a short-term ‘win’ rather than a long term one. What is not going to change is the shear horsepower the Radeon RX 580 has on tap. More cores, a bigger 256-bit bus (albeit with older GDDR5 RAM) and generally higher TDP all combine to make the Radeon RX 580 rather formidable in its sunset days. The last reason is the most important. That is its asking price. With aggressive pricing by AMD they have turned a once mediocre value series into a rather good one. One that demands your time and your respect – no matter what your final decision may be.

Counteracting these three benefits, and the real weak link in the RX580 design, is that it is not only old, but lacks the frequency scaling that NVIDIA’s newer core designs have brought to the table. While yes AMD did spend a lot of time and effort increasing the frequency scaling abilities of their Polaris 20 core, the fact remains that even a good RX 580 will have problems sustaining (without manual overclocking) low 1400MHz range frequencies. This is a core design that is tapped out at the factory and really, really needed an even higher TDP to ‘shine’. This is something that manual overlocking can overcome to a limited extent, but even then, in many games the sheer number crunching power of NVIDIA’s cooler, more efficient and noticeably faster running cards can overcome the ‘horsepower’ of the RX580 core.

Of course, with all that said the RX 580’s main argument in its favor is its overall value. Most do not care about the hows and the whys. They just want good enough frame-rates at a good enough asking price. So while the XFX GTS Radeon RX 580 Black will be slower than all but the GTX 1650, GTX 1060 3GB, or GTX 1050Ti it will not be that much slower than higher priced NVIDIA cards. To be perfectly candid there is a very, very good argument to be made for opting for this inexpensive card rather than going ‘team green’, as while it will be slower the difference in price is greater than the difference in performance… and it will take a lot of firmware and price tweaking by NVIDIA to change that equation.

Of course, the other side of this argument is equally valid as we are talking only a few dollars difference in asking price between a good NVIDIA GTX 1660 and a great AMD Radeon RX 580. It really will come down to a case by case basis on which ‘team’ you opt for and what deals are available at the time of purchase. As such the XFX GTS Radeon RX 580 Black does justify its RealDeal award for 1080P users right now, but ‘right now’ is a major caveat. Please understand that the RX 580 is an old core-based card that will consume more electricity, create more heat, and is soon going to be a full two generations ‘out of date’ when NAVI lands. So, this deal may quickly become anything but a ‘deal’ in the near to midterm future.