XFX Radeon RX 580 8 GiB Video Card Review

Intro

Today we are testing the newest high-end video card from AMD, the 8 GiB Radeon RX 580. Check it out!
The Radeon RX 580 is based on the Ellesmere chip, which is the same used on the Radeon RX 480. Its is manufactures under 14 nm process with 3D “FinFET” transistors.
Like the Radeon RX 480, the Radeon RX 580 GPU has 2,304 cores, divided in 36 Compute Units, and uses a 256 bit memory bus. Their standard clocks, however, are higher: 1,257 MHz base clock and 1,340 MHz boost clock. Its TDP is 185 W. There are 4 GiB and 8 GiB versions, both with memory running at 8 GHz.
According to AMD, it supports FreeSync, Vulkan, VR Premium, and DirectX 12 technologies. Besides that, this new generation comes with the “Radeon Chill” feature, that uses algorithms on the drivers to reduce the power consumption without reducing the performance.
The model we tested is the XFX RX-580P8DFD. It brings higher clocks than the reference model: 1,366 MHz base clock, 1,386 turbo clock, and memory working at 8,1 GHz on boost mode.
Figure 1 shows the tested XFX Radeon RX 580. The cooler frame is made of plastic with a finishing that looks like carbon fiber.

Figure 1: the GeForce GTX 1070 Founders Edition

Costing from USD 230 (on the simplest versions,) the Radeon RX 580 hits the market on the same price point of its predecessor, the Radeon RX 480, and costing the same of its direct competitor, the GeForce GTX 1060 6 GiB. So, we benchmarked the Radeon RX 580 against those two video cards.
In the table below, we compare the main specs from the video cards we included in this review. Prices were researched at Newegg.com for this article.

Now let’s take a closer look to the tested video card.