We’re about to see the devil in the details. We currently have PowerColor’s Red Devil RX 590 8GB to test out here in the labs. Coming in with huge expectations and all from the new and improved 12mn manufacturing process, we’re eager to see how it holds out on our tests.
We’re about to see the devil in the details. We currently have PowerColor’s Red Devil RX 590 8GB to test out here in the labs. Coming in with huge expectations and all from the new and improved 12mn manufacturing process, we’re eager to see how it holds out on our tests.
PACKAGING
PowerColor isn’t holding back anything when it comes to introducing its products. Slapped dead front and center is the Red Devil logo with a pentagram behind it all themed black and red. No holds barred on a thematic demonic presentation here.
Anyway, once you pop it out of the box, you’ll be met with the PowerColor Red Devil RX 590 8GB in the flesh, a product manual, and a membership card of sorts for PowerColor’s exclusive group. Not limited to PowerColor, but AMD is giving Devil May Cry 5, The Division 2 and Resident Evil 2 Remake until February 9th or when the codes are all exhausted – an easy $180 value that you’ll get for free, thus sweetening the deal further.
DESIGN
The PowerColor Red Devil RX 590 8GB embraces its naming convention through its design. Black and red is also the theme here that’s complete with a pentagram on its backplate covering its black PCB. For cooling, you’re working with two fans with two-ball bearing setup on quite a chunky heatsink. The fans will also only activate upon reaching 50℃. It’s a triple slot card that while thick, is quite a bit short at 255mm.
Moving forward, the Red Devil RX 590 works with one 8-pin PCIe and one 6-pin PCIe power, with the LED switch sitting beside it and the OC/Silent switch on the opposite end. Basically, the LED switch gives you the option for making that Red Devil Logo shine, and that’s about it. Who needs all the colors of RGB, right?
As for the ports, you’ll have three DisplayPort headers, one HDMI and one Dual Link DVI-D.
PERFORMANCE
The RX 590 is the very first GPU in its segment to use 12nm FinFET technology, thus enabling improvements on efficiency and overall performance with higher clocks than previously achievable on Polaris gaming GPUs. The PowerColor Red Devil RX 590 comes with a boost clock of 1576MHz core clock speed and 2304 Stream processors.
TEST SYSTEM SETUP
Motherboard: GIGABYTE AB350M-DH3
CPU: AMD RYZEN 5 1600 3.2GHz
GPU: PowerColor Red Devil RX 590 8GB
RAM: ZADAK 16GB DDR4 RAM 2400 MHz
Cooler: Corsair H60 (2018)
Storage: Plextor M9e 512GB M.2 SSD + Seagate BarraCuda 4TB + 2TB Western Digital Green HDD
PSU: EVGA 500 BV, 80+ BRONZE 500W
Case: Silverstone RL06
OS: Windows 10 Pro N
Display: ViewSonic VX2758 144Hz Monitor
3DMark Time Spy
3DMark Time Spy is a DirectX 12 benchmark test for Windows 10 gaming PCs. Time Spy is one of the first DirectX 12 apps to be built the right way from the ground up to fully realize the performance gains that the new API offers. With its Extreme counterpart rendering visuals in 4K.
3DMark Firestrike
Fire Strike is a showcase DirectX 11 benchmark for modern gaming PCs. Its ambitious real-time graphics are rendered with detail and complexity far beyond other DirectX 11 benchmarks and games. With Extreme and Ultra versions raising resolution in 25650 x 1440 and 4K.
Unigine Superposition
Unigine Superposition is an extreme performance and stability test for PC with tests for 1080p, 4K, and 8K.
Battlefield V
Battlefield V is the very first title to support NVIDIA's Ray Tracing. Our test involves a run on the War Stories - Under No Flag section to test out the performance between RTX enabled and disabled. And of course, everything possible to adjust set to maximum/ultra. Drive it hard.
Settings:
Ambient Occlusion: SSAO
Anti-aliasing Post-processing: TAA High
DXR: Ultra/Off
Effects Quality Ultra
GPU Memory Restriction: Off
Graphics Quality: Ultra
Lighting Quality: Ultra
Mesh Quality: Ultra
Post-processing Quality: Ultra
Resolution Scale: Ultra
Terrain Quality: Ultra
Texture Filtering: Ultra
Texture Quality: Ultra
Undergrowth Quality: Ultra
Framerate Limiter: 200
VSync: Off
Future Frame Rendering: On
The Witcher 3
The Witcher 3 despite its age is still one of the most demanding titles as it holds up graphically. Our test is done on Mulbrydale.
Settings:
VSync: Off
FPS: Unlimited
NVIDIA Hairworks: Off
Number of Background Characters: Ultra
Shadow Quality: Ultra
Terrain Quality: Ultra
Water Quality: Ultra
Grass Density: Ultra
Texture Quality: Ultra
Foliage Visibility Range: Ultra
Detail Level: Ultra
Ambient Occlusion: SSAO
Depth of Field: On
Chromatic Abberation: On
Vignetting: On
Light Shafts: On
Final Fantasy XV
Final Fantasy XV from Square Enix is one of the most graphically intensive games to date, offering rich details and beautiful visuals to boot. Our test run involves a run on the great wilderness from Hammerhead to the road ahead.
Settings:
Framerate: 120fps
Resolution: 100%
Preset: Highest
Assets: On
Model LOD: High
TRAM: Highest
Anisotropic Filtering: High
Geomapping: On
Lighting: High
Shadows: Highest
Ambient Occlusion: High
Anti-aliasing: TAA
Motion Blur: On
Filtering: Highest
NVIDIA Hairworks: Off
NVIDIA VXAO: Off
NVIDIA TurfEffects: Off
NVIDIA ShadowLibs: Off
Deus Ex Mankind Divided
Settings:
DirectX12
Texture Quality: Ultra
Texture Filtering: 8x Anisotropic
Shadow Quality: Very High
Ambient Occlusion: Very High
Contact Hardening Shadows: Ultra
Parallax Occlusion Mapping: High
Depth of Field: Ultra
Level of Detail: Very High
Volumetric Lighting: Ultra
Screenspace Reflections: Ultra
Temporal Anti-Aliasing: On
Motion Blur: On
Sharpen: On
Bloom: On
Lens Flares: On
Cloth Physics: On
Subsurface Scattering: On
Chromating Abberration: On
Tesselation: On
Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Odyssey looks like it still used the same engine as Assassin's Creed Origins, but a more refined one at that. Our test run is done on the Coast of Koliadai area.
Settings:
Adaptive Quality: Off
Ambient Occlusion: Very High
Anti-aliasing: High
Character: Ultra High
Clutter: Very High
Depth of Field: High
Character Texture Detail: Ultra High
Texture Detail: High
Environment Details: Ultra High
Fog: High
Resolution Modifier: 100
Screen Space Reflections: High
Shadows: Ultra High
Terrain: High
Volumetric Clouds: Ultra High
Water: Very High
Metro Last Light Redux Benchmark Tool
Metro Last Light Redux features a built in benchmarking tool that can simulate on multiple passes and comes with detailed sequences.
Settings:
Quality: Very High
SSAA: On
Texture Filtering: AF 16X
Motion Blur: Off
Tesselation: Very High
VSync: Off
Advanced PhysX: Off
Runs: 3
Temperature
For the temperature, we look for the average on a 30-minute idle state and load temperatures are tracked during 3DMark's Time Spy stress test for the same duration. The test system is under a 30C ambient room temperature, and unit is in Celsius.
CONCLUSION
AMD is playing with its strengths here and dishes out a card that's set to deliver the latest AAA games on Ultra at a cost efficient solution. It's definitely a beast on 1080p and a capable go-getter at 1440p.
As for the PowerColor Red Devil RX 590 8GB, our tests were done in its OC profile. Results by the numbers are glorious on 1080p and quite acceptable at 1440p by the numbers. However, once you go balls to the wall with it, the fans are working seriously hard to bring the temps down and that equates to more noise.
COMMENTS