Final words and conclusion
Final words and conclusion
Another 14 nanometer Ellesmere GPU is here, yeah Polaris and in this case, Polaris 20, certainly has had a good run for the money. While still very capable, the GPU itself is showing age though. But it was interesting to perform the review, even more, interesting as I realized I had not touched my graphics card test and review PC for almost two months. Man, it's slow in GPU development and new products alright. Right back to ASRock, it's good to see that the call was made for their product to reach other markets as well. And for a first series release, ASRock did pretty well. ASRock clearly placed a focus on a more value series card. The VRM design is a bit less advanced, it has just one 8-pin power connector and things like the industry's massive RGB syndrome and backplates have been left away. Unfortunately, that thesis also applied to the cooler as temps run a bit high with a three pipe based cooling unit, as a side effect the card can be moderately noisy. None the less, the card does perform roughly at close to reference performance levels and it is given or take as fast as a GeForce GTX 1060, but that depends a little on the game title and the level of the dynamic clock (GPU throttling).
Aesthetics
Looks wise, well, you can't complain, it might not be the sexiest looking product, but taste differs, sure. For a first in the Phantom series, ASRock did well though. The lacking backplate can be seen either as a pro or a con. Pro for looks and a bit more protection, con as in it can trap heat. Consumer demand is always decisive, and you guys clearly like graphics cards with backplates in the year 2018.
Performance
The Radeon RX 580 is a small notch faster compared to the reference RX 480, but really a bit all over the place; fast in fill-rate limited games, a little less with GPU stringent ones but overall you are looking at a product that still competes with the GeForce GTX 1060. The 8GB model is often in performance bracket of the Radeon R9 390 series as well. Overall, even in the year 2018, any RX580 8GB is a good choice for 1080p and even 1440p gaming. In its default state this ASRock card did throttle down quite aggressively, that is easily fixed by increasing the power limiter a bit.
Pricing
Value wise the Radeon RX 580 is still selling in exactly the same price bracket as when it was released due to the mining craze, which is kind of crazy when you think about it. AMD traditionally always tries to offer that little extra value wise. The Radeon RX 580 as tested today will be a 299 USD / € 329,- product with thus roughly similar prices throughout the EU. That price is fairly spot on with the 6 GB GeForce GTX 1060.
Cooling and Noise levels
The RX 580 Phantom Gaming comes factory tweaked at a notch on its boost allowance but does throttle down to a 1320~1350 range after a while. The card sticks to that frequency most of the time hence that helps you a bit in performance. Under load, the temperature seems to hover at roughly 75 Degrees C under full stress. That's merely a small notch below the reference cooler. With three heat pipes, the fans need to compensate and increase fan RPM. The result is that the cooler overall was too noisy for my taste. So I hope the future Phantom gaming series will get a better cooler overall.
Power Consumption
We rate this board at roughly a 185~190 Watts TDP measured under full gaming load. That means when you stress it, that's the energy the card will consume. The number will vary a bit depending on the clock state (throttle) but also if you overclock the product you'll pass that value with a decent amount. Keep in mind that this figure is indicative as some games utilize a bit more, others a little less. But seen from the Radeon RX 480 which was rated at 150~160 Watt TDP, it's a noticeable increase.
Overclocking
Overclocking wise you'll get the card at roughly at 1450 MHz on the GPU. We could tweak higher, yet the GPU started throttling back extensively. 1500 MHz was pushing it and became unstable though. 1450 MHz, however, is very doable. Our test sample reached 9.0 Gbps on the 8GB memory. So there's some cheap performance gain to be found there as ASRock left the memory clocks at a reference 8 GHz. Overall these are satisfying results. Keep in mind though, the cooler is already moderately loud, with overclocking the cooler once again will need to compensate for any extra heat.
Final Words
You know, it was June 2016 when we reviewed the first Polaris based Radeon RX 480, and April 2017 we reviewed the RX 580 series. Both, let's be honest here, use the same GPU. So here we are, June 2018 still testing that GPU. Granted, it still holds up well in pretty much any game given the right resolution of course. Polaris 20 (Ellesmere) is a better-binned GPU, it is the same series that is used in the RX 480, but fabbed on a better more refined fabrication node - yielded and thus offering higher clock frequencies. That does mean it's a factory tweaked product series. That also shows a bit in power consumption. This card hovers at the 180~200W Watt marker while gaming depending if you tweak it or not. ASRock felt the need to apply a three heatpipe based dual-slot cooler with two fans. It looks okay, the card however really could have used better cooling as the results is a product that runs fairly quickly to 75 Degrees C, that makes the fans rev up and creates a bit more noise compared to what we all are used to these days. ASRock's Radeon RX 580 really is a bit more of the same from what we have seen for a while now as hey, it's a GPU that has been around for two years. Overall can still recommend the product series from AMD as it does offer decent performance and features with an excellent software suite in the year 2018. The ASRock Phantom gaming Radeon RX 580 8G OC hold up well up-to roughly the WQHD resolution domain, if you like to tweak it manually, you'll get a little extra out of it. For the future cards, we hope to see improved cooling from ASRock, other than that this is a fun and very decent first release for them. Let's hope the Phantom gaming series will be as good and offer as much value as they do in the motherboard segment. I'd like to see a Taichi edition :) In the end, recommended, if you are not bothered by cooler noise, which is very present, this might be the one for you. The ASRock Phantom Gaming series graphics card will become available starting next week, July 1st with an expected retail price of the Phantom Gaming RX 580 8G OC at Euro 329; the RX 570 8G OC will cost Euro 319 and the RX 570 4G OC will cost Euro 295.
Recommended Downloads
- MSI AfterBurner
- 3DMark FireStrike + Time Spy (2016)
- Download AMD Radeon drivers
- Download GeForce drivers
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