AMD Radeon RX 570 4GB Review

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Final Analysis

AMD’s Radeon RX 570 is a near-facsimile of the RX 470 it replaces, aside from slightly higher clock rates. The company knew its target, to be sure: a little extra performance is all it needed to close the gap with GeForce GTX 1060 3GB in games where Nvidia’s card was faster.

And in titles like Doom, Hitman, and to a lesser extent, Rise of the Tomb Raider, the 3GB GeForce takes care of itself by running out of memory, even at 1920x1080. If you aren’t careful to manage the 1060’s detail settings, Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1050 Ti sometimes ends up faster thanks to its 4GB of GDDR5.

What we end up with, then, is a competition between Radeon RX 570 4GB (in our case, Asus’ $185 ROG Strix version) and a more expensive GeForce GTX 1060 3GB that ranges from $190 to $230. Given what we saw in our benchmarks, there’s just no way we’d recommend the 1060 for maxed-out quality at FHD. Much less so if you want to experiment with QHD. Regardless of whether Nvidia's card behaves well in the games you play today, there’s no guarantee it’ll continue serving you well tomorrow.

To be sure, AMD’s Radeon RX 570 wins this round.

Who, then, is going to buy it? The Radeon RX 570, like its predecessor, falls into a fairly dense mix of capable GPUs. Anyone with a QHD display determined to crank up the detail settings in their favorite games is going to go with a GeForce GTX 1060 6GB/Radeon RX 580 or higher. Anyone playing at 1920x1080 and willing to compromise graphics quality to save some money can get away with a GeForce GTX 1050 Ti. Enthusiasts who splurged on a GeForce GTX 970 or Radeon R9 390 last generation are still enjoying those cards and their ability to cut through 1080p with ease.

As a result, Radeon RX 570 appeals specifically to folks gunning for maxed-out details at 1920x1080 who, for some reason, didn't already jump on Radeon RX 470. AMD's data suggests that 500 million PC gamers still use graphics cards more than two years old, 80% of which are Radeon R9 380X-class or slower. So, in theory, this card's target market is enormous. Let's see if AMD can capitalize on its undisputed victory, then.


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  • shrapnel_indie
    Again...
    Confusion caused by re-branding existing hardware

    Yet the exact same issue exists for the uninformed between the same gen GTX 1060 models (3GB and 6GB) which also differ in the available functioning parts of the GPU... There wasn't a big deal made about that, yet there seems to be with the Radeons.
    Reply
  • nzalog
    19583803 said:
    Again...
    Confusion caused by re-branding existing hardware

    Yet the exact same issue exists for the uninformed between the same gen GTX 1060 models (3GB and 6GB) which also differ in the available functioning parts of the GPU... There wasn't a big deal made about that, yet there seems to be with the Radeons.

    Uhh that's not quite the same. I get that you red hat might be on a little tight but RX570 and RX580 sound like a completely new gen card. Not a slightly overclocked RX470 and RX480. I was excited until I read into the actual specs.
    Reply
  • AndrewJacksonZA
    So basically it boils down to how much more it will cost for an RX570 over an RX470 for a 5%-10% improvement in performance.

    Thanks for your efforts Igor, we appreciate it. :-)
    Reply
  • josetesan
    if they only supported CUDA, i'll go definitively for it .. :(
    Reply
  • AndrewJacksonZA
    19583990 said:
    if they only supported CUDA, i'll go definitively for it .. :(
    Out of interest, what do you need CUDA support for?

    Reply
  • josetesan
    Machine Learning
    Reply
  • josetesan
    For the sake of comparison,
    see http://navoshta.com/cpu-vs-gpu/

    According to amazon specs, g2.2xlarge does offer a gtx680/gtx770GPU, so , as you can see, speed increase is amazing !
    Besides, i'd like a good gaming card .
    Reply
  • Roland Of Gilead
    18 pages for that Final Conclusion. These 'new' cards from AMD are a joke. Cynincal for AMD. For those that have zero or very little technical savvy, they will purchase these. For the more discerned among us, this is a non-story. C'mon AMD, give us something to cheer about!!! not being the 'also rans' who gave us good cards, and then re-released the same card the following year. Sick of this crap.
    Reply
  • AndrewJacksonZA
    19584028 said:
    Machine Learning
    Hooray for open standards like CUDA! /s

    (Sorry, closed systems like that are a pet peeve of mine.)
    Reply
  • dstarr3
    I keep wanting to do an AMD-based budget build, but... well, they just don't ever make anything that I feel is competitive. If eventually the price on this dropped to more like 1050 Ti prices, then absolutely, killer bang for the buck. But at the MSRP of $200, I'd rather spend just a little bit more and go for a 1060 6GB.

    And in terms of CPUs, I'd like to see what budget Ryzen chips AMD can come up with before I pull the trigger. i3s don't have the core count, so AMD's already ahead, but their budget lineup is getting a bit long in the tooth right now.

    Really, it's just not a compelling time to buy just about anything right now.
    Reply