As we anticipated in our article about Radeon RX Vega in early March, AMD launched a new line of graphics cards under the name Radeon RX 500. The models at the top of the list are the Radeon RX 580 and RX 570, which serve as a direct replacement for the 480 and 470 cards. The hardware is based on the Polaris architecture, with virtually identical specifications to the previous series, but AMD's goal here is to tempt mid-range and low-end users to upgrade to this latest revision.
Updating graphics hardware is not a completely clear process. The user must carefully study the differences even between models from the same brand, and detect which are the most important cuts. Do you need more memory for textures? Is 4K a priority, or is access to solid 1080p60 sufficient? The high-end shows us that Nvidia remains in charge, and all of AMD's chips in that space were placed on Vega, which in theory will arrive before the end of June. However, there is a huge number of users with more limited budgets who do not hesitate to extend the life of their current cards. The pressure point is there, the OEMs know that, and in response, AMD launched its new Radeon RX 500.
The flagship cards are the Radeon RX 580 and RX 570. If we compare their specifications with the RX 480 and RX 470, it becomes quite difficult to find differences. AMD increased the frequencies, but the rest is pure Polaris 10. In Sunnyvale they have said that this new revision of the silicon allows the cards to optimize power consumption, although the numbers indicate that the TBP (Typical Board Power) increased between 30 and 35 watts. How does that translate into performance? Suffice it to say that if you already have an RX 480 or RX 470, the reasons to upgrade are null. The average between benchmarks points to three or four percent. The real benefit is in noise reduction. The new cards are much quieter.
The suggested prices for both cards are $229 (RX 580) and $169 (RX 570). Unfortunately, the “European distortion field” converts that into 260 and 191 euros. The position of both cards is very particular. AMD's plan here is not only to present a new path for those who decided to postpone their upgrade, but also to deliver an alternative to the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060, which continues to be very attractive in its two versions of 3 and 6 GB.
