Today we’ll be taking a quick look at the ASRock Radeon RX 590 8G OC Graphics Card. It utilizes AMD’s newly refreshed, Polaris-based RX 590 GPU which uses the 12nm FinFET process, as opposed to the previous 14nm FinFET process used by the original RX 580. It also offers a higher base/boost clock of 1498/1591 Mhz (default is 1469/1545 MHz), which should give you a slight performance increase.
FinFET stands for “Fin Field-Effect Transistor”… it’s the process where transistors are miniaturized. To find out more click here.
AMD have been receiving a lot of attention and praise recently with regards to their desktop processors. They were the first to introduce to the market a 32 core/64 thread high-end (HEDT) processor, the Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX based on the Zen+ architecture, using use a 12 nm FinFET process. And this coming year in 2019, we’ll be seeing Zen 2 based processors using the latest cutting edge 7nm FinFET process. To put this into comparison, their competitor Intel is having production problems with their 14nm fabs for their Coffee Lake processor, and are only just now looking at the 10nm process.
This turn around in their recent success however, is not reflected on their graphic card business. In fact quite the opposite, with Nvidia their competitor in the graphics card sector has taken up almost 70% of the market share. And one of the main reason for this is the poor performance produced by their Radeon graphics card range.
Having said that, it doesn’t mean AMD have lost it completely. They are slowing making a come back, by capturing the ever growing budget-conscious users/gamer who want decent performance at an affordable price. And there’s always the die-hard AMD fans out there. To put everything into perspective, who in the right frame of mind would buy a Nvidia GeForce Titan RTX for USD $2,500!!! … even if it is the fastest graphics in the world.
I’m all for the people … which means down with the STUPID high prices for graphics card, and just give the gamers and the fans what they want…. decent gaming performance at prices that’s affordable and sustainable.
I would like to thank ASRock for providing the review sample. This is a snippet from what ASRock has to say about themselves on their website:
ASRock Inc. is established in 2002, specialized in the field of motherboards. ASRock strives to build up its own brand. With the 3C design concept, “Creativity, Consideration, Cost-effectiveness”, the company explores the limit of motherboards manufacturing while paying attention on the eco issue at the same time, developing products with the consideration of eco-friendly concept.
ASRock has been growing fast and become world third largest motherboard brand with headquarter in Taipei, Taiwan and branches in Europe and the USA. The young and vibrant company targets from mainstream to enthusiast MB segments for different kinds of users, owning reputation around the world market with its reliability and proficiency.
Here’s a quick comparison between AMD’s Radeon RX 580, RX 590, and ASRock’s Radeon RX 590 8G OC.
| Radeon RX 580 | Radeon RX 590 | ASRock Radeon RX 580 8G OC | |
| Compute Units | 36 | 36 | 36 |
| FinFET process |
14nm | 12nm | 12nm |
| Base Frequency | 1257 | 1469 | 1498 |
| Boost Frequency | 1340 | 1545 | 1591 |
| Stream Processors | 2304 | 2304 | 2304 |
| Memory Type | 8 GB GDDR5 | 8 GB GDDR5 | 8 GB GDDR5 |
| Memory Bus | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit |
| Memory Speed | 8 Gbps | 8 Gbps | 8 Gbps |
As you can see, the only real difference is the increase in base and boost frequencies, and of course, the newer 12nm FinFET process which the RX 590 is made from.
What you’ll also notice is that ASRock’s Radeon RX 580 8G OC, as the name suggests is an OC or overclocked version, with an even higher base/boost clock rate of 1498/1591.
Will the increased clock rate equate to better performance? Let’s find out and see.
Many people will be heavily comparing AMD’s Radeon RX 590 with Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1060. It’s a battle of the mid-range graphics card that’s be on-going for almost a year and a half! One secret weapon Radeon RX 590 has over the GeForce GTX 1060 is the ability to enable multi-GPU configuration CrossfireX. The GeForce GTX 1060 can not.
I’m expecting the ASRock Radeon RX 590 8G OC Graphics Card with it’s slightly overclocked GPU, will produce some decent gaming performance. It should compare very well against the GeForce GTX 1060, if not better. Let’s continue and check out the specifications of the graphics card on our next page.
You can buy the ASRock Radeon RX 590 Graphics Card (8GB GDDR5) from various online retailers for around USD $280-$299.
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