Due to the mining boom, the search for an AMD Radeon RX 580 turned out to be harder than we thought. But finally we received a test sample from AMD. However, the Sapphire model is based on a PCB that was specially designed with considerably better cooling than the reference model from AMD. Furthermore, Sapphire improves the visuals with lit-up lettering (RGB capable). It is now based on the Polaris 20 chip, which replaces the Polaris 10 of the AMD Radeon RX 480/470. It is also produced in the 14-nm process and combines about 5.7 billion transistors on the 232 mm² die. The clock speed was slightly increased and is now 1,257 MHz, which can automatically be raised to 1,340 MHz via boost. The AMD Radeon RX 580 can be equipped with 4 GB or 8 GB VRAM. In order to be prepared for the future, we would always prefer the 8-GB variant. Our test unit, the Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 580 8GD5, is equipped with 8 GB GDDR5 VRAM, which communicates via the 256-Bit storage interface. In connection with the storage speed of 8 GHz, this results in a maximum storage bandwidth of 256 GB/s. From the get-go, the manufacturer slightly overclocks the graphics card, so that the Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 580 possesses a standard clock speed of 1,340 MHz. With the second BIOS, which can be activated with a slider, the graphics card can then even be operated with a speed of 1,411 MHz.
Visually, our test unit clearly differsfrom the reference design, which also shows in the dimensions. With a length of about 26 cm (~10.2 in) and a height of about 13.5 cm (~5.3 in), you should check before the purchase whether the case offers enough space for this. Even though the graphics card takes two slots, in order to avoid impeding the cooling unit, we advise against inserting another component into the adjacent PCIe slot.
For external devices, the Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 580 8GD5 offers one DL-DVI-D connection, two HDMI 2.0b connections, and two DisplayPort 1.4 connections. Internally, the graphics card requires two power adapters (1 x 6-pin + 1 x 8-pin).
An AMD platform based on the Gigabyte Aorus GA-AX370 Gaming 5 serves as our test system. The CPU, an AMD RYZEN 7 1800X, provides sufficient CPU performance and is cooled by a Be Quiet Silent Loop (280 mm, ~11 in). However, this was manually overclocked to 4 GHz. The 16 GB of working memory comes from Corsair, and the Acer Predator XB321HK does not limit us even in high resolutions due to the UHD suitability. At this point, we would like to sincerely thank AMD who provided us with the test platform as well as the graphics card.
Under load, the Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 580 reaches a stable clock speed of 1,340 MHz without any trouble, and the VRAM operates continuously at 8,000 MHz. In order to prevent the graphics card from reaching the temperature target (76 °C, 167 °F), good case ventilation should be obligatory despite the generous cooling. The Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 580 offers one special feature. With a slider, you can select another BIOS that raises the chip's clock speed to 1,411 MHz. This can also be stably maintained.
In the synthetic benchmarks, the Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 580 is able to place ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 480, sometimes by up to 20%. However, compared to the Nvidia competitor, the Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 580 remains clearly behind the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070. Our test sample can only hold up against the slightly slower GeForce GTX 1060 here.
3DMark Ice Storm3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited3DMark Ice Storm Extreme3DMark Cloud Gate3DMark Sky Diver3DMark Fire Strike3DMark Fire Strike Extreme3DMark Fire Strike Ultra3DMark Time Spy3DMark 113DMark Vantage3DMark 063DMark 053DMark 03Unigine ValleyUnigine Heaven 3DMark | 3DMark 11
Synthetic Benchmarks are one thing, but it is much more important how the gaming performance of the pixel accelerators is implemented. It shows here, that the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 often delivers more frames than our test card, even though it cannot place clearly ahead of it. The GeForce GTX 1070 remains unreachable (holding second place) and is only surpassed by the GeForce GTX 1080, which is again clearly faster.
However, the subjective gaming performance of the Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 580 can be considered good throughout. The graphics card can display all the current games smoothly in maximum detail. Only in some particular games, such as "Deus Ex Mankind Divided" or "Ghost Recon Wildlands," we would recommend reducing the details to the "high" preset. If anyone wants to purchase this card to play beyond the 1080p resolution, we cannot recommend this purchase, though. We cannot assure a consistent 4K suitability since the performance of the Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 580 is only sufficient to provide stutter-free gaming pleasure in a few games with such a high resolution.
If the current high-end graphics card of the Vega series is too expensive for you, with the AMD Radeon RX 580 you get a solid graphics card with which you can enjoy all the current games in Full HD without any problems.
Far Cry Primal | BioShock Infinite | Rise of the Tomb Raider | The Witcher 3 | Deus Ex Mankind Divided | Watch Dogs 2 | Battlefield 1 | Resident Evil 7 | GTA V | Rainbow Six Siege | The Division | Dishonored 2 | For Honor | Battlefield 4 | Sims 4 | Doom | Overwatch | FIFA 17 | Farming Simulator 17 | Call of Duty Infinite Warfare | Ghost Recon Wildlands | Mass Effect Andromeda | Prey | Rocket League | Dirt 4 | Team Fortress 2
Far Cry Primal - 1920x1080 Ultra Preset AA:SM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti (Desktop)GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, 4790K, Samsung SSD 840 Pro 256GB MZ7PD256HAFV-0Z000
Overall, the 2,304 Shader units provide for a good computing performance. The processing power of the Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 580 lies at a good 6 TFlops and was again slightly increased compared to the Radeon RX 480. Compared to the GeForce GTX 1060, the Radeon RX 580 can stand up well and achieves third place behind the two faster GeForce graphics cards (GTX 1070 / GTX 1080).
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti (Desktop)Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition, 4790K
LuxMark v2.0 64Bit
-17%
-5%
-14%
40%
79%
Room GPUs-only (Samples/s)
1757
1440 -18%
1661 -5%
1773 1%
2474 41%
3050 74%
Sala GPUs-only (Samples/s)
3612
3020 -16%
3468 -4%
2584 -28%
5012 39%
6600 83%
ComputeMark v2.1
-12%
-5%
-10%
28%
108%
1024x600 Normal, QJuliaRayTrace (Points)
2777
2475 -11%
2746 -1%
3322 20%
4761 71%
7938 186%
1024x600 Normal, Mandel Scalar (Points)
2806
2447 -13%
2539 -10%
2002 -29%
2861 2%
4949 76%
1024x600 Normal, Mandel Vector (Points)
2407
2172 -10%
2162 -10%
1994 -17%
2706 12%
4391 82%
1024x600 Normal, Fluid 2DTexArr (Points)
1031
911 -12%
991 -4%
963 -7%
1390 35%
2092 103%
1024x600 Normal, Fluid 3DTex (Points)
1189
1039 -13%
1220 3%
985 -17%
1402 18%
2275 91%
1024x600 Normal, Score (Points)
10210
9044 -11%
9659 -5%
9266 -9%
13121 29%
21646 112%
Total Average (Program / Settings)
-15% / -13%
-5% / -5%
-12% / -11%
34% / 31%
94% / 101%
Professional Uses
The AMD Radeon RX 580 comes out on top against the GeForce GTX 1060 in the professional applications as well, while the GeForce GTX 1080 is clearly ahead by more than 81%. The Radeon RX 580 is only partly suitable for these professional applications since the driver optimizations are not optimal for these computations. The graphics cards of the Fire-Pro series by AMD, or the Quadro series by Nvidia achieve considerably better performance. These graphics cards were specially designed for this use, which is why the drivers were also particularly adjusted for this.
Under constant load, the Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 580 can continue to use its full potential. The stress tests we ran (Sky Diver and Time Spy) show this with a result of about 97%. In the one-hour load test with FurMark, the 76 °C (169 °F) temperature is reached after 10 minutes. After that, the temperature levels out at 75 °C (167 °F). The two 95-mm axial fans spin at a conservative 850 rpm on average. With that, the operation of the graphics card is comfortably quiet even under load. The two fans produce a quiet rather than a high-frequency whirring. The clock speed of 1,411 MHz is maintained throughout. However, we can already guess that the overclocking potential might be limited slightly. The speed of the fans is only slowly increased when the temperature exceeds the limit of 76 °C (169 °F). Of course, these settings can also be adjusted manually with various tools. The WattMan tool included in the graphics driver offers many adjustment options and at the same time a good monitoring overview. If we adjust the fan speed to 1,100 rpm, the noise level only increases minimally, but the temperature of the graphics card decreases quickly to 70 °C (158 °F). If we set the fan speed to "Auto" again, both fans spin again at about 850 rpm and the temperature rises again to 75 °C (167 °F).
3DMark Sky Diver (stress test)3DMark Time Spy (stress test)
Power Consumption and Overclocking
Power consumption under loadSettings: overclocking (manual)
The overclocking results of the Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 580 cannot be called very good, even though all the necessary settings can be adjusted with the WattMan tool. With the manual settings, the GPU can be overclocked to 1,475 MHz. Unfortunately, a stable operation at this clock speed was not possible with our graphics card. You can limit the maximum frequency possible for the VRAM with the tool. In this way, we could run it at 2,250 MHz without any problem. Since the power target was also increased by 20%, the temperature target also needed to be increased to avoid underclocking. Of course the speed of the two axial fans was also adjusted to provide the graphics card with enough fresh air. Despite the large fans, the noise level rises considerably, without reaching a level that can be called annoying, though.
We tested the performance with the overclocking settings and were able to achieve an improvement from 19,961 points to 21,575 in the 3DMark 11 test. In the Fire Strike Extreme benchmark, the result could be improved from 6,145 to 6,570 points. However, we cannot speak about a noticeable improvement here. With a better cooling (liquid cooling), we could probably squeeze out another few percentage points of performance. But this will not make the graphics card 4K-capable throughout.
With a small slider adjustment, the Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 580 offers the option to select a second BIOS, which operates the graphics chip at a clock speed of 1,411 MHz.
The Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 580 is a gaming graphics card, which currently costs the owner 390 Euros (~$463, starting at $400 in the US). This graphics card is primarily interesting for gamers who play mainly in Full HD resolution. Even though the 8-GB VRAM are also sufficient for WQHD or UHD, the performance of the graphics card is insufficient to display the current games smoothly without compromises. The Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 580 should be labeled as partly 4K capable, since the graphics card is able to display some games with playable frame rates on the screen.
Anyone who wants to do without Nvidia and for whom features such as FreeSync are in the foreground will be pleased with the Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 580 by all means. The graphics card offers solid gaming performance and is also suitable as an interim solution until the AMD Radeon Vega graphics cards become more affordable.
We like the high-quality build and the discrete highlights in the form of the RGB illumination. The dimensions of Sapphire's graphic card might lead to problems in some cases, since the case must offer a lot of space in terms of both length and width. Moreover, good case ventilation must be the standard. We also like the details, such as the overclocking and the power saving functions in 2D-Windows operation, which is also combined with the "Zero-Fan Mode."
And finally, the Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 580 operates about 10% faster than its predecessor, which was based on the AMD Radeon RX 480. However, the Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 580 is clearly beaten by the fastest graphics cards from Nvidia. The games performance is on the same level as that of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060.
static version load dynamicLoading comments Comment on this article Please share our article, every link counts! Add as a preferredsource on Google Editor of the original article: Sebastian Jentsch - Managing Editor Consumer Laptops - 1750 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2010Computers always had an important place in my life, starting with an Intel 80286 microprocessor in the early 1990s. I became interested in the productive side of technology, especially in campus radio, while studying at TU Chemnitz and during a trainee program in Belfast. Hardware interests led me to manage Notebookjournal.de, which is now a division of Notebooksbilliger, for a few years. I became self-employed in 2010 and took the next logical step in my career by starting to write for Notebookcheck.contact me via: Xing > Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > Reviews > Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 580 Desktop Graphics Card Review Sebastian Bade, 2017-09- 2 (Update: 2020-05-19) 10 ← exclude selected types
Add as a preferredsource on Google 
Editor of the original article: Sebastian Jentsch - Managing Editor Consumer Laptops - 1750 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2010Computers always had an important place in my life, starting with an Intel 80286 microprocessor in the early 1990s. I became interested in the productive side of technology, especially in campus radio, while studying at TU Chemnitz and during a trainee program in Belfast. Hardware interests led me to manage Notebookjournal.de, which is now a division of Notebooksbilliger, for a few years. I became self-employed in 2010 and took the next logical step in my career by starting to write for Notebookcheck.contact me via: Xing > Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > Reviews > Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 580 Desktop Graphics Card Review Sebastian Bade, 2017-09- 2 (Update: 2020-05-19) 10 ← exclude selected types