AMD reveals wallet-friendly Radeon RX 500 video card family with RX 580/570 launch

AMD has officially launched its new Radeon RX 500 series of graphics cards that will replace the existing RX 400 Series threesome currently on the market. The new units are based on AMD’s revised Polaris graphics chip architecture, promising slightly better clock speeds in part due to using the latest version of the 14nm FinFET LPP process technology.

As with the older RX 400 Series generation, AMD is addressing the mainstream customer who needs to upgrade an outdated graphics card to support HD gaming and high-quality VR. The cards also target customers relying on integrated graphics components, which don’t meet the minimum requirements for the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.

So let’s dive in and check each one out versus the RX 400 Series card they will replace:

Radeon RX 580

As previously revealed in photos of an engineering sample, the RX 580 is based on an entirely new board design (C940) backed by a new 8-pin power connector. This indicates that the card can be overclocked at the expense of a higher power requirement. Even AMD says that the RX 580 supports “aggressive tuning for higher clocks.”

According to AMD, the RX 580 can crank out 78 frames per second in Doom using a 1440p resolution and “High” settings. The Strix GTX 970 with the same settings can only manage 58 frames per second, while the Radeon R9 380X can only generate 52 frames per second. In other words, the RX 580 is somewhat of a large leap compared to the older GPUs.

Radeon RX 570

Circling back to Doom, AMD says that this card manages 92 frames per second with a 1080p resolution and “Ultra” settings. Meanwhile, the EVGA GTX 960 only churns out 59 frames per second and the Radeon R7 370 only does 40 frames per second. The 570 also beats out those two older cards in Resident Evil 7 too, with 103 frames per second versus 68 frames per second and 38 frames per second, respectively.

Radeon RX 560

Based on AMD’s numbers, this card does rather well in Doom, with 67 frames per second at a 1080p resolution. The GTX 750 Ti manages only 33 frames per second, while the Radeon R7 360 is capable of 35 frames per second.

Radeon RX 550

AMD doesn’t provide a Doom benchmark with this card, but does throw out numbers regarding Rocket League and Overwatch. Check out the comparisons:

Finally, here are some of the cards sold by third-party manufacturers based on the new Radeon RX 500 Series family. Remember, models based on the RX 560 and RX 550 won’t hit the market until next month (May):