Sapphire Nitro Radeon RX 590 Special Edition Review | 118 Data compared

The PCWorld review highlights the Sapphire Radeon RX 590 Nitro+ as a premier 1080p gaming card, offering superior performance over the GTX 1060 along with excellent value, robust connectivity, and a bundle of three major games. While physically striking, the card’s "enormously bulky" design and bright, unchangeable blue aesthetic, along with future-dated game keys, are noted as drawbacks. For a full overview, read the PCWorld review.

The Wccftech review highlights the SAPPHIRE Nitro+ Radeon RX 590 Special Edition as the fastest and most powerful iteration of the Polaris architecture. Built on a refined 12nm process node (Polaris 30), this card maintains 2,304 Stream Processors and 8GB of GDDR5 memory but achieves a substantially higher stable core frequency of 1560MHz out of the box. In real-world benchmarks, it dominates previous Polaris iterations like the RX 480 and comfortably beats the NVIDIA GTX 1060 6GB Founders Edition in 1080p gaming, while sustaining capability for entry-level 1440p gaming on medium settings when paired with a FreeSync monitor. The primary pros of this card include its top-tier sub-$300 performance dominance, exceptionally cool thermals, and remarkably quiet dual-ball-bearing fan operations via the Dual-X cooling design. It is also highly responsive to undervolting, allowing users to significantly reduce heat and power consumption without sacrificing stock clock stability. Conversely, the major cons stem from its aggressive default voltage, making it incredibly power-hungry out of the box with a bumped TDP of 225W, alongside very limited remaining overclocking headroom. Additionally, the reviewer noted that...

The Sapphire Radeon RX 590 Nitro is reviewed by IGN as a highly capable midrange GPU that utilizes a shrunk 12nm "Polaris" die architecture, allowing for boosted clock speeds compared to its predecessors, the RX 480 and RX 580. Priced competitively around $200 to $215, the card delivers excellent value for budget-conscious gamers, successfully pushing 60fps at 1440p on ultra settings across most tested games, as well as delivering top-tier 1080p performance. Architecturally, it stands out with a robust design featuring an 8GB GDDR5 memory buffer, a wide 256-bit memory bus, a high-end metal backplate, and a comprehensive selection of video outputs that includes the rare addition of a DVI-D port alongside HDMI and DisplayPort. Despite its strong performance-to-dollar ratio, the review highlights notable drawbacks tied to its aging architecture. A major con is its strictly high-end power consumption of roughly 235W, driven by the pushed clock speeds of the old GCN framework, requiring at least a 500W power supply unit and a combination of an 8-pin and 6-pin power connector. Furthermore, benchmark data reveals that the real-world performance gap...

The TechPowerUp review of the Sapphire Radeon RX 590 Nitro+ Special Edition 8 GB highlights a heavily factory-overclocked card (1560 MHz core) aimed at maximum 1080p and capable 1440p gaming. Key pros include a premium, quiet custom cooler with excellent thermal performance, a dual-BIOS switch for a "Quiet" mode, and substantial performance gains over the GTX 1060. Conversely, the review notes significant cons, primarily the aging 12nm "Polaris 30" architecture pushing excessive power consumption, reaching nearly 218 W during gaming. Additional drawbacks include very high multi-monitor/idle power draw and a lack of modern features like hardware ray tracing. YouTube ·