brand spanking new RX 580

[batboy]

Fed Ex just dropped of a box from Newegg. It's almost like Christmas.

XFX Radeon RX 580 GTS XXX Edition 4GB OC+

I pulled the black dual fan RX 580 from the box and I must say it looks sexy.

I'm in the process of cleaning 20 months of dust and cat hair from my computer case.

This is the first vid card upgrade for me in 7 years. I remember a time when I upgraded every 1 or 2 years.

Had an "Oh no!" moment when I realized the vid card used one 8-pin power connector, but my power supply only had two 6-pin connectors. Whew, they included a two 6-pin to one 8-pin cable adaptor, thank goodness.

I hope to upgrade my whole rig next year, but for now, this RX 580 should be a nice improvement over the old HD 6950. Maybe the Vega card will be out and most of the bugs worked out a year from now.

 

[Nebulous]

Niiice! New hardware arrivals are always like Christmas.

Enjoy it!

 

[batboy]

With the mining boom going bust, prices had dropped $300 in 3 weeks time. I saw the prices stabilize and knew a lot of vendors had limited supply, so I bought this card for $305 (after MIR). It was possible prices would continue to tumble, but they didn't. Just as I thought and predicted, prices have bottomed out at the present time. Usually when I order something, I find it on sale the next day. Not this time. Once inventory gets built back up, I bet prices will drop a bit more for the mid-range cards. If Vega ever gets released, prices will definitely drop some more as the lineout gets shuffled down.

 

[batboy]

Ok, the "Radeon Settings" software that comes with the drivers includes this thing called "Wattman" for overclocking. It's goofy, I mean, it really really really sucks.

What would be better to use? Is the MSI Overdrive program still one of the favorite OC programs for Radeon cards? Guess I'll download it and see. Has to be better than that crappy Wattman.

As near as I can find, the reference design for the 580 lists core clock/boost clock as 1,257MHz and 1,340MHz. Nearly all the cards are set higher from the factory. My XFX 580 has a "true clock" of 1,366 MHz and boost at 1,386 MHz. The highest factory OC I saw was 1,450 MHz. From a little research, sounds like a 1,500 MHz overclock is hard to reach. So far, 1,460 MHz is the best core clock I've got out of this card without raising voltages (I consider the OC successful if I can run and complete 3D benchmarks).

I was wondering what kind of clock speeds other OC Forum folks are getting out of this card? Do we maintain an OC database?

Any words of wisdom? Suggestions?

 

[Nebulous]

When I had the Red Devil RX480, I tried AMD's Wattman. What a piece of crap software AMD came up with. I agree it's totally worthless and doesn't work as it should. I had major issues with it. The norm is MSI's Afterbuner.
No database as far as I know, only what's in the sticky above your thread.

Maybe this will give you an idea and help you out:

Linky One


Don't expect much from it tho. AMD has neutered their 480/580 cards voltage wise so you won't be able to get high clocks.

 

[batboy]

Thanks for the link, Neb. Looks like I got a bit more out of the core than they did.

MSI Afterburner, yes that's what I meant and that's what I downloaded. Think I had a senior moment and said Overdrive because that's what the old ATI OC software was called.

This XFX card is doing pretty good so far. The factory default core speed (True Core as they call it) is considerably higher than the reference design from the get go. So, it's basically a factory overclocked card. I have not played with voltage at all. Some folks think adding more than a modest bump in voltage actually hurts performance with this GPU. Neb, is that what you where alluding to?

I was able to run the Heaven 4.0 benchmark at 1,460 MHz core on default voltage. That's a little better than most of the reviews I saw and they usually added voltage. I was hoping to clock the core at a nice round figure of 1,500 MHz, but that might be a bit too optimistic.

Now we come to the one thing that irritates me about this card. Nearly all the other brands of the RX 580 have a default memory speed at 2,000 MHz (8,000 effective). But, for some reason XFX has the RAM on this card set at 1,750 MHz (7,000 effective). I somehow overlooked that spec prior to ordering, probably because I thought all the RX 580 cards ran memory at 2,000 MHz. But, the silver lining to the cloud is the memory easily overclocks to 2,000 MHz. I have not tried anything higher yet, but that sure makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

I'll try a few more settings later.

 

[Nebulous]

Yeah my RX480 was a real dud in the overclocking dept. Any little bump in either mem/core or voltage resulted in artifacts, crash or lockups. It was kinda sad too as the PowerColor Red Devil RX480 looked to be formidable card with a giant heatsink and triple fan cooling. Sad to say it was a weak card with all show and no go. I ditched it and got my current 1070.

The RX 480 I had hated voltage so it was at the mercy of tiny steps in mem or core. Any amount of voltage had a negative effect. I'm sure you'll be able to get a nice decent enough overclock with that RX580. Keep chuggin' in there!

 

[batboy]

After more benchmarking and stress testing, I've concluded the 1,460 MHz core speed (mentioned in an earlier post) was not completely stable at default voltage (an occasional artifact when the GPU got hot). I backed it down a notch and am now 99% confident that 1,450 MHz is rock solid with no added voltage. I'll play with voltage a little later, but I'm not going to hold my breath that it'll do much. Also, I haven't pushed the limits of the RAM yet. But, I heard memory OC is not that critical on this card. Overclocking the core is where real performance is gained.

Summary:

Max stable OC with default voltage is 1,450 MHz core speed and 2,000 MHz memory speed.

Note: vid card is straight out of the box with factory air cooling (no mods done).

 

[batboy]

Stick a fork into me, I'm done. Just spent/wasted several hours in the middle of the night (just like back in the old days), benchmarking my new RX 580 card. I methodically tried all I could think of to coax a bit more speed from this card.

The most I could get out of the memory was 2050 MHz with max voltage compared to 2000 MHz using the default auto voltage and auto fan settings (default memory clock is 1,750 MHz).

With the voltage maxed out and the fans on high, I was able to finish a benchmark with the core clock at 1,480 MHz. But, when I looked at the benchmark score and FPS, it was worse than the baseline benchmark I did prior to overclocking. So, there was some serious thermal throttling going on. You can forget about throwing moderate to high voltages at the RX 580. If you're air cooled, it's counter-productive. (just like Nebulous had warned).

Remember I could run the core at 1,460 MHz at default voltage, but it had some artifacts in the image towards the end. With a small 50 millivolt increase to the GPU, and then switching the case fans from medium to high speed (Antec Tricool 3-speed 120mm fans), I was able to cleanly benchmark at a core clock of 1,460 MHz.

Summary: My hardcore OC with the fans turned up to ear bleeding levels and pouring in extra voltage: 1,460 MHz core and 2,050 MHz memory. My best OC using the default auto voltage and default auto fan settings: 1,450 MHz core and 2,000 MHz memory. I got a respectable additional OC out of a card that was already factory overclocked. But, it's odd how raising voltage kills the joy.

 

[Nebulous]

Yeah batz, I figured that was going to happen. Polaris doesn't do well with voltage. The more you cram voltage down it's throat, the more it'll regurgitate. Not a bad clock @ 1450/2000 tho. I managed 1475/2000 out of the Red Devil RX480 which was really poor considering the card looked like it was made to clock. I too, in the end, gave up trying to get more out of it. I even tried slapping an MCW82 waterblock on it, but man did that thing heat up my loop! I left it with the stock cooling and ran it stock until I swapped out for the 1070.

Those golden days of overclocking the snot out of hardware and getting some real performance gains are long gone my friend. We're lucky if we get 5% - 15% gains now

 

[Alaric]

Those golden days of overclocking the snot out of hardware and getting some real performance gains are long gone my friend. We're lucky if we get 5% - 15% gains now

Good thing it's a hobby and not a necessity for me, then. LOL

 

[Nebulous]

Good thing it's a hobby and not a necessity for me, then. LOL

Blasphemy!

 

[Alaric]

Well, feeding my obsession with 'faster' isn't technically necessary. But it does keep me out of the loony bin.

 

[Johan45]

I'll continue this here so we don't muddy the other posters thread with our discussion. I can't remember particulars since I have only benched this card once and have to get back to it at some point but..... I know my style and would have had power limit as far as it would go. Voltage is only added after I max the clocks at stock and then I'll see if it helps or not. But this was the end result benching stable don't know about gaming but I'm sure it's not too far behind this 1526/2219