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  • Hello, and welcome to Tech Deals!

  • AMD RX 500 series graphics card launch, April 2017. This is Polaris Refreshed.

  • These are updated versions of the 400 series cards that were launched in summer of 2016.

  • Higher performance, lower power consumption, lower price! That is a win/win/win!

  • Now let me say up front that if you currently own an RX400 series graphics card

  • it really doesn't make sense to move from 400 to 500.

  • This is an evolutionary rather than revolutionary jump.

  • What these cards are meant for are for people who own 300 and 200 series AMD graphics cards

  • or perhaps something older.

  • It's also for people who own something from the 900 series or 700 series from NVidia.

  • Those are also now worth considering replacing.

  • There are 4 different RX500 series cards launching this week. I will talk about them in turn.

  • First up, we have the top of the line RX 580.

  • This replaces the RX 480.

  • There is both a 4 gigabyte and an 8 gigabyte version of this card.

  • $199 for the 4GB - $229 for the 8GB.

  • Yes, you heard me correctly. There is only a $30 price difference between the 4 and the 8 gigabyte card.

  • I recommend the 8 gigabyte card.

  • That is different from the advice I gave last year if you watched my original 480 review

  • where I talked about the 4 versus the 8 gig, I recommended the 4.

  • Now, two reasons for that.

  • That was in 2016 when fewer games used more VRAM, and the price difference was larger.

  • With only a $30 price difference between the 4 and 8 gig card

  • If you're going to buy a card for the next 3 years of use,

  • go ahead and spend the $30 - get the 8 gigabytes.

  • You'll use it at some point, even if you don't need it today.

  • Now, if you already have a 4 gig card, or for whatever reason you find a deal

  • or a sale, you will still be able to use a 4 gigabyte card at 1080p for years to come.

  • You just won't be able to play at Ultra detail because you'll run out of texture memory,.

  • You'll have to turn textures from Ultra down to High,

  • and then, a couple of years from now, eventually to Medium

  • in order to fit the textures in 4 gigabytes of VRAM.

  • If you get the 8 gig card, that stops really being a limitation.

  • You can then keep the textures up at High, and keep the games becoming more and more beautiful each year.

  • To take that a step further, if you have any interest in playing at 1440p rather than 1080p,

  • you definitely want to have 8 gigabytes of VRAM

  • because the larger resolution will load in larger textures and require more memory.

  • Now, principally I consider the RX 580 a 1080p graphics card.

  • I am comfortable saying that the RX 580 will play all games on the market

  • in 2017 at High or Ultra detail at 60 plus frames per second in many cases,

  • minimum of 60 frames per second without any issues whatsoever,

  • but they will also play many games at 1440p resolution.

  • Now...Battlefield 1, Overwatch, Doom, Sniper Elite 4....

  • some of the games that tend to favor AMD cards,

  • those will all play at 1440p at 60 frames per second on an RX 580 8 gigabyte card.

  • Now....will every game do that?

  • No. Mass Effect:Andromeda will not play at maximum detail at 1440p at 60 frames per second.

  • You have to have more graphics card to do so,

  • but many games will, and if you are willing to be reasonable on the detail settings

  • if High is acceptable instead of Ultra details for example,

  • 1440p is attainable in many games.

  • Now that is the RX 580,

  • What about the RX 570?

  • Now the RX 570 is the replacement for the RX 470.

  • Now it does come in both a 4 gigabyte and an 8 gigabyte version.

  • Seriously, don't both with an 8 gigabyte RX 470.

  • If you're gonna get 8 gigs of VRAM, you need to be on the 580.

  • If you're gonna get the 470, it's because you're trying to save some money,

  • you found a deal, and you strictly want to play at 1080p resolution.

  • For a starting price of $169, the 4 gigabyte RX570 will play all current games on the market

  • at an average of High detail at 60 plus frames per second

  • average performance, and will do so without any issues whatsoever.

  • Battlefield 1, Grand Theft Auto V, Fallout 4, Hitman, DOOM, Overwatch,

  • Call of Duty:Infinite Warfare, Assassin's Creed Syndicate

  • all will play at High detail or better at 1080p on a $169 RX 570.

  • Now the RX 570 is 15 percent slower than an RX 580....

  • ...for 15 percent less money!

  • So it's a value for the money.

  • Now, if you're okay to spend another $30 to get another 15 percent performance,

  • then by all means, just get the RX 580,

  • but there are reasons to consider a 570 beyond just price and performance.

  • Now, these are both MSI Gaming X cards.

  • The only real difference besides performance between the 580 and the 570 Gaming X cards from MSI

  • is the presence of a backplate.

  • The 580 has one - the 570 does not.

  • However, when you come over to ASUS, they definitely separate the 580 from the 570.

  • The 580 has 3 fans, an 8-pin PCI Express power connector, a heavy-duty cooling solution

  • to let you overclock it further.

  • It's a great card, but this does not fit into all computers.

  • The RX 570 ASUS Republic of Gamers Strix card

  • has a benefit that the others don't.

  • 6-pin PCI-Express power, shorter card, two fans.

  • This will fit into more computers than this will.

  • And so, if you have a pre-built machine - if you have something that doesn't have room

  • for a large, oversized card,

  • or if your power supply only has a 6-pin PCI-Express power connector,

  • get the RX 570.

  • It will fit in your machine, it'll use less power, you'll have fewer issues with installation,

  • and it will still provide excellent performance.

  • That leads us to the RX 560,

  • which comes in a 2 gigabyte and a 4 gigabyte card starting at $99.

  • Please note on the RX 560, there are versions of this card

  • that come with and without a 6-pin PCI-Express power connector.

  • Some of these cards will install in your machine without requiring any special power supply at all,

  • others, such as this factory-overclocked ASUS card will require a 6-pin connector

  • so do be sure to check which one you're buying before you click that checkout button.

  • Now what is the RX 560 designed for?

  • Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Rocket League, DOTA 2, World of Warcraft, League of Legends,

  • Overwatch, DOOM, Civilization VI.

  • All of those games will play at 1080p resolution, High detail, or better,

  • 60 frames per second or better.

  • Many of them will play at 120 frames per second or better.

  • It's primarily designed for eSports. That doesn't make it a bad card

  • but it's not designed for Battlefield 1 or Mass Effect: Andromeda...

  • that's what the 570 and the 580 are designed for,

  • but it's a much lower price at just $99 to start.

  • The fourth card in the RX 500 series is the all-new RX 550.

  • There is no RX 450, so this is the brand-new, low-end, entry-level Home Theatre PC card from AMD.

  • This has 8 compute units - half of the RX 560.

  • It's $79.to start, and it's primary focus is on very casual gaming and the home theatre PC.

  • It's power draw is even lower than the 560.

  • No power connectors required, small form-factor, low-profile designs will be available.

  • Most important, it has all the sorts of technology that you really need in a home theatre PC card.

  • HDMI 2.0 4K support, High Dynamic Range support,

  • Hardware high-efficiency video codec decoding all built into hardware.

  • Modern standards in a low power draw card that can basically be installed in any computer.

  • Now, I am going to do a full review of the RX 550 in a couple of days,

  • it's gonna get it's own video,

  • I will show you gaming benchmarks. It will play

  • Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Overwatch, DOTA 2, League of Legends,

  • and if those are all you care about, then the RX 550 will do just fine,

  • but that's not really what it's meant for.

  • It's the non-gaming applications. It's the modern technologies in an inexpensive,

  • low-profile, low-power card that really makes the RX 550 interesting.

  • Watch for that video coming in just a few days.

  • Finally, no discussion of AMD graphics cards would be complete without

  • talking about the software that AMD provides.

  • The software in the past year has improved tremendously.

  • Performance on the 400 series cards has risen by as much as 20% since launch

  • thanks to the improved software that comes with the RX series.

  • There are also some other features which recently launched.

  • The Radeon ReLive software is capture and streaming software.

  • This did not come with the 400 series cards at launch.

  • You can now do the same thing that NVidia provides with Shadowplay.

  • Low power consumption, low graphics card load, video capture and live-streaming of your gameplay.

  • I have recently used this software, and you'll see some upcoming benchmarks

  • recorded with the ReLive software.

  • It works very well for either recording your gameplay or live-streaming.

  • There's also a technology called Radeon Chill!

  • What is Chill? Chill basically reduces the power consumption

  • and reduces the framerate if it goes beyond the speed of your monitor.

  • This is not the same as V-Sync or FreeSync.

  • Instead, what this does is actually lowers the power consumption of your graphics card

  • if the framerate is not necessary.

  • Many games are supported in Chill, such as League of Legends and DOTA 2.

  • If the action on the screen does not require a higher framerate, it will dynamically lower

  • your framerate, lowering your power consumption, and saving you on electricity.

  • Finally, I want to bring you one more slide.

  • This shows all 4 cards and their relative performance to the older generation of graphics cards.

  • Now this is based on AMD's own testing, but let me just tell you that it's reasonable and accurate.

  • The RX 580 is about one and a half times the performance of an R9 380X,

  • The RX 570 is almost three times the performance of an R7 370,

  • The RX 560 is double the performance of an R7 360,

  • and the RX 550 is up to - that's an important term there -

  • five times the performance of the integrated graphics in Overwatch.

  • I will be showing you live Overwatch gameplay - integrated graphics versus the RX 550.

  • I will also show you how well the 550 compares to the GT 730 and the R7 240,

  • both cards which I have already reviewed in the past.

  • Finally, FreeSync is worth discussing.

  • FreeSync is an excellent technology that does not cost nearly as much as G-Sync,

  • which is the NVidia solution.

  • FreeSync monitors start at just $120. There are several options you can see here on the screen.

  • I will link to them all in the video description below.

  • This gives you more fluid gameplay, less screen tearing, and less input lag.