RX 590 - Red Dragon or something else?

chriscubed · 30 Nov 2019 at 16:18

I can't find much in the way of reviews for the 590 Red Dragon, only for the Red Devil.

Is the Red Dragon any good or should I be looking at others?

The XFX Fatboy OC looked like a viable alternative but don't know which would be better - fan noise is a large concern for me as it's a lounge PC.

Gibbo · 30 Nov 2019 at 16:21

Hi there

We’ve sold 500 plus of these in past few days and we build systems with them they perform spot on as a 590 should do and they are reasonably quiet and good quality as the return rate is extremely low and hence using in our own systems.

Aretak · 30 Nov 2019 at 16:23

I've had both the 580 and 590 Red Dragons (both use the same cooler) and found them to be a bit loud out of the box for my taste. Undervolting them works wonders though. My 580 one would do its stock 1360MHz at just 1V, which resulted in a very quiet card.

ultralaser · 30 Nov 2019 at 20:10

It's not just noise, I'd give a few thoughts to power consumption too. I was looking at a RX590 and ended up getting a GTX1660 series due to the MASSIVE power difference, ~105W :eek:

Gibbo · 30 Nov 2019 at 20:50

ultralaser said:
It's not just noise, I'd give a few thoughts to power consumption too. I was looking at a RX590 and ended up getting a GTX1660 series due to the MASSIVE power difference, ~105W

A valid point 1660 Super is £199 and as quick if not a tad faster guess just depends if OP feels extra £50 is justified.

Aretak · 30 Nov 2019 at 23:35

ultralaser said:
It's not just noise, I'd give a few thoughts to power consumption too. I was looking at a RX590 and ended up getting a GTX1660 series due to the MASSIVE power difference, ~105W

I don't know about other RX 590s, but the Red Dragon has a 175W limit out of the box (as shown in AMD's overlay, which I believe accounts for the GPU core only). Again, undervolting is something which will greatly reduce power consumption. The 580 I had would use ~100W per the overlay post-undervolt. Never got around to messing with the 590 properly to see what was possible, but I've heard they're even better than the 580 in that respect. Of course, it's some extra faff, and you can get great results undervolting Nvidia cards too. I run my GTX 1080 undervolted and it halved its power consumption versus my max overclock, which only offers 14% more performance.

4K8KW10 · 1 Dec 2019 at 10:06

chriscubed said:
I can't find much in the way of reviews for the 590 Red Dragon, only for the Red Devil.

Is the Red Dragon any good or should I be looking at others?

The XFX Fatboy OC looked like a viable alternative but don't know which would be better - fan noise is a large concern for me as it's a lounge PC.

Well, for only £155 plus one game it's a good buy.
Once you get it, don't forget you can adjust the fans curve and undervolt it.
With MSI Afterburner and Radeon Settings -> Global Wattman.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x PowerColor Radeon RX 590 Red Dragon 8192MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card *BLACK FRIDAY DEAL*= £154.99

Total: £164.89 (includes shipping: £9.90)

Gibbo · 1 Dec 2019 at 11:22

4K8KW10 said:
Well, for only £155 plus one game it's a good buy.
Once you get it, don't forget you can adjust the fans curve and undervolt it.
With MSI Afterburner and Radeon Settings -> Global Wattman.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x PowerColor Radeon RX 590 Red Dragon 8192MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card *BLACK FRIDAY DEAL*= £154.99

Total: £164.89 (includes shipping: £9.90)

It is our best selling Black Friday deal, over 1500 units sold since we started the deal just over a week ago, for the money nothing beats it.

Ross Thomson · 1 Dec 2019 at 14:08

unless you desperately need it I would wait till the start of the year.

Gray2233 · 1 Dec 2019 at 14:14

Aretak said:
I've had both the 580 and 590 Red Dragons (both use the same cooler) and found them to be a bit loud out of the box for my taste. Undervolting them works wonders though. My 580 one would do its stock 1360MHz at just 1V, which resulted in a very quiet card.

I've had pretty much the same experience with my RX580.

The thing sounded like a jet engine with everything at stock, undervolting and setting a custom fan curve improved things immensely. I barely hear it now and temps are much better.

4K8KW10 · 1 Dec 2019 at 14:22

Ross Thomson said:
unless you desperately need it I would wait till the start of the year.

There is nothing going to happen at the start of 2020.. We don't expect any new graphics cards releases at that time.

Ross Thomson · 1 Dec 2019 at 17:07

4K8KW10 said:
There is nothing going to happen at the start of 2020.. We don't expect any new graphics cards releases at that time.

yes we do.

4K8KW10 · 1 Dec 2019 at 20:20

Ross Thomson said:
yes we do.

What better offer than only £155 for the Powercolor Red Dragon RX 590 8GB + one game + 3 months of Xbox Game Pass for PC | play Gears 5 do you expect in January?

chriscubed · 1 Dec 2019 at 22:32

Gibbo said:
Hi there

We’ve sold 500 plus of these in past few days and we build systems with them they perform spot on as a 590 should do and they are reasonably quiet and good quality as the return rate is extremely low and hence using in our own systems.

Thanks Gibbo, does seem like quite a deal given where these were a few months back.

Gibbo said:
A valid point 1660 Super is £199 and as quick if not a tad faster guess just depends if OP feels extra £50 is justified.

It's tempting to stretch to a 1660 Super - partly it's Gsync putting me off as I don't want to be locked into monitor choices as I'm still using an aging 60hz screen but looking at a 144hz plus unit. Seems like this might be less of an issue in future now anyway though!

4K8KW10 · 2 Dec 2019 at 08:47

chriscubed said:
It's tempting to stretch to a 1660 Super - partly it's Gsync putting me off as I don't want to be locked into monitor choices as I'm still using an aging 60hz screen but looking at a 144hz plus unit. Seems like this might be less of an issue in future now anyway though!

It has only 6 GB of VRAM which in the not so distant future would mean that it will bottleneck your gaming performance.
Always look for more VRAM. With the RX 590 you will get a better card in the long term.

Gibbo · 2 Dec 2019 at 16:50

4K8KW10 said:
What better offer than only £155 for the Powercolor Red Dragon RX 590 8GB + one game + 3 months of Xbox Game Pass for PC | play Gears 5 do you expect in January?

Doubtful there will be anything to offer such value in December or January, especially as RX590 has 8G!

4K8KW10 · 2 Dec 2019 at 17:15

Gibbo said:
Doubtful there will be anything to offer such value in December or January, especially as RX590 has 8G!

Yes, I also think so. Maybe someone expects the RX 5500 / XT but when the RX 590 can be undervolted and underclocked to save some power and probably increase the automatic boost clocks, it's a no-brainer!

chriscubed · 3 Dec 2019 at 13:16

4K8KW10 said:
It has only 6 GB of VRAM which in the not so distant future would mean that it will bottleneck your gaming performance.
Always look for more VRAM. With the RX 590 you will get a better card in the long term.

Thanks for the advice, I've gone ahead and ordered the Powercolor 590 from OCUK. Should fit my needs for a few years I think

Defy Belief · 9 Dec 2019 at 11:37

Gibbo said:
Doubtful there will be anything to offer such value in December or January, especially as RX590 has 8G!

Gibbo, don’t know if you can help, do you know the height of the red dragon rx590 from the pci port to the top of the cooler? Can’t find accurate dimensions anyway and not sure if the cooler will fit under my case, basically need to know the installed height from the pci express port to the top of the card

I have what seems to be 22mm of clearance above the pci slot where you screw in the card

chriscubed · 9 Dec 2019 at 12:15

I found this elsewhere:
Item Dimensions 25.5 x 14.3 x 3.8 cm

It didn't seem hugely tall, I think the HSF sits a little higher than the top of the PCI slot though.