PowerColor Red Devil Radeon RX 570 4GB Review

Introduction The new Radeon cards may be a refresh of the RX4xx series of cards, but that hasn't stopped all the 3rd party AMD graphics card manufacturers from producing some stunning cards. Recently we reviewed the gorgeous PowerColor Red Devil Radeon RX 580 8GB, and it proved to be a welcome upgrade from the old model while delivering competitive performance in its respective price range, as well as a bunch of new features that certainly added extra value for money. Today, we kick things off with a look at the new PowerColor Red Devil RX 570 4GB. This card is obviously a step down from the RX 580 8GB we reviewed, but surprisingly, it's also a much bigger card. It has an even bigger cooler, a longer PCB, three fans instead of two, so we're expecting it to squeeze every last drop of performance out of the chipset. Obviously, the card is faster than the older RX 480 model, but with the addition of Chill, improved VR support, HDR, FreeSync2 and more, it already sounds like a better card. PowerColor Red Devil Radeon™ RX 570 4GB GDDR5 Part Number: AXRX 570 4GBD5-3DH/OC Graphics Engine: RADEON RX 580 Video Memory: 4GB GDDR5 Engine Clock: up to 1320MHz with boost Memory Clock: 1750MHz x4 (7.0Gbps) Memory Interface: 256bit DirectX® Support: 12 Bus Standard: PCIE 3.0 Display Connectors: DL DVI-D/ HDMI/ DisplayPort x3 Packaging and Accessories The box looks pretty cool, with the Red Devil graphics on the front, and a nice breakdown of the hardware and features on the back. There's not a lot in the box, with just a few product information booklets, as well as a driver disc, but it's everything you need really. A Closer Look Immediately, we can see this is a pretty serious looking card. The cooler design is massive and extends quite a bit beyond the main PCB thanks to its extended shroud design. This means we have room for three high-performance fans which come with weird looking double-blade fins to help drive even more airflow through the card. The metal shroud has a nice design to it and is sculpted to form a weird six-point star-like shape around the middle fan. Of course, being one of their Red Devil series cards, it features an aggressive black and red theme, which is pretty standard for gaming hardware, but it still looks great. Connectivity is good, with 2 x DP, 2 x HDMI, and a DVI port on the back, so multiple displays or different display types are easily accommodated. The card is powered by a single 8-pin PCI cable, which is certainly more than enough for the chipset this card uses. This power runs through their improved Gold PowerKIT components, which are more durable and of a higher quality than the stock card, allowing for better overclocks and voltages to be applied. This card is big and heavy, so you'll be happy to know it has a nicely designed metal backplate giving it added strength, while also offering some extra cooling for the PCB. Testing & Methodology Please note that on 16/04/2017, the graphics cards featured in this review were completely retested. This was done to implement new changes in the way we test, the settings we use, the software and more. We've also made some slight hardware changes to our test benches, and all games have been recently updated, as has the OS, graphics drivers, etc. This would mean new results would not be a fair comparison to old. For your reference, the last review to feature our old results can't be found here. Here is the test system used for all graphics card reviews (pictured above) and game performance analysis: Graphics Card Test System Motherboard – Asus Rampage V Extreme X99 Processor – Intel Core i7 5960X at stock with turbo enabled RAM – Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) 2666 MHz Graphics Card – Varies per review CPU Cooler – Noctua NH-D15S Power Supply – Be Quiet Power Zone 1000W Main Storage Drive – Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis – Lian Li T80 Open Air Test Bench Operating System – Windows 10 64-bit Additional Hardware "Killawatt” style electricity usage meter wall plug Precision Gold N05CC Decibel meter Games Throughout the testing procedure, we always use demanding presets which stress graphics cards to reasonable limits. However, in the interest of fairness, any technology which favours either AMD or NVIDIA is disabled. More specifically, this refers to PhysX, Hairworks and similar technologies. Additionally, we also disable all forms of AA, including FXAA, to gauge performance levels which aren't impacted by sophisticated AA. Theoretically, we could have employed FXAA because it only has a minor impact on the frame-rate, but many users strongly dislike the hazy image this causes. N-Sync is always disabled in our testing, graphics card power usage is set to optimised or balance, system power mode is set to High Performance. Some benchmarks may feature more cards, this is due to some tests being older or newer than others, and being used in other game specific feature tests we have conducted, so you'll find all relevant cards included in each chart as we add or remove new and old tests. Selecting strenuous presets especially at higher resolutions can cause hitching and other performance problems on graphics cards with lower amounts of video memory. For example, Rise of the Tomb Raider's Very High textures requires 4GB of RAM to maintain a smooth frame-rate. In theory, we could run the benchmarks at the High setting, but this defeats the purpose of high-end graphics cards which are designed to cope with the absolute best graphics on the market. Furthermore, the notion of enthusiast cards sporting less than 4GB memory has become less of an issue. Of course, whenever we're tackling more affordable GPUs, the settings will be altered accordingly and detailed for clarity. Identical settings are used for all resolutions, 1080, 1440, 2160, and 1440 Ultrawide, unless otherwise stated. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Graphics Settings For this game, we use the Very High preset, with some small changes to increase the Texture Filtering, turn off the AA, and all V-Sync settings. Preset: Custom Fullscreen: On Exclusive Fullscreen: Off DirextX 12: On VSync: Off Anti-aliasing: Off Texture Quality: Very High Texture Filtering: 16x Anisotropic Shadow Quality: Very High Sun Soft Shadows: High Depth of Field: Very High Level of Detail: Very High Dynamic Foliage: High Ambient Occlusion: On PureHair: Off Specular Reflection Quality: Normal Vignette Blur: On Motion Blur: On Bloom: On Tesselations: On Screen Space Reflections: On Lens Flares: On Screen Effects: On Film Grain: On Rise of the Tomb Raider Graphics Settings Preset: Custom Fullscreen: On Exclusive Fullscreen: Off DirextX 12: On MSAA: Off VSync: Off Texture Quality: Very High Texture Filtering: 16x Anisotropic Shadow Quality: Very High Ambient Occlusion: Very High Contact Hardening Shadows: On Parallax Occlusion Mapping: High Depth of Field: Very High Level of Detail: Very High Volumetric Lighting: On Screenspace Reflections: On Temporal Anti-Aliasing: Disabled Motion Blur: On Sharpen: On Bloom: On Lens Flares: On Cloth Physics: On Subsurface Scattering: On Chromatic Aberration: On Tesselations: On Far Cry Primal Graphics Settings Graphics Quality: Custom HD Textures: On Textures: Very High Shadow: Ultra Post FX: High Geometry: Ultra Terrain: Very High Water: Very High Environment: High Anti-Aliasing: Off Volumetric Fog: Very High Motion Blur: On Ghost Recon: Wildlands Graphics Settings Preset: Custom Antialiasing: Off Ambient Occlusion: SSBC Draw Distance: Very High Level of Detail: Ultra Texture Quality: Ultra Anisotropic Filtering: 16 Shadow Quality: Ultra Terrain Quality: Ultra Vegetation Quality: Ultra Turf Effects: Off Motion Blur: On Iron Sights DOF: On High-Quality DOF: On Bloom: On God Raws: Enhanced Subsurface Scattering: On Lens Flare: On Long-Range Shadows: Ultra Software 3DMark Firestrike 3DMark Time Spy Unique Superposition Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Rise of the Tomb Raider Far Cry Primal Ghost Recon: Wildlands CPU-ID HWMonitor TechPowerUp GPU-Z Noise Everyone has their own reasonable noise level when it comes to comes to components on a computer. Some can handle all fans at 100% load to keep temperatures down; some want an entirely silent computer. To accurately gauge the noise output of a graphics card, we position a Precision Gold N05CC Decibel meter from one metre above our open air test bench and take an average reading at idle and load. Power Consumption With electricity becoming increasingly expensive across most parts of the world the need for computer components to become power efficient has never been more relevant. Graphics cards are often the most power-hungry components of a desktop system so having an efficient graphics card is crucial to keeping power bills under control. Power is tied to heat, so lower power consumption means a graphics card is likely to run slightly cooler and put out less heat into your system meaning your other components will run cooler with improved longevity. AMD and NVIDIA have both made power consumption an integral part of the way graphics cards dynamically overclock, so the need for graphics card vendors to use efficient VRM and PCB designs is becoming essential to maximise performance. We take power readings during idle state with no background applications running. Then again at 25%, 50%, and 99% completion of the Unigine Superposition benchmark, using the average as the final published result. Temperatures The cooling solution which graphics card vendors choose to implement is one of the main differences that consumers have to contend with when selecting a graphics cards. Apart from their acoustic properties, the thermal properties of graphics card coolers are critical. Lower temperatures are always better, and with AMD and NVIDIA opting to use dynamic overclocking algorithms that take temperature into account, it is important that graphics card vendors use high-performance cooling solutions to maximise performance. The era of graphics cards reaching critical temperatures are now in the past, but the importance of low temperatures remains. Lower temperatures mean better stability, longer component longevity and lower fan speeds. We take temperature readings after 10 minutes of desktop idle with no background programs running, then take the recorded maximum delivered from Unigine Superposition after a 4K optimised run, confirming the numbers are accurate with HWMonitor. Ambient temperature is always kept +/- 1c from 21c. 3DMark Straight away the card is off to a good start, pulling just a little ahead of the old 470, and it's certainly competitive against the more expensive GTX 1060. Similar results here, competing with the similarly specification Sapphire 570, and just behind the GTX 1060 by a small margin. Again, a good score here for a card of this value. Time Spy still shows the Sapphire card in the lead, but only by a small margin, this is still a very competitive score. Unigine Superposition Virtually neck and neck with the GTX 1060, the 570 is certainly keeping up nicely. Pushing the resolution up does give the 6GB equipped GTX 1060 an advantage, but again the Powercolor card is not far behind. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Moving onto real world games rather than synthetic benchmarks, and we see the 570 putting out a respectable score of over 50fps. We use pretty extreme settings, so a minor tweak will easily see that number rise to about 60fps for 1080p gaming. With the resolution increased, the 570 is just over 1fps out from the Nvidia offering, not that you would notice in real world usage. This is certainly not a 4K gaming card, but again, it's pulling good figures, and still scoring close to the 1060. The card does pretty well at 3440 x 1440, and you would obviously need to drop down to medium-to-high settings, but it's competitive. Rise of the Tomb Raider Those gaming at 1080p have nothing to worry about here, with scores well over 60fps. Only slightly under 60 here, but that's easily fixed with a minor settings tweak. Even at 4K, 30fps is still very playable on the RX 570. Ultrawide also put out over 45fps; not bad given we're running ultra graphics settings. Far Cry Primal The GTX 1060 still has a clear lead here, but the 570 scores just about 60fps, making it ideal for 1080p gaming. Increasing the resolution wasn't a problem either, with frame rates that are still within a playable limit. At 4K the gap between the GTX 1060 and the 570 is reduced, although both cards struggle at such extreme settings. Ultrawide was also hard work for the card, but stepping down to medium settings should do the trick for playable framerates. Ghost Recon: Wildlands Ghost Recon is extremely demanding on even the best graphics cards, especially with our use of ultra settings. The 570 pulled ahead of the 480 here, but only by a small margin. This game is very demanding on VRAM too, so the GTX 1060 wins out thanks to its 6GB of memory. Overall, this game doesn't work well with AMD cards, and you'll notice the 470 and 570 perform about the same, even with the 470 ahead of the 570, so take these numbers with a pinch of salt until drivers improve. Overclocking At stock clocks the Powercolor Red Devil RX 570 4GB put out a respectable score of 2334, just six points behind the Nvidia GTX 1060. Overclocking certainly helped push that score higher to 2442, a 4.5% increase in performance with Core and Memory Clock set to 1400 and 900 respectively. Acoustic, Thermal and Power Testing Acoustic Performance With a zero RPM fan mode, the card runs completely silent in low-load scenarios, but even at load it's triple fan configuration didn't have to work hard to keep things cool and quiet. Thermal Performance The Red Devil RX 570 does run a little warm, although still well within safe limits for the chipset. It didn't thermal throttle during testing, and it ran pretty quietly too. If you want it cooler, you could comfortably dial up the fan RPM without much sacrifice to acoustic performance. Power Usage AMD cards, especially these technically older chipsets are not known for their efficiency, and the PowerColor card is especially thirsty using almost 100 watts more than the GTX 1060. Final Thoughts Price The PowerColor Red Devil Radeon RX 570 4GB Graphics Card is currently available for around £220, although the Red Dragon edition with a dual-fan design is just £196. This is typically around £10-30 cheaper than the GTX 1060, and while the Nvidia card is a little bit faster, it's not so far ahead that you would usually notice in real world usage. Overview The latest card from Powercolor is interesting. It's certainly an upgrade and improvement on the older RX 470 chipsets, and while the Radeon card range is eagerly in need of new blood, such as the new Vega cards that are on the horizon, the 5xx series still offer very good value for money. If you bought the RX4xx series of cards, there's pretty much no reason to upgrade right now. However, if you're still sitting on a mid-budget GPU that's 2-years or even older, then you're certainly the target market for this type of card. When it comes to delivering rock solid 60fps and above frame rates at 1080p, the Powercolor Red Devil RX 570 is right on the money. It's a fast card for gaming, even at ultra graphics settings, with a little overhead left for higher frame rate displays, or adding some antialiasing for a smoother looking game. Add to that the inclusion of Radeon Chill, which can drastically cut power usage while still delivering your target frame rate, FreeSync 2 for judder free gaming, and HDR video output for those using it on newer monitors and 4K TVs, it's a compelling upgrade. It's pretty much head to head in terms of performance with the GTX 1060, but the only real difference is which you prefer, as we all know some people are firmly loyal to the red or green team. Efficiency is rubbish on this card, although if you're gaming on games that support Radeon Chill, that can easily tip the balance back in AMDs favour. This is an older chipset, with increased power requirements and bigger overclocks, so it eats up the power. The cooler does a great job though, and while the card does run a little warm, it runs very quietly too, giving you a choice to run it quiet, or increase the fan RPM to keep it cooler. The improved power delivery and cooling did have one nice benefit though, as I was able to squeeze another 4.5% performance improvement out of the card, helping it take back the lead from the similar specification and priced Sapphire RX 570. Build quality is literally a strong point for this card too. Not only does it look fantastic, but it feels it too. The durable metal backplate and shroud design give the card a rigid design, and it's sure to look visually appealing in any gaming system. Pros A nice revision of an older chipset, with noticeable performance improvements Incredibly quiet cooler design Easy to overclock Stylish aesthetics Durable and aggressive looking metal construction Backplate pre-installed Good display connectivity options Support for HDR, Chill, VR, and More! Fantastic for 1080p gaming Affordable price Cons Poor efficiency Neutral Stock fan profile could easily be set higher Factory overclocks could have been a little higher, but that's easily fixed manually "If you invested in a mid-range card a few years ago and modern games are proving hard work for your rig, the RX 570 is a great upgrade for those looking for reliable frame rates at 1080p, without the burden of the price tags of modern high-end graphics cards."