Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 580 8GB Graphics Card Review

The latest AMD Radeon Rxx cards have been launching at quite an aggressive pace this last few weeks, and we’ve already reviewed quite a few of them from Sapphire already too. We’ve already tested the affordable yet surprisingly powerful Pulse RX 570 4GB, and the Pulse RX 580 8GB, However, today is a little more exciting than that, as we take a look at the big brother to the Sapphire Nitro+ RX 470 4GB we reviewed last week, with the Nitro+ RX 580 8GB!

“For the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon™ RX 580 Limited Edition, we’ve cherry-picked the very best chips to allow maximum factory overclock and even leave some headroom for your own tuning.” – Sapphire

Nitro+ or Pulse?

The Pulse offers the same underlying hardware but is designed to be a little more affordable. The Nitro+ cards, like the one we’re testing today, are the best pick of the bunch, overclocked even higher, have a more powerful cooler, and while they come with a slightly bigger price tag, they promise to be the best RX 5xx cards that Sapphire have to offer right now.

“Built on the future-proof Polaris architecture, the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon™ RX 580 graphics card plays your favorites at a smooth 1080p and beyond, from the latest eSports games and MOBAs to the most popular, graphically-intensive AAA titles. The evolution of the FinFET 14 process has allowed the new RX 500 Series to achieve higher clocks versus previous generations.” – Sapphire

Equipped with the new Dual-X cooler, which features 2 x 95mm removable fans (and even two extra fans in the box). Double the surface area, and four large heat pipes (2 x 8mm and 2 x 6mm). It’s easy to understand how Sapphire have been able to get good overclocks from their latest GPU.

Check out the full specification here.

Packaging and Accessories

The box is very nicely designed, with a cool graphic on the front, as well as details of the included features; Radeon Chill, FreeSync 2, Relive, and more!

In the box, you’ll find the usual documentation and drivers, as well as two frosted clear fans.

You can remove the stock black fans for these clear ones, they serve no other purpose than aesthetic changes, but it’s also nice to have some spares should you need them.