Best RX 580 Graphics Card – Buyer’s Guide

ASUS ROG STRIX Radeon RX 580 OC 8GB

ASUS designs some of the most beautiful graphics cards and its graphics cards are known for providing high performance along with great aesthetics. ASUS ROG STRIX Radeon RX 580 OC 8GB is one of the best variants of the RX 580 and comes with a tri-fan design, RGB lighting, and top-notch cooling solution. The design of the graphics card is very pleasant and it is similar to the high-end variants of the GTX 10-series graphics cards.

The fan shroud provides complex looks and the card looks futuristic. There are multiple RGB lighting zones at the front of the graphics card and at the top too, you can find the Republic Of Gamers logo being RGB-lit. Apart from this, there is RGB lighting behind the backplate too and since the backplate has a cutout ROG logo, it looks just fantastic.

You can customize the RGB lighting through ASUS AURA software and you can synchronize the lighting with other components via the ASUS AURA SYNC technology as well. A particular thing to note here is that this is one of the longest variants of the RX 580, so make sure that your case has enough space to host this massive graphics card or else you should look at other variants or upgrade your case to a bigger one.

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The graphics card uses a single 8-pin power connector, which should be more than enough to handle a graphics card of this level and you can easily overclock the card without worrying about power limits. The graphics card provides one DVI port, two HDMI ports, and two DP ports; which shows that the graphics card uses a different configuration from most of the other variants.

As for the performance is concerned, the graphics card comes with 1360 MHz of core clocks, which is a bit lower than most of the high-end variants of the RX 580, however, you can fill this performance gap with overclocking and you can go as high as 1520 MHz in some cards while most of the graphics cards will allow you to go as high as 1480 MHz.

The memory too can be overclocked and you can go as high as 2250 MHz, from the stock 2000 MHz, leading to around 12% increase in the memory performance. These are some impressive overclocking gains and if you want to maximize the potential of your RX 580, you won’t be disappointed with this variant.

Now, as for the cooling solution is concerned, the ROG STRIX variant really does it in a perfect manner; using a tri-fan design along with a thick heat-sink. Upon load, you can expect around 70-degree temperature, which is extremely impressive, considering the high TDP of the graphics card and even with overclocking the graphics card stays close to 70-degree mark.

Conclusion:

Overall, ASUS ROG STRIX Radeon RX 580 OC is one of the best variants of the Radeon RX 580, providing low operating temperatures, high overclocking capabilities, and dazzling looks.

The price of the graphics card is surely higher than most of the other variants, however, if you want a graphics card that you just install in your system and don’t have to worry about functionality, you can count on this variant.

Moreover, the cooling performance of this graphics card makes it great for people who are living in warm areas where the ambient temperatures are close to 35 degrees.

Since you can also synchronize the RGB lighting of the graphics card with your ASUS motherboard or other components, perhaps it would the best variant for you if you own components manufactured by ASUS.

MSI Radeon RX 580 GAMING X 8GB

MSI is known for manufacturing graphics cards and other components that provide sheer beauty and you cannot just ignore the aesthetics of a graphics card manufactured by MSI. MSI Radeon RX 580 GAMING X 8GB is the flagship variant of the Radeon RX 580 from the company, which comes with a dual-fan design and sharp looks. The graphics card uses a black and red-colored theme, which is the favorite theme of most gamers.

The fan shroud is although made of plastic, uses multiple textures and colors, which leads to a wonderful result. There is no RGB lighting at the front of the graphics card, however, the top of the graphics card provides an RGB-lit logo.

You can customize the RGB lighting through the MSI software, although there is not much to customize here. The graphics card does come with a backplate and it provides tons of arrow-shaped vents, which is why it does not decrease the cooling potential of the graphics card.

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The graphics card is significantly smaller than the likes of ROG STRIX variants and that is why it is an interesting product for those who use a mid-tower case. Moreover, it is not very thick too and has a dual-slot form factor. The height of the graphics card is more than the standard graphics cards although, which might lead to incompatibilities in some cases, especially in case of SFF cases.

The graphics card uses a single 8-pin power connector, just like the ROG STRIX variant, which enables the graphics card to be overclocked easily. As for the I/O, the graphics card provides one DVI port, two HDMI ports, and two DP ports.

Coming towards the performance, the stock clocks of the graphics card are a tad bit higher than the ROG STRIX variant, however, the overclocking capabilities are not as good because the ROG STRIX variant has a stronger cooling solution. You can still overclock this graphics card fine up to 1450 MHz for the most part and even up to 1475 MHz if you are lucky. The memory does not pose any dangers though and you can easily clock it to 2250 MHz.

Now, as for the cooling solution is concerned, the cooler is although not as good as the ROG STRIX variant, it is still better than most of the other variants and that is why the graphics card stays under 75 degrees even with overclocking.

A great thing about this cooling solution is that it uses MSI Torx fans which are a lot better than other fans when it comes to acoustic levels. That is why the graphics card keeps quiet even at full load and does not bother the user.

Conclusion:

Overall, MSI Radeon RX 580 GAMING X 8GB packs interesting features and comes with a dual-fan design and gaming-oriented theme. The performance of the graphics card matches the high-end variants while the acoustic levels are the best.

Moreover, it is not as expensive as the other high-end variants and yet provides RGB lighting and backplate. The graphics card should be the perfect match for people who want something great in performance but don’t want to spend a lot of extra money on it.

XFX Radeon RX 580 GTS XXX Edition 8GB

XFX is one of the oldest vendors of the AMD graphics cards and that is why a lot of people prefer buying their variants. XFX Radeon RX 580 GTS XXX Edition 8GB is a popular variant of Radeon RX 580 due to its low price and high performance.

First of all, the graphics card does not provide RGB lighting and other bells and whistles. In fact, the design of the graphics card feels quite ugly, especially comparing to variants like ROG STRIX and GAMING X. However, this does not mean that the graphics card is slower than these variants by any means.

The fan shroud of the graphics card feels like owl’s eyes and a similar design was particularly used by ASUS a couple of years ago. However, this variant was not able to do this properly and the right-edge feels extremely unpleasant due to sharp angles.

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The height of the graphics card is slightly higher than standard variants, however, the PCIe power connector lies a bit lower than the fan shroud which is why the cables won’t be bending in a bad manner if you are using a case that can barely fit the graphics card.

One can see the bare heat-sink behind the fan shroud and the graphics card uses lots of copper heat-pipes that are clearly visible as well. The backplate of the graphics card has a similar shape to the fan shroud and it has a lot of holes, just like the GAMING X variant, which is why there is not going to be an effect in the cooling performance of the card.

The graphics card has three DP ports, one HDMI port, and one DVI port, which is different from the configuration of the previous two variants. As for the power connector, it uses a single 8-pin power connector.

Coming towards the performance of the graphics card, it has 1366 MHz of boost core clocks, which is in between the clock rates of the GAMING X variant and the ROG STRIX variant.

You can overclock this graphics card fine up to 1450 MHz, however, the cooling solution of the graphics card does not seem to be cooperating a lot and you could witness temperatures north of 80 degrees in some cases.

The cooling performance of the graphics card is not so impressive despite using a big heat-sink. The reason for this is perhaps the poor contact between the graphics card chip and the heat-sink.

The graphics card roams around 75 to 80 degrees Celsius, which is higher than the previously mentioned graphics card variants, however, this mark is not very high for a card like RX 580 and you should not worry about it a lot.

Conclusion:

Overall, XFX Radeon RX 580 GTS XXX Edition is a graphics card that often goes under sale and is cheaper than the previously mentioned variants. Therefore, if you want a variant of Radeon RX 580 that does not focus on the looks but still offers satisfactory performance and is available at a low price, this graphics card should be an interesting product for you.

Moreover, it could also be good for people who own a tri-monitor rig because the graphics card provides three DP ports while the previous two variants provided two HDMI and two DP ports.

GIGABYTE Radeon RX 580 GAMING 8GB

GIGABYTE designs a lot of well-balanced graphics cards and GIGABYTE Radeon RX 580 GAMING 8GB is one of them. The graphics card offers an interesting design while providing satisfactory performance.

The build quality of the GIGABYTE graphics cards is not so good and most of the material is cheap plastic which can be easily broken if you put a lot of force, however, we don’t interact with our graphics cards a lot and you would be good to go once you install it inside your system.

The looks of the graphics card are quite good and the company has used a black and orange theme with most of their variants. The graphics card uses a dual-fan design and the fan shroud offers a matte surface, with some area having a sharp texture.

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The height of the graphics card is almost the same as the standard cards while it is not a very long card either and measures at 9.13 inches, which makes it the smallest card on the list.

The graphics card does come with a backplate and it does not have vents like the other variants, which might affect the thermals slightly. The graphics card uses a single 8-pin PCIe power connector and it provides three DP ports, one HDMI port, and one DVI port, which is the same configuration as the XFX variant.

Now, coming towards the performance of the graphics card, it is clocked at 1340 MHz, which means that it does not come factory overclocked, as these are the clock rates of the standard RX 580.

This, however, means that the graphics card holds great overclocking potential and you can be fine with an offset of around 100 to 150 MHz, depending on silicon lottery. The memory is clocked at 2000 MHz, which can also be overclocked to 2250 MHz.

A particular thing about GIGABYTE graphics cards is that they use a great cooling solution and the same is the case with this variant. The cooling solution uses a multitude of copper heat-pipes and with two large fans, it does a great job at keeping the graphics card under 75 degrees at full loads.

The graphics card is not that noisy too but its noise is a bit higher-pitched which might irritate some people, especially when using the graphics card with a manually-adjusted aggressive fan curve.

Conclusion:

Overall, GIGABYTE Radeon RX 580 GAMING is a graphics card that provides balanced looks, great cooling solutions, and impressive overclocking support.

If you want a graphics card that provides a bit of everything, you should definitely have a look at this one because it is an all-rounder and won’t disappoint you by any means.

SAPPHIRE NITRO+ RX 580 8GB

SAPPHIRE designs some of the best graphics card variants in the AMD line-up and their NITRO+ variants are the flagship variants. SAPPHIRE NITRO+ RX 580 8GB is our personal favorite variant due to a lot of reasons, so let’s have a look at the details of this massive beauty.

First of all, the graphics card provides a boxy design that looks very impressive and feels great to touch as well. The black fan shroud uses a strong texture and the large fans complement the overall theme of the graphics card.

There is RGB lighting at the top of the graphics card, where the SAPPHIRE logo is RGB-lit and it can be controlled through the SAPPHIRE software application. The two thick bulging heat-pipes from the top also look very nice and so does the backplate.

The graphics card uses a metal backplate that is probably the most beautiful backplate among all variants of the Radeon RX 580 and uses black and silver colors. The fans of the graphics card are very special and they can be taken apart after taking out the screws. This will let you clean the graphics card in an easy manner because other graphics cards use fans whose wires are inserted into the board of the graphics card.

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A great thing about this graphics card is that it comes with Dual-BIOS features and you can change the active BIOS of the graphics card with a switch that is located close to the I/O ports, at the top.

Speaking of I/O ports, the graphics card comes with one DVI port, two HDMI ports, and two DP ports. Another particular difference between this graphics card is that it requires a six-pin PCIe connector along with the 8-pin power connector, which enables the graphics card to have a higher overclocking potential than the competition but make sure that your power supply offers such power connectors.

As for the performance of the graphics card is concerned, it is clocked at 1411 MHz, which makes it one of the fastest factory-overclocked graphics card variants of the RX 580.

The memory is not overclocked and it is clocked at 2000 MHz. As for the overclocking, you can go as high as 1525 MHz if you are lucky while most of the graphics cards will be able to do 1480 to 1500 MHz easily. The memory can be straight overclocked to 2250 MHz in all cards.

With two BIOS, you don’t have to worry about bricking the graphics card and you can test the graphics card’s potential without any kind of worries. As a default, one of the BIOS offers lower clock rates, which is great if you want to focus more on the acoustic levels instead of raw performance.

The cooling solution of the graphics card is also very special and it makes contact with the VRM components as well, along with the main chip. This will let you have a cooler VRM at the expense of a slightly warmer chip. Even then, the thick heat-pipes do a fantastic job at cooling the card down and it stays under 70 degrees for the most part at full load.

Conclusion:

Overall, SAPPHIRE NITRO+ RX 580 is a graphics card that provides top of the line performance while coming at a high price and if you want a graphics card that provides astonishing looks, great performance, and easy maintenance, this graphics card will hold a great attraction for you and the added second BIOS makes the graphics card a vivid choice among other variants.

PowerColor Red Devil Radeon RX 580 8GB

PowerColor Red Devil Radeon RX 580 8GB is yet another high-end variant of the Radeon RX 580 that uses a great cooling solution and provides satisfactory aesthetics.

The graphics card is quite similar to the NITRO+ variant in terms of size, however, the theme of the graphics card is completely different. It uses a black and red-colored theme and there is red LED lighting at the top which lights up the Devil logo.

The graphics card is quite tall in height while having a length of 10.04 inches. The big difference is in the width though, as it hosts a tri-slot cooler, making it the thickest variant on the list.

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The fans of the graphics card have thin fins that let the user have a look at the heat-sink of the graphics card. This graphics card too, uses an additional six-pin PCIe power connector, in conjunction with the 8-pin power connector. As for the I/O, it comes with one DVI port, three DP ports, and one HDMI port.

This graphics card too provides the Dual-BIOS feature and you can select the OC BIOS or the Silent BIOS according to your needs. The backplate of the graphics card has a star-like design and there are lots of vents along with this star shape.

The performance of the graphics card is quite good and it is clocked at 1380 MHz, which makes it faster than four variants in the list. The VRM components of the card are also good-quality ones and that is why you can expect the graphics card to overclock as high as 1500 MHz on the core and 2250 MHz on the memory.

The cooling solution of the graphics card is quite impressive and its cooling performance is quite similar to the NITRO+ variant, only being 2-3 degrees hotter. This makes the graphics card good for people who want to buy a graphics card that runs cooler than mainstream variants.

Conclusion

Overall, PowerColor Red Devil Radeon RX 580 is a graphics card that provides impressive performance while not looking at half-bad either. It packs lots of unique features like LED lighting, Dual-BIOS support and high-end cooling solution, which makes it great for people who are willing to spend a little extra.