Question RX 590 versus RX 6400, which is better, for a similar price

[VirtualLarry]

RX 580 2048SP version for $70?

Polaris, a new bargain in the making?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Are you a human?

www.newegg.com

51RISC RX 5700XT 8GB GDDR6 $158, ships from China.

 

[Shmee]

A good RX 580/590 could still be a good buy. But I wouldn't trust those 51RISC cards from China. I would rather buy a known good, locally used if possible, RX 5700 (XT). Or just buy a new RX 6600.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Or just buy a new RX 6600.

If it's for gaming, seconded. The 6600 is the lowest I'd go for currently.

If non-gaming, then the 6400 will be (far) more then enough, and use less power. Has a longer support window too. 4th gen GCN is getting long in the tooth.

 

[Mopetar]

A good RX 580/590 could still be a good buy. But I wouldn't trust those 51RISC cards from China. I would rather buy a known good, locally used if possible, RX 5700 (XT). Or just buy a new RX 6600.

I'd be really wary of cheap cards. A few years ago there were a bunch of fake Nvidia cards that were being listed on reputable sites like Newegg.

A cheap Polaris would make an okay card for a rig that doesn't have an iGPU, but I wouldn't recommend it for gaming outside of the most casual cases. I've still got a 480 in a machine and it's pretty limited.

Cezanne APUs were already about equal to a 460 in performance, and Rembrandt beats a mobile 480, so once Phoenix Point APUs hit the market, I don't think there'll be any point in getting Polaris.

 

[Shmee]

I'd be really wary of cheap cards. A few years ago there were a bunch of fake Nvidia cards that were being listed on reputable sites like Newegg.

A cheap Polaris would make an okay card for a rig that doesn't have an iGPU, but I wouldn't recommend it for gaming outside of the most casual cases. I've still got a 480 in a machine and it's pretty limited.

Cezanne APUs were already about equal to a 460 in performance, and Rembrandt beats a mobile 480, so once Phoenix Point APUs hit the market, I don't think there'll be any point in getting Polaris.

I'm not so sure about that. These APUs would require a more modern system platform, with new boards, and DDR5. For existing systems, an RX580 or similar could still be a worthwhile upgrade. Or for building a more budget system with a Ryzen 5600 or lower-mid range Intel CPU.

Again though, I totally agree on being wary of sketchy Chinese cards.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

A good RX 580/590 could still be a good buy. But I wouldn't trust those 51RISC cards from China. I would rather buy a known good, locally used if possible, RX 5700 (XT). Or just buy a new RX 6600.

RX 6600 kind of demolishes everything in the budget segment right now and by enough to be worth spending the extra over anything else. Though at Black Friday the 6650 XT crept low enough to be the price to performance champion.

 

[Leeea]

Any rx500 series with 8gb of ram has spent years in the mines at this point.

Just avoid.

 

[Mopetar]

I'm not so sure about that. These APUs would require a more modern system platform, with new boards, and DDR5.

Yeah, that's basically what AM5 is. Once DDR5 comes down in price, there's a compelling reason to get a budget build APU system rather than trying to stretch out an old system with an old card.

Unless it's someone who was using using a 960 or something like that who just needs a card that can help them limp along a little longer, I'd say saving up for a new APU system is a better bet. It's a cheap starting point and still has room to add in a discrete card 4+ years down the road when the CPU is still fine, but the iGPU can't keep up.

 

[Trefugl]

For the 590 vs 6400 question, the 590 seems to destroy it. Ive been using Tom's hierarchy (https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html) to compare old card to new ones. In their test at 1080p ultra, the 590 averages 39.4fps vs the 6400 at 23.7fps.

 

[Kaluan]

For gaming specifically, unless it's Sapphire's 8GB RX 6500XT (for a good price), I wouldn't touch RX 6500/6400 cards. So RX 590 it is (be warned tho, it pulls over 3x the wattage).
For anything else, it's not half bad.

Springing for a RX 6600 would be the ideal, but I know it's terribly out of that price range.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Review of Chinese RX 5700XT. Faster/better/cheaper than a 3060?

 

[scineram]

Is it "new"? I have doubts AMD still produces the Navi10.

 

[MrTeal]

That screams mining card. Power connectors coming out the back or bottom would be much nicer for mining rigs.

 

[blckgrffn]

Polaris was the value card back in 2019 when there was the first mining crash. I had issues with fans, wonky display out, etc. with the used cards I had bought of that lineage. Just... no.

OEM RX 5500 cards are pretty available around $80-90 on ebay and if you get a 4GB card you can be reasonably sure their was no mining. They compare favorably to the 580 in power usage, are competitive in performance and have a full x8 interface and all the video bits so there is none of the shortcomings present in the 6400/6500XT.

They are also guaranteed to be years newer - I know there are Polaris cards that were NIB in 2020 but that's thin compared to the likelihood they mined for two whole mining waves.

As all have said... climb to the 6600 if you are at all able. Saving what, $30 to get an import 5700XT that is a feature set back? Not worth it.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Saving what, $30 to get an import 5700XT that is a feature set back? Not worth it.

...unless you plan on mining. The RX 5700XT has a 256-bit memory bus.

 

[blckgrffn]

...unless you plan on mining. The RX 5700XT has a 256-bit memory bus.

Well yeah. Naturally. I am speaking for people buying GPUs to do recreational 3D rendering.

 

[SPBHM]

if you have a PCIE 4.0 motherboard I would say 6400 all the way, it might be slower but is far better on power, and will be supported for a lot longer; unless you need more than 2 displays and a hardware video encoder;

I recently got into Polaris finally, but for me, I really didn't need more performance than my HD 7850 if I'm honest, but it was crashing in a newer game due to not being supported any more, so no hopes of fixing after a lot of tinkering... so, I found this cheap ex mining card, and there we go, seller looked very honest and sold another 30 of the same with no complaints (it's some clearly used XFX card, not some weird Chinese brand claiming to be new), so far so good, it's probably a card with at least 4 years of mining, but it's working very nicely atm.
oh and I'm still running Sandy Bridge with PCIE 2.0, so x4 from an rx6400 would be a complete disaster.
also I paid less than half of an RX 6400.

if you are feeling adventurous with Chinese cards, there are also some RX 5500XT for a very good price, so 6600, and even 3060s in some cases, those are far better than Polaris and probably supported for a lot longer.

 

[jamesdsimone]

Is it "new"? I have doubts AMD still produces the Navi10.

Whatever Chinese company makes them probably bought old stock after production was stopped.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Toastybros review of a rx580 2048SP version.

 

[jamesdsimone]

I very briefly thought about one of those RX580's from China just to play around with it but they only have 2048 stream processors so they are really RX 570's. After looking at a bunch of different cards in ebay/Newegg/Amazon I ended up grabbing this from Newegg. I payed 139.99 which is probably 30-40 dollars more than I could have gotten one from ebay but it was worth it not avoid the hassle of bidding. Going to put it into my new build for now and then worry about upgrading.

Sapphire Radeon NITRO+ RX 590 8GB GDDR5