The AMD RX 580 8GB graphics card will likely appear in some deals pages as this year comes to a close, but is it still worth considering as a potential purchase? And what price would make an RX 580 a good deal?
The annual end-of-year consumergasm is coming, and there's nothing you or I can do about it. But while Amazon Prime Day and the Black Friday PC deals avalanche might well end up taking over the internets from October through Black November, that does mean a host of PC gaming gear could end up with some serious discounts.
And with a whole new generation of both graphics cards and processors landing you can bet that the previous generation products will start to see some potentially serious discounts. That will make some of those parts incredible value, and a great deal, but equally there will be some components that no matter how cheap they get it will be tough to recommend them.
What is the AMD RX 580 8GB?
Release date - April 2017
GPU - Polaris 20
Lithography - 14nm
GCN cores - 2,304
Base clock - 1,257MHz
Memory capacity - 8GB
Launch price - $229
The RX 580 is a graphics card that was released over three years ago now, and is based on the old 14nm AMD Polaris GPU. But it's actually based on a graphics chip that was released the previous year, the RX 480. So in essence this is really a four year old graphics card.
The top-spec version comes with 8GB of GDDR5 video memory and was a decent graphics card in its time, but subsequent price cuts have made it more relevant. But equally newer GPUs have started to test that.
What are the alternatives to the AMD RX 580 8GB?
Right now the main alternative graphics card to the ageing RX 580 is the Nvidia GTX 1650 Super. That's around the same price as the old AMD GPU, but in general will just about outperform the Radeon card. Sitting a little above them both, in terms of price and performance, is the RX 5500 XT, which is the closest AMD alternative.
Should I buy the AMD RX 580 8GB and at what price?
With the modern alternatives on offer right now, we wouldn't really recommend buying the RX 580 today unless the price drops significantly below the GTX 1650 Super. If you find a deal on the RX 580, check to see if you can find the GTX 1650 Super for a similar price and, if you can, buy that instead. It is important to make sure you're looking at the GTX 1650 Super however, as the standard GTX 1650 is slower and not much cheaper.
The RX 580 has been selling for around $170 for the past year, occasionally dropping to $160, but if you do find it down more towards the $100 - $130 level it might be worth a punt as it can still deliver decent 1080p gaming performance.
