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In this article, we’ll be taking a look at two of those GPUs and comparing their price to performance: Nvidia GTX 980 vs AMD RX 580

AMD RX 580	Nvidia GTX 980
BUY NOW	BUY NOW
PROS	PROS
Faster than Radeon RX 480. Lower multi-monitor and video playback power use. Similar starting price as Radeon RX 480.	Great minimum frame rate. Mid-range pricing. Top-notch performance. Superb overclocking. Lower power consumption.
CONS	CONS
Higher power consumption than Radeon RX 480 under load. The new name may confuse some.	Still using the 28nm process.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Expert Reviews For Nvidia GTX 980:

By TrustedReviews
The GTX 980 is a capable card with the grunt to handle anything at 1080p and 1440p and almost all games at 4K, too. However, AMD’s two rivals offer performance improvements for similar cash. If you want to stay green, the GTX 980 is a good option – but…

By TechPowerUP
About a month ago, just two weeks after its flagship Radeon R9 Fury X launch, AMD launched its little sibling, the R9 Fury positioned as a big money-maker for…

By DigitalTrends
The GTX 980’s name might lead buyers to think that it provides a large performance improvement over the outgoing GTX 700 series flagships. That’s not the case. As our test…

By Gaming Nexus
At NVIDIA Game 24 a few weeks ago, they announced their next line of desktop video cards. The big bad of the show was the GeForce GTX 980. NVIDIA was kind enough to send us a card, so let’s take a look at the latest and greatest from NVIDIA.The GeForce…

By Gizmodo
The GTX 980 is the high-end card in the newly announced and soon-to-be-more-widely-released Nvidia line-up, for the latest quarter of 2014 and the first half of 2015; there will be an even more powerful twin-GPU card inevitably turn up, and more…

Expert Reviews For AMD RX 580:

By LiveAtPC
A gaming card that looks cool while keeping cool and pumping out polygons like no tomorrow.

By IGN
The RX 580 from Gigabyte is a fantastic bang-for-your-buck GPU. The high-end cards from the top manufacturers usually perform similarly, so buying designs usually come down to aesthetics, software, warranty, etc. Given this situation the Aorus is certainly a great GPU that is well-built, has aggressive looks with great lighting, and performs well while being whisper-quiet at all times, even under full load. Good luck finding one for MSRP though.

By TechAdvisor
The Asus ROG Strix Radeon RX 580 TOP Edition 8GB is one of the most expensive Radeon RX 580 cards available, but offers excellent performance delivering similar overall frame rates to an overclocked Nvidia GTX 1060, although this will of course depend on which games you play. The board offers superb build quality and a great selection of features including programmable lighting effects and bundled overclocking software. It’s sheer size may be a problem for some smaller cases, however, and audible coil whine can occasionally spoil the experience.

By TechRadar
Undoubtedly this isn’t the card we expected AMD to launch right now. The RX 580, is no Titan killer, nor does it change the GPU ecosphere in any meaningful way, however it just slips in, taking back that value crown, away from Nvidia’s GTX 1060.

By Notebookcheck
Those who do not want an Nvidia GPU and are on the lookout for a good graphics card that costs no more than 300 Euros (~$344) will not be disappointed with the Asus ROG Strix Radeon RX 580. Besides the good cooling solution, the GPU also features eye-catching RGB effects.

DETAILED REVIEW:

Above we have shown the overview and depth specifications of both the graphics card. Now, we are sharing the full review of both graphics cards.

OVERVIEW

It’s worth noting the RX 580 is only available in both 8GB version, and GTX 980 is only available in 4GB version. So, it’s not got the same amount of GDDR5 memory.

RX 580 has more Base and Boost clock than GTX 980. RX 580 is also ahead in the bandwidth.

Most people will think that RX 580 is the winner because of more memory. When you see the results of GTX 980, it will just leave you in shock. But RX 580 is more futureproof than GTX 980 because of that extra memory.

PERFORMANCE

For testing I’m using the MSI Armor Radeon RX 580 8GB OC @1540MHz and MSI Gaming GeForce GTX 980 4GB OC @1500MHz. Expect slightly different results with different models.

The system that I’m testing with has an Intel i9-9900K CPU in an Asrock Z390 TAICHI Ultimate motherboard running at 5.0GHz, along with Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro Series 2*8GB DDR4 3000MHz. And the operating system is Windows 10 Pro – 64Bit. This same system was used to test both graphics cards.

Let’s get into the results:

Battlefield 5

Battlefield 5 was tested in campaign mode with high settings rather than multiplayer as I find it easier to reproduce the test run and it seems to be less CPU intensive. In this game the RX 580 appears to be winning, the average frame rates of both are extremely close together.

Devil May Cry 5

Devil May Cry 5 was tested with high settings using the built in benchmark, and in this game the RX 580 was coming out ahead in all instances. At 1080p, RX 580 was just 5FPS ahead and at 1440p, it was 2FPS faster.

DOOM

DOOM was tested with the built in benchmark at high settings, and at all resolutions the the RX 580 was a fair bit ahead. At 1080p, the RX 580 was only 6FPS ahead and 4FPS at 1440p.

Far Cry 5

Far Cry 5 was tested using the Ulletical benchmark with all settings set to high, and this game was consistently performing better with the RX 580 in terms of average frame rates.

Ghost Recon

Ghost Recon was tested using the replay feature with the same replay file, and at high settings the GTX 980 was coming out ahead in both resolutions. At 1080p, we’re looking at 3FPS faster with the GTX 980. At 1440p, there was only a difference of 2FPS.

Hitman 2

Hitman 2 was tested in the practice range with high settings, as this allows me to replicate the test accurately compared to playing with bots or other players. Again the RX 580 was coming out ahead in both resolutions.

Metro Exodus

Metro Exodus was tested with the built in benchmark at high settings, and in this game there was only 1FPS difference at both resolutions. The game was smooth on both graphics card.

Rage 2

Rage 2 was tested using the built in benchmark with high settings, and the results between the two were much closer together here, within a frame of each other at 1080p and 1440p.

Witcher: Wild Hunt

This game was tested using the replay feature with the same replay file, and at 1080p, I was seeing RX 580 was 3FPS faster than GTX 980. At 1440, GTX 980 was winning with just 1FPS faster.

Woifenstein

Woifenstein is a resource intensive game which I found to play well on both cards even at 1440p with very high settings. I think it runs pretty well as long as you’re getting more than 60FPS.

WHICH TO BUY?

I’ve only tested games though, I’m suspecting that the RX 580 may be more useful when it comes to compute tasks, especially things that can better utilize that 16gb of HBM2 memory. Either way I think it’s great to see a graphics card capable of 1440p gaming with good settings from AMD.

Personally, I will choose RX 580 because it is cheaper and performing good, when compared to GTX 980.

Jaskaran Singh

Jaskaran, a tech enthusiast from childhood, inspired by his father, began his tech journey by rooting Android phones. He now writes on various tech topics, aiming to simplify complex ideas for a broad audience. His writing is direct, concise, and flows effortlessly, making tech topics accessible and engaging.