The RX 590 ARMOR 8G OC is one of two nearly identical cards from MSI, with or without a slight factory overclock (OC). However, both of them require two 8-pin PCIe power connectors instead of the reference model’s single 8-pin cable. This card also has the Armor cooling solution in common with several other mid-range MSI graphics cards.
In this case, the GPU is AMD’s RX 590, or Polaris 30 XT – a refined version of the Polaris chip previously used in the RX 480 and RX 580. It includes 2,304 shaders, 144 TMUs (texture mapping units) and 32 ROPs (render output units). What differs in this chip compared to the older variants is primarily the manufacturing process, which is down to 12 nm from 14 nm. This has allowed for 15% higher clock rates without increasing the power consumption.
MSI RX 590 Armor 8G OC Features
Like nearly all graphics cards on the market based on the RX 590, the RX 590 Armor 8G OC is factory overclocked. Instead of the reference model’s 1545 MHz, MSI has increased the GPU boost clock to 1565 MHz. This is a less aggressive overclock compared to competing models from XFX and ASRock. And unlike Sapphire, MSI has left the VRAM clock unmodified.
RX 590 Reference Design VS Custom Boards
| AMD Radeon RX 590 Reference Design | Sapphire Nitro+ RX 590 Special Edition | XFX Radeon RX 590 Fatboy OC+ | PowerColor Red Devil RX 590 OC | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU Chip | Polaris 30 XT | Polaris 30 XT | Polaris 30 XT | Polaris 30 XT |
| Stream Processors | 2304 | 2304 | 2304 | 2304 |
| GPU Clock / Max. Boost | 1469 MHz / 1545 MHz | 1469 MHz / 1560 MHz | 1469 MHz / 1580 MHz | 1469 MHz / 1576 MHz |
| FP32 Theoretical Performance | 7,119 GFLOPS | 7,188 GFLOPS | 7,281 GFLOPS | 7,262 GFLOPS |
| Memory Size | 8 GB GDDR5 | 8 GB GDDR5 | 8 GB GDDR5 | 8 GB GDDR5 |
| Memory Clock (Effective) | 2000 MHz (8000 MHz) | 2100 MHz (8400 MHz) | 2000 MHz (8000 MHz) | 2000 MHz (8000 MHz) |
| Memory Bandwidth (Bus) | 256 GB/s (256 bit) | 268.8 GB/s (256 bit) | 256 GB/s (256 bit) | 256 GB/s (256 bit) |
| Outputs | 1x HDMI, 3x DisplayPort | 1x DVI, 2x HDMI, 2x DisplayPort | 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 3x DisplayPort | 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 3x DisplayPort |
| Recommended Power Supply | 500 Watt | 500 Watt | 500 Watt | 500 Watt |
| PCIe Power Connectors | 1x 8-pin | 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin | 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin | 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin |
| TDP | 175 Watt | 175 Watt | 175 Watt | 175 Watt |
| Price From | N/A | $245.99 | $189.99 | $202.39 |
| Product Link | N/A | View on Amazon | View on Amazon | View on Amazon |
MSI’s Armor lineup comes with a comprehensively tried and tested cooling solution. It consists of two fans mounted on a medium-sized heat sink. It is more compact than most competing RX 590 cards and only takes up two PCI slots.
Outputs: 1 x Dual-link DVI-D, 2 x HDMI and 2 x DisplayPort.
Performance
Thanks to the improved production process and higher clocks, the RX 590 is approximately 10-15% faster than RX 580 cards in games and synthetic benchmarks. MSI’s 20 MHz overclock adds card adds an additional 1.3 % on the maximum boost clock. Compared Nvidia cards in the same price range, any RX 590 is faster than an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 on average. But it’s normally slower than the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti (and much less efficient).
System and PSU requirements
AMD recommends a 500 W power supply for the RX 590 (TDP is 175 W), but MSI recommends a 550 W PSU for the 590 Armor. It powered by two 8-pin PCIe power connectors.
Reviews
This card is part of our best RX 590 GPU roundup from 2019.
No professional reviews were available at the time of writing.
MSI Gaming Radeon Rx 590 256-Bit DP/HDMI/DVI 8GB GDRR5 HDCP Support DirectX 12 Dual Fan 2-Way Crossfire VR Ready Graphics Card (RX 590 Armor 8G OC)
5 used from $206.90
Amazon.comFeatures
- Chipset: AMD Radeon RX 590
- Boost Clock: 1565 MHz
- Memory Interface: 256-bit
- Video Memory: 8GB GDDR5
- Output: DisplayPort x 2/ HDMI x 2/ DL-DVI-D
