This new take on an ancient AMD graphics card has more memory than Nvidias
RTX 4070

Date:
Wed, 09 Aug 2023 14:43:54 +0000

Description:
If youve been complaining about VRAM loadouts with Nvidias Lovelace GPUs, you dont want to know about this RX 580.

FULL STORY ======================================================================

AMDs venerable RX 580 lives on sort of in a new spin on the graphics card over in China in which the VRAM has been upgraded to 16GB, no less.

Toms Hardware spotted that the Radeon RX 580 2048SP, which was launched five years ago, and is exclusive to the Chinese market though it can be imported to the US via popular retailers just got a big RAM upgrade.

Or at least one model did, the RX 580 from Chinese card maker Kinology, which now has 16GB of VRAM as mentioned, rather than the original configuration of 8GB (or 4GB for some models).

To see an aged RX 580 swanning around the market with so much video memory will doubtless be something of a kick in the teeth for Nvidia fans whove been complaining about the relatively meager allocations of VRAM on some current-gen Lovelace graphics cards .

But it begs the question: whats the point of giving an RX 580 so much VRAM? Analysis: A curious new Radeon

Okay, lets rewind for a moment here. Is the RX 580 even a thing anymore?
While it doesnt trouble the best-selling GPU charts in the US any longer, it can still be a super-cheap second-hand buy for some folks on strict budgets, and the graphics card still has sales momentum in China. Clearly, otherwise Kinology wouldnt be manufacturing a new model.

Kinology isnt a name youll have heard of, doubtless, because as Toms
explains, its a local firm that relabels and resells OEM graphics cards in China (those supplied to PC makers).

As to the point of an RX 580 with 16GB of video RAM, well, it perhaps has certain niche usages due to having that large pool of memory. (Although note the RAM is GDDR5, too, so its not fast in fact, it uses slower 6Gbps modules in this case, compared to the normal RX 580 2048SP which has 7Gbps VRAM, so its even slower).

In the end, its more of a curiosity than anything else, and Kinology
certainly wont be troubling any of the best graphics cards out there, not by
a long shot. But its still interesting to see how old GPUs do still have some life in them and even get late-stage upgrades. The Kinology RX 580 2048SP is also decently cheap, coming in at $83 (US) on JD.com (about 65, AU$125)

You can still buy an imported Maxsun Radeon RX 580 2048SP (original 8GB flavor) from China via Newegg, for example, though itll run you a chunk more at $117 in the US (about 90, AU$180) at the time of writing. Its certainly a better-known brand than Kinology, of course.



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/computing/gpu/this-new-take-on-an-ancient-amd-graphi cs-card-has-more-memory-than-nvidias-rtx-4070


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