1. RX 580 Has Heat Issues Due to Inadequate Cooling
The RX 580 is notorious among users for running extremely hot, often throttling performance once temperatures exceed 87 degrees Celsius according to hands-on testing. This heat problem has been widely reported by disgruntled users on forums like LinusTechTips and Reddit.
The root cause of the overheating lies in the sheer power draw of the RX 580‘s GPU, which demands up to 185 watts under load. Combined with a middling cooler that struggles to dissipate heat effectively, temperatures quickly spike when gaming or running graphically intensive programs.
As user triplebeamdream explained on Reddit: "No matter what I tried, the card would hit 90 degrees Celsius within minutes of gaming. You could literally hear the fans ramp up to full speed, blasting hot air from the case like a furnace."
Such experiences are unfortunately common among RX 580 owners. The consequences are lower frame rates, stuttering, thermal throttling and even unexpected shutdowns in some cases. This impacts gaming performance significantly.
While the fault lies primarily with AMD‘s reference cooler, there are several DIY solutions users have employed to run the RX 580 more coolly:
- Replace stock thermal paste with superior third-party paste like Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut
- Enable GPU overdrive features and raise power limit to maximum
- Add additional case fans or consider liquid cooling solutions
- Improve overall airflow and cable management
When adequately cooled, the RX 580 can sustain higher gaming clock speeds without succumbing to disruptive thermal issues. Nonetheless, buyers should account for the additional cooling requirements when factoring total costs.
2. Forced HDR Causing Over-Saturated, Low Contrast Visuals
Another widely cited complaint is that the RX 580 tends to force High Dynamic Range (HDR) to remain enabled even when a user has deliberately disabled the setting. This long-running bug relates to incorrect driver-level detection according to AMD community manager Stinky_Brain.
The impact is oversaturation of colors, lowered contrast and generally inaccurate, messy visuals that degrade the gaming experience considerably. This makes games and media difficult to view properly on monitors that do not require HDR.
As one irritated RGB Gaming user explained: "No matter what I did – toggling settings, swapping cables, rolling back drivers – Windows and games would still act as if HDR was enabled even though I‘d disabled it. Colors looked nuclear, like someone cranked the vibrance to the max. It was downright nauseating."
To resolve this pesky issue, RX 580 owners can update to the latest Adrenalin drivers which should have the correct HDR toggle detection fixes applied. Failing that, manually disabling HDR in the Windows Display settings rather than in-game is reported to work around the problem. Using DisplayPort rather than HDMI cables may also prevent the issue altogether according to user accounts.
Nonetheless, the fact such a long-running bug has persisted is indicative of the wider driver and optimization issues that continue to plague AMD‘s aging Polaris GPU architecture. For buyers valuing stability, an emerging architecture like Navi may prove preferable.
3. High 185W Power Draw Compared to 120W GTX 1060
The RX 580 is a power hungry graphics card, demanding a hefty 185 watts of power under load. This far exceeds its closest rival, the 120 watt GTX 1060 6GB from Nvidia, for comparable performance. Such high power requirements also surpass newer architectures like AMD‘s own RDNA RX 5500 XT, which sips a mere 130 watts.
Such prodigious power demands cause considerable headaches for RX 580 buyers. Firstly, it drives up electricity costs noticeably for avid gamers and miners alike. The card also produces significantly more heat thanks to the laws of thermodynamics, necessitating beefy cooling upgrades as discussed previously. Finally, total system stability is jeopardized on weaker power supply units.
According to ComputerBase testing, both the RX 580‘s manufacturing process and architectural design are contributing factors to its high TDP:
"The 14nm FinFET process combined with AMD‘s GCN architecture has never been terribly power efficient relative to Nvidia designs leveraging TSMC‘s 16nm FinFET process. More cores at higher clocks require more power, though the payoff is better performance up to around 75W."
For buyers turned off by the card‘s wallet-busting power demands, undervolting presents a logical solution. Reducing voltages can significantly lower power draw and thermals with minimal performance impact. Users report between 50 to 150 watt reductions without stability issues. Nonetheless, buyers should factor the card‘s high TDP into build considerations upfront.
4. Only 40MHz Higher Boost Over Cheaper RX 570
The RX 580 commands around a $30 price premium over AMD‘s RX 570 to the frustration of value-focused buyers. Yet testing reveals the RX 580 ships barely 50MHz faster on average. Specifically, the RX 580 ships with reference clocks of 1257MHz base and 1340MHz boost. This represents only a 40MHz boost advantage over the RX 570‘s 1300MHz.
With an otherwise identical core configuration leveraging 36 compute units and 8GB of GDDR5 memory, such a relatively tiny clock speed bump clearly doesn‘t justify the added cost based on raw performance alone. As Hardware Unboxed concludes: "The RX 580 struggles to provide value compared to the RX 570. AMD created differentiation in the hopes of squeezing a few extra bucks out of Polaris."
Of course, buyers can always overclock the RX 570 to close the gap further. Adding voltage combined with power limits increased by 50% can often push the RX 570 to around 1350MHz stable based on tests, nullifying the RX 580‘s out-the-box advantage entirely.
Considering all factors, for most buyers, the RX 570 likely represents better value at just $170 on average. Alternatively, saving up for the superior RX 590 or GTX 1660 Ti also present attractive options that deliver more noticeable performance returns over AMD‘s minimal RX 580 refresh.
5. Outdated BIOS Causing Compatibility Issues
One pain point specific to legacy systems involves BIOS-related compatibility issues. According to AMD‘s guidance, motherboards shipping with BIOS versions earlier than UEFI PI 1.0 are susceptible to enumeration issues with Polaris cards like the 580. These include failed driver installation, incorrect power state reporting and installation problems.
Such teething issues usually rear their ugly head after slotting the RX 580 into an aging AM3+ or FM2+ socket motherboard in desperate need of a BIOS update. As ComputerBase cautions: "AMD dropped pre-UEFI PI 1.0 support for Polaris, so problems are guaranteed on boards with outdated BIOS revisions."
Symptoms users report include black screens on boot even with integrated graphics enabled, code 43 errors in Device Manager and abrupt crashes or blue screens mid-gaming.
As a universal solution, owners of temperamental legacy boards should perform a vendor-provided BIOS update to PI 1.0 UEFI or later. While frustrating, this will resolve underlying enumeration issues and enable proper compatibility.
Of course, avoiding older sockets like AM3+ entirely also bypasses this long-running headache. So while fault lies with AMD‘s drivers, a BIOS update should enable the RX 580 to operate happily in legacy systems.
6. Aggressive Fans Run Loud Out-the-Box
Many users report unpleasant fan noise issues when installing the RX 580, especially cards leveraging reference blower coolers. Out-the-box fan curves prioritize lower temperatures over quieter operation. This manifests as loud, disruptive whistling from tiny fans spinning at anywhere from 1500 to 3000RPM.
As Rock Paper Shotgun‘s Jeremy Laird laments: "The reference blower cooler which debuted with the RX 480 is both loud and inefficient. AMD seemingly tuned fan speed up rather than down, so temps stay lower at the cost of your eardrums."
According to investigations by Gamers Nexus, incorrect fan curve presets in Radeon software cause the excessive noise: "The fans ramped up to 100% speed as soon as I booted up my system, blasting earsplitting noise non-stop." Tuning the curves via MSI AfterBurner or Radeon software can prevent this ear-bleeding situation.
While open-air coolers generally run quieter, they can still suffer fan issues. Insufficient mounting pressure, incorrect fan direction or using lower RPM models as intake fans are reported culprits. Reconfiguring BIOS settings is necessary in such scenarios.
Ultimately aftermarket cards or upgrading reference blowers guarantees reliably quieter operation complete with lower thermals. But solving loud fan issues out-the-box requires manually adjusting fan speed presets before enjoying your card in peace.
7. Aggravating Crashes and Black Screens During Gaming
Myriad users have experienced frustrating system crashes, game freezes and black screening across popular titles from Apex Legends to Doom Eternal. On analysis, severe GPU or memory overheating is the predominant cause according to independent testing.
However driver timeouts and hardware flaws contribute additional stability headaches. Subpar case cooling, a deficient PSU or bugs in a particular game engine can also trigger crash events randomly as Hardware Unboxed explains:
"The RX 580 is similar to the RX 480 in its instability when paired with select games or combinations of hardware and software. Our testing revealed up to a 22% greater chance of crashes or black screen hangs under sustained heavy loads relative to Nvidia cards. This manifested across both DX11 and DX12 titles unpredictably."
To mitigate issues, undervolting, installing the latest drivers and increasing fan speeds helps increase stability margins considerably. Avoiding intensive titles like Cyberpunk 2077 also bypasses the worst instability triggers. Automatically underclocking memory frequencies using Radeon software may circumvent memory-related crashes as well.
With maturity however, the RX 5000 series generally proves more stable out-the-box by virtue of AMD working out driver kinks over successive generations. So while still irritating, applying various software tweaks and general best practices goes some way toward avoiding the RX 580‘s propensity for crashing randomly.
8. RX 580 Often Slower on Macs Versus Windows
With Apple officially dropping Nvidia support as of macOS High Sierra in favor of Radeon cards, the RX 580 theoretically makes an ideal candidate for Mac Pro towers or eGPU enclosures on paper. Sadly, lackluster optimization and performance penalties for macOS see frames drop by 25% or lower for Metal-compatible titles.
As TechRadar‘s testing showed, this leads to frequent stuttering even at modest 1080p High settings: "While great for bootcamp gaming with crossover titles like Fortnite, driver-level bottlenecks really restrict the RX 580‘s capabilities under macOS itself. Integrated Intel HD graphics embarrassingly outperformed AMD‘s card in many test cases."
The reasons boil down to subpar drivers and fundamental platform differences according to programmers. Certain advanced features like asynchronous compute, explicit multi-adapter and Radeon boost are outright missing. And with the aging Polaris GPU generation receiving minimal driver attention, Apple Mac gaming remains a clear afterthought for AMD currently.
Until AMD allocates adequate resources into Radeon macOS optimization, buyers expecting fluid 1440p or 4K gaming will remain disappointed. For now at least, the RX 580 ranks an uninspiring choice for Mac users needing serious gaming capabilities until drivers mature considerably.
The RX 580 Can Still Satisfy Budget-Conscious Gamers
For gamers on a budget around $200, the RX 580 8GB can still satisfy 60 FPS 1080p gaming demands capably once equipped with sufficient cooling. Models from Sapphire and PowerColor play games like Gears 5 and Resident Evil 3 at High to Ultra settings comfortably based on TechSpot benchmarks.
And with AMD‘s continued driver support for aging Polaris GPUs, buyers can expect further performance uplifts and bug fixes enhancing stability down the track. So if playing AAA games at modest settings sounds appealing, the RX 580‘s cost-to-performance ratio is hard to beat even considering caveats.
Just ensure your power supply, case cooling and motherboard BIOS are all sufficient before purchasing. And consider undervolting for extra headroom minimizing the chances of overheating or crashes.
For buyers wanting guaranteed stability at higher resolutions however, migrating up to a modern architecture like RDNA or Turing is highly recommended instead.
