Rating: 8.5.

1. Introduction 2. Sapphire RX 570 Pulse ITX 3. Testing Methodology 4. 3DMark (1080p and 1440p) 5. SteamVR Performance Test 6. Unigine Heaven (1080p and 1440p) 7. Ashes of the Singularity (1080p and 1440p) 8. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (1080p and 1440p) 9. Ghost Recon: Wildlands (1080p and 1440p) 10. Grand Theft Auto V (1080p and 1440p) 11. Rise of the Tomb Raider (1080p and 1440p) 12. Noise 13. Power Consumption 14. Temperatures 15. Overclocking 16. Closing Thoughts 17. View All Pages

Having analysed a few of the new AMD RX 500-series cards since launch, today our attention turns back to the RX 570. This particular card is Sapphire’s RX 570 Pulse ITX model, and it is specifically aimed at those looking to build a SFF or ITX system – this is made clear by the card’s small size and single-fan cooling solution. Is it an effective option for those with very strict space constraints?

We know by now that the RX 570 GPU is best for 1080p gaming, so the focus of this review today is whether or not the Sapphire RX 570 Pulse ITX is an effective implementation of the Polaris architecture. Given it is aimed at the SFF and Mini-ITX markets, its thermal and power consumption levels are of particular importance.





GPU AMD RX 480 AMD RX 580 AMD RX 470 AMD RX 570 AMD R9 390

Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti Nvidia GTX 1060 Streaming Multiprocessors / Compute Units

36 36 32 32 40 6 10 GPU Cores 2304 2304 2048 2048 2560 768 1280 Texture Units 144 144 128 128 160 48 80 ROPs 32 32 32 32 64 32 48 Base Clock 1120 MHz 1257 MHz 926 MHz 1168 MHz Up to 1000MHz 1290 MHz 1506 MHz GPU Boost Clock 1266 MHz 1340 MHz 1206 MHz 1244 MHz Up to 1000MHz 1392 MHz 1708 MHz Total Video memory 4096 or 8192 MB 4096 or 8192 MB 4096 or 8192 MB 4096 MB 8192 MB 4096 MB 6144 MB Memory Clock (Effective)

1750 (7000) or 2000 (8000) MHz 2000 (8000) MHz 1650 (6600) MHz 1750 (7000) MHz 1500 (6000) MHz 1752 (7008) MHz 2002 (8008) MHz Memory Bandwidth 224 or 256 GB/s 256 GB/s 211 GB/s 224 GB/s 384 GB/s 112 GB/s 192 GB/s Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit 256-bit 256-bit 512-bit 128-bit 192-bit Manufacturing Process 14nm 14nm 14nm 14nm 28nm 16nm 16nm TDP 150 W 185 W 120 W 150 W 275 W 75W 120 W

It is definitely worth noting that the RX 570 Pulse ITX does not come with any sort of factory overclock – the card’s 1244MHz boost clock is the same as AMD’s reference figure. This will negatively impact performance compared to other, factory overclocked RX 570 cards such as the ASUS Strix RX 570 or Sapphire Pulse RX 570, but it will likely help keep core temperatures down.

As it is also a member of Sapphire’s Pulse family, this ITX card lacks many features we would expect from a high-end card. For example, there is no backplate, RGB LEDs or dual-BIOS functionality. This is a SFF card designed simply to work in a constricted environment.

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