Sapphire RX 580 Comparison – Pulse vs Nitro+!

1. Introduction2. Pulse vs Nitro+: Design3. Testing Methodology4. 3DMark5. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (1080p & 1440p)6. Far Cry 5 (1080p & 1440p)7. Ghost Recon: Wildlands (1080p & 1440p)8. Middle Earth: Shadow of War (1080p & 1440p)9. Rise of the Tomb Raider (1080p & 1440p)10. Temperatures11. Acoustics12. Power Consumption13. Overclocking14. AMD Adrenalin Driver15. Closing Thoughts16. View All Pages

Pulse – left, Nitro+ – right

To overclock both Sapphire cards, we used TriXX – Sapphire's overclocking utility.

For the Pulse, our best result came with 1440MHz (+74MHz) on the core, and 2225MHz (+225MHz) for the memory. The power limit was set to its maximum value (+30%) and we used the auto fan curve.

For the Nitro+, our best result came with 1455MHz (+44MHz) on the core, and 2150MHz (+150MHz) for the memory. The power limit was set to its maximum value (+50%) and we used the auto fan curve.

There is definitely some benefit to overclocking these cards. We know the RX 500 series cards are generally limited overclockers – the chip can only go so far, and most of them are pushed pretty far out of the box anyway. I was still quite impressed with +74MHz to the Pulse card, though – it may not be as fast as the Nitro+, but relatively speaking it is a bigger overclock. That closed the frequency gap between the two cards to just 15MHz.

In the real world, this put the two cards neck-and-neck – a score difference of just 34 in Fire Strike, and just 15 in Time Spy, is incredibly close. The difference was just 1FPS on average in Far Cry 5, too.

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