AMD Radeon RX 580 Mobile

AMD Radeon RX 580 Mobile

AMD Radeon RX 580 Mobile: Review and Capability Analysis in 2025

Introduction

Even years after its release, the AMD Radeon RX 580 Mobile graphics card remains a popular choice for budget gaming laptops. In 2025, it can still be found in new entry-level devices, offering a balance between price and performance. But how relevant is it today? Let’s delve into the details.


1. Architecture and Key Features

Polaris Architecture and 14nm Process Technology

The RX 580 Mobile is based on the Polaris architecture (Polaris 20 variant), manufactured using GlobalFoundries' 14nm technology. This is a slightly improved version of the original RX 480, with enhanced clock speeds and optimized power consumption.

Unique Features

The card supports the AMD Radeon Software technology suite:

- FidelityFX (contrast adaptive sharpening, detail enhancement).

- FreeSync for synchronizing frame rates with the monitor.

- Radeon Chill to reduce power consumption in less active scenes.

RTX and DLSS: Hardware ray tracing and AI upscaling are absent — those are features of newer GPUs like RDNA 3/4 or NVIDIA RTX 30/40 series.


2. Memory: Type, Size, and Impact on Performance

Memory Configuration

- Type: GDDR5 (not GDDR6 or HBM).

- Size: 8 GB — sufficient for most games even in 2025.

- Bus: 256-bit.

- Bandwidth: 256 GB/s (memory frequency 8 GHz).

Practical Impact

GDDR5 is slower than GDDR6/X, but for 1080p gaming, 8 GB is adequate. In games with heavy textures (e.g., Cyberpunk 2077), framerate drops may occur on ultra settings due to limited bandwidth.


3. Gaming Performance

Average FPS in Popular Titles (1080p, Medium/High Settings):

- CS2: 120–140 FPS.

- Fortnite: 60–75 FPS (Epic, no DLSS).

- Apex Legends: 70–85 FPS.

- Hogwarts Legacy: 35–45 FPS (requires lowering settings).

Support for Resolutions

- 1080p: Optimal for RX 580 Mobile.

- 1440p: Only in less demanding games (e.g., Rocket League) or with reduced detail settings.

- 4K: Not recommended — lacks sufficient computational power.

Ray Tracing

The absence of hardware support for RT cores makes ray tracing on the RX 580 Mobile impractical. Enabling RT in Cyberpunk 2077 drops FPS to 10–15 frames.


4. Professional Tasks

Video Editing and Rendering

- DaVinci Resolve: Runs smoothly at 1080p, but 4K timelines may stutter.

- Blender: Supports OpenCL, but rendering is slower than on NVIDIA with CUDA.

3D Modeling

Applications such as AutoCAD or SolidWorks can run, but complex projects require more powerful GPUs.

Scientific Calculations

Suitable for basic tasks using OpenCL, but for ML/AI, it's better to choose cards with ROCm support (e.g., Radeon Pro or the latest RDNA 4).


5. Power Consumption and Heat Generation

TDP and Cooling Requirements

- TDP: 150–185 W (depends on the laptop model).

- Temperatures: Without quality cooling, it can reach 85–90°C under load.

Recommendations

- Opt for laptops with a dual-fan cooling system.

- Use cooling pads to lower temperatures by 5–7°C.

- Regularly clean dust from fans.


6. Comparison with Competitors

Rivals in 2025:

- NVIDIA GTX 1650 Mobile: Comparable in performance but more energy-efficient (TDP 50 W).

- AMD Radeon RX 6600M: 30–40% faster, supports FSR 3.0 and partial RT.

- Intel Arc A580 Mobile: Better with new APIs (Vulkan, DX12), but drivers are less stable.

Conclusion:

The RX 580 Mobile lags behind modern budget GPUs in energy efficiency and support for new technologies, but it is competitively priced.


7. Practical Tips

Power Supply

Laptops with RX 580 Mobile require a power supply of 180–230 W. Use only original adapters.

Compatibility

- Platforms: Compatible with Windows 10/11 and Linux (AMDGPU drivers).

- FreeSync: Ensure that the monitor supports this technology.

Drivers

- Update through AMD Adrenalin Edition — optimization improvements for older GPUs are still released.

- Avoid “beta versions” for critical tasks.


8. Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Low price for laptops ($600–800).

- 8 GB of memory for handling textures.

- Support for FreeSync.

Cons:

- High power consumption.

- No ray tracing or FSR 3.0.

- Outdated manufacturing process.


9. Final Conclusion: Who Is the RX 580 Mobile Suitable For?

This graphics card is a choice for those who:

- Are looking for an affordable gaming laptop for 1080p gaming.

- Do not plan to use ray tracing or play the latest AAA titles at ultra settings.

- Need basic performance for graphics work.

Alternatives: If the budget allows, consider laptops with RX 6600M or RTX 3050 Ti — they will provide future-proof performance.


In 2025, the RX 580 Mobile remains a niche solution, but it is still relevant for casual users. The key is to realistically assess its capabilities and not expect miracles from an eight-year-old architecture.

Basic

Label Name
AMD
Platform
Mobile
Launch Date
April 2017
Model Name
Radeon RX 580 Mobile
Generation
Mobility Radeon
Base Clock
1000MHz
Boost Clock
1077MHz
Bus Interface
MXM-B (3.0)
Transistors
5,700 million
Compute Units
36
TMUs
?
Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) serve as components of the GPU, which are capable of rotating, scaling, and distorting binary images, and then placing them as textures onto any plane of a given 3D model. This process is called texture mapping.
144
Foundry
GlobalFoundries
Process Size
14 nm
Architecture
GCN 4.0

Memory Specifications

Memory Size
8GB
Memory Type
GDDR5
Memory Bus
?
The memory bus width refers to the number of bits of data that the video memory can transfer within a single clock cycle. The larger the bus width, the greater the amount of data that can be transmitted instantaneously, making it one of the crucial parameters of video memory. The memory bandwidth is calculated as: Memory Bandwidth = Memory Frequency x Memory Bus Width / 8. Therefore, when the memory frequencies are similar, the memory bus width will determine the size of the memory bandwidth.
256bit
Memory Clock
2000MHz
Bandwidth
?
Memory bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate between the graphics chip and the video memory. It is measured in bytes per second, and the formula to calculate it is: memory bandwidth = working frequency × memory bus width / 8 bits.
256.0 GB/s

Theoretical Performance

Pixel Rate
?
Pixel fill rate refers to the number of pixels a graphics processing unit (GPU) can render per second, measured in MPixels/s (million pixels per second) or GPixels/s (billion pixels per second). It is the most commonly used metric to evaluate the pixel processing performance of a graphics card.
34.46 GPixel/s
Texture Rate
?
Texture fill rate refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) that a GPU can map to pixels in a single second.
155.1 GTexel/s
FP16 (half)
?
An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy.
4.963 TFLOPS
FP64 (double)
?
An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy, while single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.
310.2 GFLOPS
FP32 (float)
?
An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.
4.864 TFLOPS

Miscellaneous

Shading Units
?
The most fundamental processing unit is the Streaming Processor (SP), where specific instructions and tasks are executed. GPUs perform parallel computing, which means multiple SPs work simultaneously to process tasks.
2304
L1 Cache
16 KB (per CU)
L2 Cache
2MB
TDP
100W
Vulkan Version
?
Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics and compute API by Khronos Group, offering high performance and low CPU overhead. It lets developers control the GPU directly, reduces rendering overhead, and supports multi-threading and multi-core processors.
1.2
OpenCL Version
2.1
OpenGL
4.6
DirectX
12 (12_0)
Power Connectors
None
Shader Model
6.4
ROPs
?
The Raster Operations Pipeline (ROPs) is primarily responsible for handling lighting and reflection calculations in games, as well as managing effects like anti-aliasing (AA), high resolution, smoke, and fire. The more demanding the anti-aliasing and lighting effects in a game, the higher the performance requirements for the ROPs; otherwise, it may result in a sharp drop in frame rate.
32

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)
Score
4.864 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS
5.081 +4.5%
4.931 +1.4%
4.725 -2.9%