Radeon RX 590 Allegedly Up to 9 Percent Faster Than GeForce GTX 1060

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AMD's forthcoming Radeon RX 590 graphics card was spotted in 3DMark's database this month. One week later, the graphics card has popped up again, but this time around, on Square Enix's Final Fantasy XV benchmark scoreboard. For the first time, we get a glimpse of the Radeon RX 590's real-world performance and how it fares against other graphics cards, especially Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1060 6GB.

Radeon RX 590 vs. GeForce GTX 1060 6GB

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Header Cell - Column 0 Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GBAMD Radeon RX 590Performance Difference
2560 x 1440, Lite Quality5,9936,3986.76%
2560 x 1440, Standard Quality4,4684,8027.48%
2560 x 1440, High Quality3,5953,570-0.7%
3840 x 2160, Lite Quality3,2623,5288.15%
3840 x 2160, Standard Quality2,3222,5379.26%
3840 x 2160, High Quality1,9842,1226.96%

Radeon RX 590 is primed to complete with the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB. Based on these numbers, the Radeon RX 590 performs around 7.48 percent faster than the GeForce GTX 1060 at 2560 x 1440 and up to 9.26 percent at 3840 x 2160.

Radeon RX 590 vs. Radeon RX 580

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Header Cell - Column 0 AMD Radeon RX 580AMD Radeon RX 590Performance Difference
2560 x 1440, Lite Quality5,7936,39810.44%
2560 x 1440, Standard Quality4,3244,80211.05%
2560 x 1440, High Quality3,1593,57013.01%
3840 x 2160, Lite Quality3,1643,52811.5%
3840 x 2160, Standard Quality2,2922,53710.69%
3840 x 2160, High Quality1,8162,12216.85%

Past leaks have shown that the Radeon RX 590 is roughly about eight percent faster than AMD's current Radeon RX 580 on synthetic benchmarks. The latest scores from the Final Fantasy XV benchmark reveal that the Radeon RX 590 is reportedly up to 13 percent faster than the Radeon RX 580 at the 2560 x 1440 resolution. The performance gap jumps as high as 16.85 percent at the 3840 x 2160 resolution.

However, it's hard to assess a graphics card's performance by a single benchmark. We would need to submit the Radeon RX 590 to more tests. Still, if these numbers prove accurate, this is does look like a promising start for AMD's upcoming refresh.

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Zhiye Liu
Zhiye Liu
News Editor and Memory Reviewer

Zhiye Liu is a news editor and memory reviewer at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

45 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Brian_R170
    1. Is it faster than the new GTX 1060 with GDDR5X?
    2. Does it still consume 50% more power than the GTX 1060?
    Reply
  • King_V
    Huh... I had my doubts. I wanted this refresh to be a real thing, but was really wondering if it was just wishful thinking.

    But it looks like it may be legit, now. I hope.


    In any case, when testing cards, is it possible to add ultrawide resolutions to the mix of benchmarks?

    I don't know how widespread it actually is for gaming, but I imagine there are a number of 2560x1080 and 3440x1440 users out there these days.

    I've generally been guesstinating that
    2560x1080 would be about 3/4 of the frame rate of 1920x1080
    3440x1440 would be about 3/4 of 2560x1440
    3840x1600 would be about 4/3 of 3840x2160

    However, I'm pretty sure that estimating it as "proportional to the number of pixels" is probably extremely questionable, accuracy-wise.


    But I can't be the only one interested in seeing ultrawide resolutions included in the benchmarks, can I?
    Reply
  • King_V
    21434447 said:
    1. Is it faster than the new GTX 1060 with GDDR5X?
    2. Does it still consume 50% more power than the GTX 1060?


    This actually brings up something else I'm interested in. Once all these cards are out and available, a performance roundup, with current drivers, of all 5 variants of the 1060, and including the RX 570, 580, and 590. Ideally with both 4 and 8GB variants of the 570 and 580, so we can get a real picture of where and how the VRAM limit becomes an issue (something that really hurts the 3GB variant of the 1060, on certain games - we know this with Nvidia, but where does the having only 4GB vs 8GB come into play for AMD cards?)

    As to the second point, the added power consumption, while not a good look for AMD, may pale alongside the fact that it works with FreeSync.

    I was actually considering a GTX 1070 for my son's computer, but may consider the RX 590 as my son's monitor is a 34" LG ultrawide (2560x1080) with FreeSync in the range of 50-144, and the LFC feature.
    Reply
  • jimmysmitty
    21434447 said:
    1. Is it faster than the new GTX 1060 with GDDR5X?
    2. Does it still consume 50% more power than the GTX 1060?

    Thats what I was wondering as the new GTX 1060 will be its main competition. AMD really needs to get something more competitive in the high end TBH. Otherwise we wont see price drops again.
    Reply
  • FFH
    "Just buy it" - Tom's Hardware

    I know someone was going to post this, so I might as well do it.
    Reply
  • bloodroses
    I wonder how it compares to a 1070 or 1070ti since that's what the 2060 is rumored to perform at
    Reply
  • tim.hotze
    If this is based on a 12nm shrink of the 580, which itself is essentially a binned 480, it means that AMD will still be iterating off of a design that was available for sale in June 2016. You don't spend the money for the shrink for a "bridge" product that will be on shelves for a few months - so it probably means it'll be well over 3 years before AMD has any "new" technology in the sub-$400 market. (The cost of HBM2 really ties their hands with lowering prices on Vega.)
    Reply
  • King_V
    21434635 said:
    I wonder how it compares to a 1070 or 1070ti since that's what the 2060 is rumored to perform at

    This article made no mention of the RTX 2060 (unreleased, and no real mention from Nvidia) at all. This is completely irrelevant to the article. If any RTX 2060 comes out, it's extremely likely that it would carry similar price to the current 1070/1070Ti.

    The "new" GTX 1060 that people are referring to is the GDDR5X equipped version that uses a cut down GP104 rather than a GP106.
    Reply
  • cryoburner
    21434747 said:
    If this is based on a 12nm shrink of the 580, which itself is essentially a binned 480, it means that AMD will still be iterating off of a design that was available for sale in June 2016. You don't spend the money for the shrink for a "bridge" product that will be on shelves for a few months - so it probably means it'll be well over 3 years before AMD has any "new" technology in the sub-$400 market. (The cost of HBM2 really ties their hands with lowering prices on Vega.)
    The same goes for Nvidia. The GTX 1060 came out around the same time, and now we're getting another, slightly faster 1060. Yawn. Between mining messing up prices in the first half of the year, and incredibly mediocre graphics card launches in the second half, 2019 2018 must be one of the worst years on record for graphics cards. These cards are already well over 2 years old and still seeing minor refreshes at similar price points. And even if Nvidia launches a "2060" within the next few months, I certainly wouldn't expect much more than 1070 performance, likely at around 1070 pricing, seeing how their recently launched RTX cards have shifted product names to higher price points, without providing any substantial boost to performance in existing games.

    I suspect AMD may launch the RX 590 for around $250 though, and adjust pricing of their existing lineup accordingly. Already, you can find some RX 580 8GB cards for not much more than $200 after rebate, and RX 570s for as little as $150 after rebate. That could still allow for the possibility of them launching a new 7nm card for around $350 or so early next year.
    Reply
  • TJ Hooker
    21434447 said:
    1. Is it faster than the new GTX 1060 with GDDR5X?
    2. Does it still consume 50% more power than the GTX 1060?
    Sort of tangential, but as a little PSA I just wanted to mention that the power consumption of Polaris cards (and AMD cards in general) can often be improved significantly through undervolting (with no detriment, or even a small improvement, to performance). Not that it's going to catch up to a 1060 in terms of efficiency, but it narrows the gap a bit.
    Reply