In this article, I’ll test out and compare 15 different games at 1080p and 1440p resolutions to help you see the performance difference between them, and find out which is better value for money. I’m using the XFX RX 590 FATBOY and AORUS GeForce GTX 1060 for this review.
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Expert Reviews For AMD RX 590
By PCGamesN
AMD’s RX 590, especially in this affordable PowerColor Red Devil trim, is the fastest sub-$300 graphics card. Though not much of an upgrade over its predecessory its existence helps make the case for buying an RX 580… at least while stocks last.By TomsHardware
The new Radeon RX 590 beats Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1060 6GB across our benchmark suite at 1920 x 1080 and 2560 x 1440. However, AMD took a truncheon to the card’s power limit in order to motivate its Polaris GPU. We think you’re better off scooping up great deals on older Radeon RX 580 8GB cards for high-quality gaming at FHD.By HotHardware
Ultimately, if you’re budgeting less than $300 for a GPU, the Radeon RX 590 is arguably the best overall choice at this time. It’s the strongest performer in the category and multiple AAA games are being tossed in for good measure.By Hexus
The Radeon RX 590 represents a relatively quick method of gaining an extra 10 per cent performance over the RX 580(X). And given its similar pricing, the RX 590 is generally ahead of the GTX 1060 6GB.By PCWorld
The XFX Radeon RX 590 Fatboy uses brute force and an improved 12nm process to muscle past Nvidia’s GTX 1060, but it doesn’t displace the RX 580 completely.By Bit-Tech
Coming back to the chubster, XFX’s Fatboy card is, honestly, nothing special, but we have to give it kudos for coming in at £250 with an overclock applied – even if it creeps to around £270 it wouldn’t be a bad deal, especially with those three games thrown in. Instinct tells us that other coolers will do better than this one, which is semi-skimmed at best, but we may be proven wrong, and there’s no guarantee they’ll be as cheap. It’s the value that really earns this card its Recommended badge (plus it’s our first RX 590), but it’s well worth seeing what competing cards bring to the table too.By Kitguru
AMD has tweaked Polaris with a 12nm die shrink and gained a useful ten percent extra performance.By PCGamer
The Radeon RX 590 brings modest improvements to the midrange sector, and despite the price increase, it’s the sensible alternative to Nvidia’s RTX…By Phoronix
When looking at the geometric mean of all the OpenCL benchmarks carried out, the Radeon VII was 12% faster than the GeForce RTX 2080 and a 52% improvement in compute performance compared to the Radeon RX Vega 64.I haven’t had any time yet to see how the…By Venture Beat
If you’re upgrading your PC this holiday, I would probably recommend the RX 590 to you. That’s especially true if you have an older monitor or plan to upgrade soon. If you have a Gsync display already, go ahead and stick with Nvidia. You won’t regret…By AnandTech
But returning to the Radeon RX 590, it applies pressure to the GTX 1060 6GB and older GTX 900 series cards, while avoiding direct pressure on existing RX 580 inventory by virtue of pricing. And right now, without anything to compete with the GTX 1080 Ti/RTX 2070 range or above, AMD is likely more than happy to take any advantage where they can. For now, though, much depends on the pricing of top-end RX 580s.By RockPaperShotgun
If you’re still knocking around 1920×1080, however, the RX 590 doesn’t really have that much more to offer in terms of 60fps performance beyond a bit of future-proofing for when you eventually decide to upgrade your monitor’s resolution. Instead, you might as well save your pennies and get either the RX 580 or GTX 1060 if you can find one for less, or go for the even cheaper Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050Ti if you’re not particularly fussed about having max graphics quality.Expert Reviews For Nvidia GTX 1060
By ExpertReviews
A gaming card that looks cool while keeping cool and pumping out polygons like no tomorrow.By TrustedReviews
The RX 590 is not a bad product, it’s just got the wrong price sticker. If you’re in the market for a new graphics card these holidays, there are plenty of GPUs on offer at attractive prices which is a welcome change from where we were a year ago.By Guruof3D
A strange amalgamation of high-end features and looks tied down by a mainstream GPU option and a weak lid. The current iteration of the Legion Y730 could use an update sooner rather than later in regards to its chassis rigidity and GPU options.By PCWorld
We do know that GPUs are currently extremely difficult to get hold of due to this insane mining craze that’s going on, but if you were to buy a card… it really is a toss up between this and the GTX 1060, be it a STRIX model or something else. As Gavin clearly stated, if you can grab yourself an RX 480 for cheaper, you may as well go ahead and do that. If you can’t, then this one will suit you just fine as well.By GameAxis
The Asus ROG Strix Radeon RX 580 TOP Edition 8GB is one of the most expensive Radeon RX 580 cards available, but offers excellent performance delivering similar overall frame rates to an overclocked Nvidia GTX 1060, although this will of course depend on which games you play. The board offers superb build quality and a great selection of features including programmable lighting effects and bundled overclocking software. It’s sheer size may be a problem for some smaller cases, however, and audible coil whine can occasionally spoil the experience.By TechPowerUp
Undoubtedly this isn’t the card we expected AMD to launch right now. The RX 580, is no Titan killer, nor does it change the GPU ecosphere in any meaningful way, however it just slips in, taking back that value crown, away from Nvidia’s GTX 1060.By TheTechReport
Those who do not want an Nvidia GPU and are on the lookout for a good graphics card that costs no more than 300 Euros (~$344) will not be disappointed with the Asus ROG Strix Radeon RX 580. Besides the good cooling solution, the GPU also features eye-catching RGB effects.
Pros and Cons Listed:
[joomdev-wpc-pros-cons disable_title=”no” wpc_style=”wppc-view1″ title_tag=”H3″ title=”AMD RX 590″ pros_title=”Pros” cons_title=”Cons” button_text=”Get it now” disable_button=”yes” button_link=”” button_link_target=”_SELF” button_rel_attr=”dofollow”][joomdev-wpc-pros]- Great 1080p performance
- Improved clockspeed and efficiency
- Strong game bundle
- Minor upgrade over the 580
- Higher price than the 580
- Not as power efficient as Nvidia
- Brilliant 1080p performance
- Solid 1440p performance
- Great overclocker
- GTX 980-matching
- No SLI compatibility
- Founder’s Edition price
Detailed Review and Comparison:
Above we have shown the overview and depth specifications of both the graphics card. Now, we are sharing the full review and in-depth comparison of both graphics cards.
QUICK SPECS: RX 590 vs GTX 1060 |
GTX 1060 |
RX 590 |
| 1280 Cuda Cores | 2304 Stream Processors |
| 1506 Base Clock | 1469 MHz Base Clock |
| 1708 Boost Clock | 1545 MHz Boost Clock |
| 6GB GDDR5 Memory | 8GB GDDR5 Memory |
| 8GBPS Memory Speed | 8GBPS Memory Speed |
| 192 GB/S Memory Bandwidth | 256 GB/S Memory Bandwidth |
| 192 – Bit Memory Interface | 256 – Bit Memory Interface |
Let’s quickly take a look at how these two cards differ in terms of specs, note that things like Cuda cores and stream processors are not directly comparable, even clock speeds aren’t too comparable here given both are different architectures. It’s worth noting the GTX 1060 is available in both 3GB and 6GB versions, I’ve got a 6GB one. And RX 590 is only available in a 8GB version.
PERFORMANCE: RX 590 vs GTX 1060 |
For the testing, I’m using the XFX RX 590 FATBOY and AORUS GeForce GTX 1060, expect slightly different results with different models.
The system that I’m testing with has an Intel i7-8700K CPU overclocked to 5.0GHz in an MSI Z390 ACE motherboard, along with 32GB of Vengeance DDR4 memory. The same Windows updates and game updates were used for testing, and for drivers, I’m using the newest available at the time of testing. Now let’s see the results.
Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
Let’s start out Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, which was tested with High settings. In terms of average FPS, the GTX 1060 is 7FPS ahead of the RX 590 at 1080p. At 1440p, GTX 1060 is 3FPS ahead. It’s worth noting that there was only a 4FPS difference.
Battlefield 1
Battlefield 1 was tested with the built-in benchmark using Ultra settings and saw the small difference between them. At 1080p the RX 590 was just 5FPS ahead of the GTX 1060, rising to a slight 5FPS improvement at 1440p.
Battlefield 5
Battlefield 5 was tested in campaign mode rather than multiplayer, as it’s easier to consistently reproduce the test run. The 590 was dominating here. At 1080p the 590 was performing 16FPS better, then 11FPS better at 1440p.
Stars Wars Battlefront 2
Stars Wars Battlefront 2 was tested using the built-in benchmark with high settings, and we’re seeing a 4FPS performance boost with the GTX 1060 at 1080p, rising up to 3FPS higher FPS at 1440p.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided was also tested using the built-in benchmark with high settings. At 1080p the RX 590 was just 9FPS ahead of the GTX 1060, rising to 11% at 1440p.
Dirt 4
Dirt 4 was tested using the replay feature with the exact same replay on both graphics cards. The RX 590 was again ahead here, though 28 FPS higher at 1080p, rising up to a higher 21FPS improvement at 1440p.
F1 2018
F1 2018 was tested with the built-in benchmark at Ultra settings. Most parts of the game perform a fair bit better than this, so don’t take these results as a good indication of what to expect throughout the entire game, it’s more of a worst-case, it does, however, allow me to perform an accurate comparison. At 1080p there was a 4FPS improvement with the GTX 1060, rising up to a 5FPS increase at 1440p.
Far cry 5
Far cry 5 was also tested using the built-in benchmark with high settings, and with a 1080p resolution the RX 590 was coming out 5FPS ahead of the GTX 1060, and then once stepping up to 1440p there was a slightly 3FPS more with the RX 590.
Forza Horizon 4
Forza Horizon 4 was tested using the built-in benchmark at Ultra settings. This is a game that I’ve found to perform better with AMD however, it also seems to do well with NVIDIA graphics, so the result is 13FPS at 1080p with the RX 590. At 1440p, RX 590 was 10FPS ahead of GTX 1060.
Far Honor
Far Honor was tested with the Ulletical FPS benchmark, and like many of my other comparisons, there was less of a difference between the two here. The RX 590 was ahead at both resolutions. However, RX 590 was just 2FPS ahead at 1080p, and there was no difference at 1440p.
Hitman 2
Hitman 2 was tested in the practice range as I can easily perform the same test run compared to playing with bots or other players which will vary every time. There was quite a nice improvement with the RX 590 here, which was giving me 12FPS higher at 1080p, and 7FPS higher at 1440p.
Monster Hunter: World
Monster Hunter: World was tested using the replay feature with the exact same replay at high settings, and both cards were not capable of hitting the 60 FPS at 1080p, though the RX 590 was ahead in all aspects. At 1080p the RX 590 was 5FPS ahead of the GTX 1060, rising to a 2FPS lead at 1440p.
Prey
Prey is a resource-intensive game and was tested with very high settings. In my opinion, this one doesn’t need a high frame rate to play, I can get by with a solid 30 FPS, so it wasn’t actually too bad with both of them.
Project Cars 2
Project Cars 2 was tested with the built-in benchmark and high settings in use, and is another resource-heavy game. Both the graphics card presenting the same FPS at 1080p. And at 1440p, the RX 590 was just 1FPS ahead.
Witcher 3
The Witcher 3 was tested with Hairworks disabled. At 1080p the RX 590 was achieving 57FPS, however, GTX 1060 was 1FPS ahead. At 1440p, the result was unbelievable, RX 590 was 1FPS ahead than GTX 1060.
Overall Performance Winner: RX 590
In terms of overall improvement, overall 15 games tested with a 1080p resolution on average, the AMD RX 590 was performing better when compared with Nvidia’s GTX 1060 in terms of average FPS. At 1440p on average over the same 15 games, the RX 590 was now scoring a little higher compared to the 1080p results just shown.
CONCLUSION & PRICING |
Now for the main difference, the price. I suggest checking updated prices, as prices will change over time. The GTX 1060 was launched on 19 July 2016 at $249 and can currently be bought for that price on the low end. The RX 590, on the other hand, has been out on 15 November 2018, and while it’s performing better and it’s also cost $20 more. With these numbers, the entry-level RX 590 costs 15% more money while performing well as we just saw.
The AMD RX 590 is the clear winner here, for just $20 more you get the better performance. The GTX 1060 does have the advantage of less power draw, but that seems to be about it, and the no 6 pin power connector thing in some niche use cases
SHOPPING SHORTCUTS: |
AMD RX 590 Graphics Cards: |
| Sapphire Radeon Nitro+ RX 590 |
| Gigabyte Radeon Rx 590 |
| XFX Radeon Rx 590 Fatboy |
| MSI Gaming Radeon Rx 590 |
Nvidia GTX 1060 Graphics Cards: |
| ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1060 |
| PNY GeForce GTX 1060 |
| MSI GAMING GeForce GTX 1060 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1060 |
