Radeon RX 590 vs Geforce 1060GTX
Nvidia owns the high end gaming video card market, but when it comes to middle or budget cards, AMD's Radeon RX cards are highly competitive with Nvidia. The new AMD Radeon RX 590 GPU is targeted to take on the mid-range Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 cards. AMD comes in with newer technology, faster performance compared to their RX580 GPUS but comes at a higher price now.
Features
In terms of features, AMD trades off a slower GPU for faster and more memory. The AMD also features newer manufacturing techniques by employing 12nm chips vs 16nm chips used by Nvidia. The Radeon RX 590 comes to us with 8GB of GDDR5 memory running at 256GB/s memory bandwidth. Nvidia's GTX 1060 comes in with 6GB or GDDR memory running at 8GB/s. Nvidia's GTX 1060 GPU clocks in at 1506Mhz base clock with a 1708Mhz boost clock. AMD RX 590's GPU clocks in at 1469MHz base clock and 1545Mhz boost clock. AMD also employs what they call WattMan tuning technology to adjust the CPU on the fly to get the best balance of power and performance but still consumes more power than the GTX 1069.
Performance
Besides Grand Theft Auto V, running at 1920x1080 resolution Radeon takes a slight edge when it comes to gaming performance. In Battlefield, running at 1920x1080 resolution, the AMD pulled 92.5fps as opposed to 81.6fps for Nvidia. In Grand Theft Auto V, running at 1920x1080 resolution, Nvidia pulled 68.6fps compared to 57.1 for the AMD. Grand Theft Auto V running 2560x1440, AMD takes the lead with 73.1fps vs 70.9fps for Nvidia. For Wolfenstein II, Call of Duty Black Ops 4, and Forza Horizon 4, AMD had a slight advantage over Nvidia in terms of frame rate
Value
The Radeon RX 500 costs slightly less at $290 than the Geforce GTX1060, which costs $300. While this may seem to be a no brainer at first, lower cost and faster performance, there are other considerations to take into account. The Radeon draws 230W of power while the Nvidia draws 120W. This means that the Radeon will require a larger power supply compared to the Nvidia. The cost of the power although it may seem trivial, is also a consideration unless you don't pay for electricity. If you spend 3 hours a day gaming, the Radeon will draw about 294KWH in a year while the Nvidia would draw about 166KWH.
Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1060 is built on Nvidia's Pascal GPU architecture, and it was a great value when it came to market. Now that AMD has a strong rival at a similar price, the GTX 1060 is less attractive. GTX 1060 6GB cards can be bought for for as little as $230, which would be a great bargain and worthy of your attention. But some GTX 1060 models sell for $300. AMD's new RX 590 slots right in the middle at $279.