GeForce GTX 1060 3GB vs GeForce GTX 590

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 590, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 607 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 855 MHz on this particular card. It features 512 SPUs along with 64 Texture Address Units and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		12185 points
GeForce GTX 590		6680 points
	Difference: 5505 (82%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		120 Watts
GeForce GTX 590		365 Watts
	Difference: 245 Watts (204%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 590 is 67% faster than the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		328320 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		196608 MB/sec
	Difference: 131712 (67%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB will be much (approximately 40%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 590. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		108432 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 590		77696 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 30736 (40%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB should be quite a bit (about 24%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 590, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		72288 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 590		58272 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14016 (24%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.