GeForce GTX 590 vs GeForce RTX 3060

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce RTX 3060, which uses a 8 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 1320 MHz. The GDDR6 memory works at a speed of 1875 MHz on this model. It features 3584 SPUs along with 112 TAUs and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce RTX 3060		170 Watts
GeForce GTX 590		365 Watts
	Difference: 195 Watts (115%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce RTX 3060 should be a small bit faster than the GeForce GTX 590 overall. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3060		368640 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 590		328320 MB/sec
	Difference: 40320 (12%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce RTX 3060 will be a lot (about 90%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 590. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3060		147840 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 590		77696 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 70144 (90%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce RTX 3060 will be a bit (about 9%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 590, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3060		63360 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 590		58272 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5088 (9%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.