GeForce GTX 970 vs Radeon RX 590

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon RX 590, which has GPU core speed of 1469 MHz, and 8192 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 2000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 2304 Stream Processors, 144 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
Radeon RX 590		175 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (21%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon RX 590 should perform a small bit faster than the GeForce GTX 970 in general. (explain)

Radeon RX 590		262144 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
	Difference: 38144 (17%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 590 is quite a bit (approximately 94%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 970. (explain)

Radeon RX 590		211536 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 102336 (94%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 970 is superior to the Radeon RX 590, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		67200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon RX 590		47008 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20192 (43%)

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.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.