Graphics card comparison
GeForce GTX 590 vs Radeon R9 290
Nvidia
GeForce GTX 590
1536 Mb GDDR5
Released 24 Mar 2011
DESKTOP
VS
AMD
Radeon R9 290
4096 Mb GDDR5
Released 5 Nov 2013
DESKTOP
Summary
Synthetic performance index
- GeForce GTX 590100%
- Radeon R9 290158%
Relative performance
Gaming performance index
- GeForce GTX 590100%
- Radeon R9 290118%
Relative performance
Reasons to consider the GeForce GTX 590
- Supports PhysX
- Based on an outdated architecture (Nvidia Fermi), there are no performance optimizations for current games and applications
Reasons to consider the Radeon R9 290
- 18% higher gaming performance.
- 90 watts lower power draw. This might be a strong point if your current power supply is not enough to handle the GeForce GTX 590 .
- This is a much newer product, it might have better long term support.
- Supports Direct3D 12 Async Compute
- Supports FreeSync
- Supports ReLive (allows game streaming/recording with minimum performance penalty)
- Supports TrueAudio
- Based on an outdated architecture (AMD GCN), there may be no performance optimizations for current games and applications
Our verdict
HWSpot recommends the Radeon R9 290
The Radeon R9 290 is the better performing card based on the game benchmark suite used (2 combinations of games and resolutions).
Specifications
Core configuration
| GeForce GTX 590 | Radeon R9 290 |
|---|
| GPU Name | GF110 (GF110-351-A1) | Hawaii (Hawaii PRO) |
| Fab Process | 40 nm | 28 nm |
| Die Size | 520 mm² | 438 mm² |
| Transistors | 3,000 million | 6,200 million |
| Shaders | 512 | 2560 |
| Compute Units | 16 | 40 |
| Core clock | 608 MHz | 947 MHz |
| ROPs | 48 | 64 |
| TMUs | 64 | 160 |
Memory configuration
| GeForce GTX 590 | Radeon R9 290 |
|---|
| Memory Type | GDDR5 | GDDR5 |
| Bus Width | 384 bit x2 | 512 bit |
| Memory Speed | 854 MHz
3416 MHz effective | 1250 MHz
5000 MHz effective |
| Memory Size | 1536 Mb | 4096 Mb |
Additional details
| GeForce GTX 590 | Radeon R9 290 |
|---|
| TDP | 365 watts | 275 watts |
| Release Date | 24 Mar 2011 | 5 Nov 2013 |
Raw performance comparison
Pixel Rate
- GeForce GTX 59039.00 GP/s
- Radeon R9 29060.60 GP/s
GigaPixels - higher is better
Texel Rate
- GeForce GTX 59077.80 GT/s
- Radeon R9 290152.00 GT/s
GigaTexels - higher is better
Memory bandwidth
- GeForce GTX 590328.00 GB/s
- Radeon R9 290320.00 GB/s
GB/s - higher is better
Single precision performance
- GeForce GTX 5902488.00 GFLOPs
- Radeon R9 2904849.00 GFLOPs
GFLOPs - higher is better
Synthetic benchmarks
3DMark 11
- GeForce GTX 5909740
- Radeon R9 29015440
Points (higher is better)
Game benchmarks
Crysis 3
DX11,Very High Quality, FXAA
- GeForce GTX 59047
- Radeon R9 29053
FPS (higher is better)
Medal Of Honor Warfighter
DX11, Ultra Quality, 4xMSAA
- GeForce GTX 59062
- Radeon R9 29077
FPS (higher is better)