NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 (Desktop) vs AMD Radeon RX 590 (Desktop) vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (Desktop)

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 (Desktop)

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 is an entry level graphics card for desktops based on the Pascal architecture. It uses the same GP107 chip as the GTX 1050 Ti, but with only 640 instead of 768 shaders. The chip is manufactured at Samsung in 14 nm (opposed to the 16 nm TSCM based Pascal chips of the 1060 and up). The performance and specs should be similar to the GTX 1050 laptop version, that will be released later (early 2017). Compared to the faster GTX 1050 Ti, the 1050 offers less shaders (640 instead of 768) and only 2 GB of GDDR5 (instead of the 4 GB of the 1050 Ti).

Gaming benchmarks by Nvidia state that the GTX 1050 is about 30% faster on average than the Radeon RX 460 with 2 GB VRAM. The 4 GB version of the RX 460 should be about 10% slower and the older GTX 950 should reach a similar performance level as the new GTX 1050. Therefore, the GTX 1050 should be ideal for 1080p gaming with high detail settings (but not max settings).

AMD Radeon RX 590 (Desktop)

The AMD Radeon RX 590 is a desktop graphics card positioned in the mid-range of 2018. It is manufactured in 12nm and offers 2,304 shader cores and 8 GB GDDR5 VRAM using a 256 Bit memory interface (8 GHz, 256 GB/s).

The RX590 uses the new Polaris 30 chip, which is a 12nm version of the Polaris 20 chip of the RX 580. Thanks to the improved process, the clock rates of the RX 590 can be higher at a similar power consumption. 

This leads to a 10 percent higher performance compared against the older Radeon RX 580 and therefore the RX 590 is faster than the GeForce GTX 1060. This means that the card is best suited for 1080p gaming in max. details (of 2018 games).

The power consumption is rated at 175 Watt and therefore 10 Watts below the Radeon RX 580 (185 Watt).

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (Desktop)

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 is a graphics card for desktops and high end laptops (upcoming, see our article for the mobile GTX 1060 for benchmarks and specs). It is based on the Pascal architecture and manufactured in 16 nm FinFET at TSMC. The GPU is be based on the smaller GP106 chip. In laptops it has the codename N17E-G1 and will be the successor to the old GTX 970M (predecessor). The laptop version should be launched in August 2016. The desktop version is already out.

The performance of the 6 GB version is on par with an older GeForce GTX 980 (desktop and laptop). Therefore, 1080p gaming at highest detail is currently the best use case for the card. A comprehensive review of the desktop GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition with 6 GB GDDR5 can be found here. Beware, the upcoming 3 GB desktop variant should feature 128 shader less but clocked slightly higher. Still the performance should be definately slower than the 6 GB version.