GeForce GTX 590: specs and benchmarks

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Aggregate performance score

GeForce GTX 590 provides poor gaming and benchmark performance at 8.69% of a leader's which is GeForce RTX 4090.

Summary

NVIDIA started GeForce GTX 590 sales 24 March 2011 at a recommended price of $699 . This is a desktop graphics card based on a Fermi 2.0 architecture and made with 40 nm manufacturing process. It is primarily aimed at gamer market. 3072 MB (1536 MB per GPU) of GDDR5 memory clocked at 1.71 GHz are supplied, and together with 768-bit (384-bit per GPU) memory interface this creates a bandwidth of 327.7 GB/s.

Compatibility-wise, this is a dual-slot graphics card attached via PCIe 2.0 x16 interface. Its manufacturer default version has a length of 279 mm. Two 8-pin power connectors are required, and power consumption is at 365 Watt.

Primary details

Some basic facts about GeForce GTX 590: architecture, market segment, release date etc.

Place in the ranking496
Place by popularitynot in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation0.78
Power efficiency1.64of 100.00 (Radeon 890M)
ArchitectureFermi 2.0 (2010−2014)
GPU code nameGF110
Market segmentDesktop
Release date24 March 2011 (13 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$699 of 14,999 (Quadro Plex 7000)

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

Detailed specifications

GeForce GTX 590's specs such as number of shaders, GPU base clock, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of GeForce GTX 590's performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider its benchmark and gaming test results.

Pipelines / CUDA cores1024of 21760 (GeForce RTX 5090)
Core clock speed607 MHzof 2670 MHz (Arc B580)
Number of transistors3,000 millionof 208,000 million (B200 SXM 192 GB)
Manufacturing process technology40 nmof 3 nm (Arc Graphics 140V)
Power consumption (TDP)365 Wattof 2400 Watt (Data Center GPU Max Subsystem)
Maximum GPU temperature97 °C
Texture fill rate38.91of 2,554 (Radeon Instinct MI300X)
Floating-point processing power1.244 TFLOPSof 104.8 (GeForce RTX 5090)
ROPs48of 192 (Radeon RX 7900 XTX)
TMUs64of 1280 (Data Center GPU Max NEXT)

Form factor & compatibility

This section provides details about the physical dimensions of GeForce GTX 590 and its compatibility with other computer components. This information is useful when selecting a computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards, it includes details about the interface and bus (for motherboard compatibility) and additional power connectors (for power supply compatibility).

Bus support16x PCI-E 2.0
InterfacePCIe 2.0 x16
Length279 mm
Height4.376" (111 mm) (11.1 cm)
Width2-slot
Supplementary power connectors2x 8-pin
SLI options+

VRAM capacity and type

Parameters of memory installed on GeForce GTX 590: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Note that GPUs integrated into processors have no dedicated memory and use a shared part of system RAM instead.

Memory typeGDDR5
Maximum RAM amount3072 MB (1536 MB per GPU)of 288 GB (Radeon Instinct MI325X)
Memory bus width768-bit (384-bit per GPU)of 8192 Bit (Radeon Instinct MI250X)
Memory clock speed1707 MHzof 20000 (RTX 5000 Ada Generation Mobile)
Memory bandwidth327.7 GB/sof 5,171 GB/s (Radeon Instinct MI300X)
Shared memory-

Connectivity and outputs

Types and number of video connectors present on GeForce GTX 590. As a rule, this section is relevant only for desktop reference graphics cards, since for notebook ones the availability of certain video outputs depends on the laptop model, while non-reference desktop models can (though not necessarily will) bear a different set of video ports.

Display ConnectorsThree Dual Link DVI-IMini DisplayPort
Multi monitor support+
HDMI+
Maximum VGA resolution2048x1536
Audio input for HDMIInternal

API compatibility

APIs supported by GeForce GTX 590, sometimes including their particular versions.

DirectX12 (11_0)
Shader Model5.1
OpenGL4.2of 4.6 (GeForce RTX 4090)
OpenCL1.1
VulkanN/A
CUDA+

Benchmark performance

Synthetic benchmark performance of GeForce GTX 590. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.


Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

GTX 590 8.69

Passmark

This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various types of load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.

GTX 590 3341

3DMark 11 Performance GPU

3DMark 11 is an obsolete DirectX 11 benchmark by Futuremark. It used four tests based on two scenes, one being few submarines exploring the submerged wreck of a sunken ship, the other is an abandoned temple deep in the jungle. All the tests are heavy with volumetric lighting and tessellation, and despite being done in 1280x720 resolution, are relatively taxing. Discontinued in January 2020, 3DMark 11 is now superseded by Time Spy.

GTX 590 9167

3DMark Vantage Performance

3DMark Vantage is an outdated DirectX 10 benchmark using 1280x1024 screen resolution. It taxes the graphics card with two scenes, one depicting a girl escaping some militarized base located within a sea cave, the other displaying a space fleet attack on a defenseless planet. It was discontinued in April 2017, and Time Spy benchmark is now recommended to be used instead.

GTX 590 25720

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics

Fire Strike is a DirectX 11 benchmark for gaming PCs. It features two separate tests displaying a fight between a humanoid and a fiery creature made of lava. Using 1920x1080 resolution, Fire Strike shows off some realistic graphics and is quite taxing on hardware.

GTX 590 6680

GeekBench 5 OpenCL

Geekbench 5 is a widespread graphics card benchmark combined from 11 different test scenarios. All these scenarios rely on direct usage of GPU's processing power, no 3D rendering is involved. This variation uses OpenCL API by Khronos Group.

GTX 590 12811

Gaming performance

Let's see how good GeForce GTX 590 is for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in frames per second. Comparisons with game system requirements are included, but remember that sometimes official requirements may reflect reality inaccurately.

Average FPS across all PC games

Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular modern games across different resolutions:

900p47
Full HD108
1200p112

Cost per frame, $

1080p6.47

FPS performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Counter-Strike 2 16−18
Cyberpunk 2077 16−18
Elden Ring 24−27

Full HD
Medium Preset

Battlefield 5 27−30
Counter-Strike 2 16−18
Cyberpunk 2077 16−18
Forza Horizon 4 35−40
Metro Exodus 21−24
Red Dead Redemption 2 24−27
Valorant 30−35

Full HD
High Preset

Battlefield 5 27−30
Counter-Strike 2 16−18
Cyberpunk 2077 16−18
Dota 2 30−35
Elden Ring 24−27
Far Cry 5 35−40
Fortnite 50−55
Forza Horizon 4 35−40
Grand Theft Auto V 30−35
Metro Exodus 21−24
PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS 65−70
Red Dead Redemption 2 24−27
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 24−27
Valorant 30−35
World of Tanks 120−130

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Battlefield 5 27−30
Counter-Strike 2 16−18
Cyberpunk 2077 16−18
Dota 2 30−35
Far Cry 5 35−40
Forza Horizon 4 35−40
PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS 65−70
Valorant 30−35

1440p
High Preset

Dota 2 10−11
Elden Ring 12−14
Grand Theft Auto V 10−12
PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS 40−45
Red Dead Redemption 2 7−8
World of Tanks 60−65

1440p
Ultra Preset

Battlefield 5 16−18
Counter-Strike 2 10−11
Cyberpunk 2077 6−7
Far Cry 5 18−20
Forza Horizon 4 18−20
Metro Exodus 14−16
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 10−11
Valorant 21−24

4K
High Preset

Counter-Strike 2 3−4
Dota 2 18−20
Elden Ring 5−6
Grand Theft Auto V 18−20
Metro Exodus 4−5
PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS 24−27
Red Dead Redemption 2 6−7
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 18−20

4K
Ultra Preset

Battlefield 5 7−8
Counter-Strike 2 3−4
Cyberpunk 2077 2−3
Dota 2 18−20
Far Cry 5 10−11
Fortnite 9−10
Forza Horizon 4 10−11
Valorant 8−9

Closest competitors

GeForce GTX 590's performance relative to its closest rivals among desktop graphics cards.


AMD equivalent

According to our data, the closest AMD alternative to GeForce GTX 590 is Radeon R7 260X, which is slower by 4% and lower by 10 positions in our ranking.

Here are some closest AMD rivals to GeForce GTX 590:

Radeon R7 265 120.14
Radeon RX 560 109.21
GeForce GTX 590 100

Similar GPUs

Here is our recommendation of several graphics cards that are more or less close in performance to the one reviewed.

Recommended processors

These processors are most commonly used with GeForce GTX 590 according to our statistics.

All comparisons with GeForce GTX 590

Community ratings

Here you can see the user rating of the graphics card, as well as rate it yourself.


3.8 49 votes

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Questions & comments

Here you can ask a question about GeForce GTX 590, agree or disagree with our judgements, or report an error or mismatch.