AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 Comparison

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 and AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT represent two distant corners of GPU history, with eleven years and entirely different design philosophies separating their releases. The GTX 590 was a dual-GPU flagship from the Fermi 2.0 era, while the RX 6500 XT is a modern entry-level part built on RDNA 2.0. The benchmark data shows a decisive overall victory for the newer card, but the story is more nuanced than a simple score comparison, given the GTX 590's age, its massive power draw, and the complete absence of modern feature support.

The Verdict

The data points to a clear recommendation for the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT for virtually any modern use case. In the only directly comparable benchmark, Geekbench OpenCL, the RX 6500 XT scores 48,289 against the GTX 590's 12,830, a lead of 73.4%. This is not a marginal improvement; it is a generational leap in raw compute performance. The RX 6500 XT also boasts a much lower TDP of 107 W compared to 365 W, making it a far more practical choice for system builders. The GTX 590's launch MSRP was 699 USD, while the RX 6500 XT launched at 199 USD, though pricing considerations are secondary to the sheer performance gap.

However, the GTX 590 is not without its historical merits. Its 1,244.2 GFLOPS FP32 performance in 2011 was substantial, and its 3,000 million transistors on a 520 mm² die represented the peak of NVIDIA's 40 nm process capabilities. For a collector or someone building a period-correct system, the GTX 590 holds value as a piece of hardware history. Yet, for anyone expecting to run contemporary software, the RX 6500 XT is the only rational choice. Its support for DirectX 12 Ultimate, Vulkan 1.4, and hardware ray tracing via 16 RT cores places it in a completely different league of compatibility and future-proofing. The GTX 590's DirectX 12 (11_0) support and lack of Vulkan support make it effectively obsolete for modern game engines.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU is faster in Geekbench OpenCL?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT is decisively faster, scoring 48,289 compared to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590's 12,830. This represents a performance delta of 73.4% in favor of the RX 6500 XT.

Q: How do these cards compare in terms of power consumption?

A: The RX 6500 XT has a TDP of 107 W, while the GTX 590 has a TDP of 365 W. The newer card also requires only a single 6-pin power connector and a 300 W suggested PSU, whereas the GTX 590 needs two 8-pin connectors and a 750 W suggested PSU.

Q: Which card supports newer graphics APIs?

A: The RX 6500 XT supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4. The GTX 590 is limited to DirectX 12 (11_0) and has no listed Vulkan support, making it incompatible with many modern titles.

Q: What is the memory configuration difference?

A: The GTX 590 has 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory on a 384-bit bus, yielding 164.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The RX 6500 XT has 4 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 64-bit bus, providing 143.9 GB/s of bandwidth.

Q: How does the RX 6500 XT compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The RX 6500 XT's average benchmark score of 11,842 places it 1% behind the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 and 1.3% behind the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960A, while it is 1.4% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 and 1.9% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT.

Q: Does the GTX 590 have any modern features like ray tracing?

A: No. The GTX 590 has no RT cores or tensor cores listed, and its architecture predates ray tracing acceleration. The RX 6500 XT includes 16 RT cores, providing hardware support for ray-traced effects.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gulf between these two GPUs is vast, stemming from over a decade of evolution. The GTX 590 is built on NVIDIA's Fermi 2.0 architecture, a design from 2011 that used TSMC's 40 nm process node. It packed 3,000 million transistors into a massive 520 mm² die, resulting in a transistor density of just 5.8M per mm². In contrast, the RX 6500 XT uses AMD's RDNA 2.0 architecture on a modern 6 nm process, fitting 5,400 million transistors into a much smaller 107 mm² die, achieving a density of 50.5M per mm². This density difference alone explains the massive efficiency gains.

The GTX 590 was a dual-GPU card, effectively two GF110 chips on one board, which explains its 365 W TDP and dual-slot cooler with two 8-pin power connectors. The RX 6500 XT is a single-die part using the Navi 24 chip, with a much more modest 107 W TDP. The newer card also introduces hardware ray tracing via 16 RT cores, a feature completely absent from the Fermi architecture. The RX 6500 XT supports DirectX 12 Ultimate and Vulkan 1.4, while the GTX 590 only manages DirectX 12 (11_0) with no Vulkan support, reflecting the different eras of graphics API development.

Specification Differences

The specification sheets reveal stark contrasts in almost every category. The GTX 590 has 512 shading units, 64 TMUs, and 48 ROPs, while the RX 6500 XT has 1024 shading units, 64 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The newer card's shading unit count is double, yet its ROP count is lower, reflecting a different balance of compute versus rasterization work. The GTX 590's pixel rate is 19.46 GPixel/s, while the RX 6500 XT achieves 90.08 GPixel/s — a 4.6x advantage. Texture rate tells a similar story: 38.91 GTexel/s versus 180.2 GTexel/s.

Clock speeds are dramatically different. The GTX 590 has no listed base or boost clocks, only a memory clock of 854 MHz (3.4 Gbps effective). The RX 6500 XT runs at a 2310 MHz base, 2610 MHz game, and 2815 MHz boost clock, with memory at 2248 MHz (18 Gbps effective). Memory capacity and bus width also differ: 1536 MB on a 384-bit bus for the GTX 590 versus 4 GB on a 64-bit bus for the RX 6500 XT. Interestingly, the GTX 590's wider bus gives it higher bandwidth (164.0 GB/s) than the RX 6500 XT's 143.9 GB/s, despite the newer card's faster memory type.

The bus interface is another key divergence. The GTX 590 uses PCIe 2.0 x16, while the RX 6500 XT uses PCIe 4.0 x4. The RX 6500 XT also has modern display outputs (1x HDMI 2.1 and 1x DisplayPort 1.4a), whereas the GTX 590 offers 3x DVI and 1x mini-DisplayPort. The GTX 590's dimensions are listed at 279 mm length, 111 mm height, and 40 mm width, while the RX 6500 XT has no listed dimensions.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only directly comparable benchmark between the two cards is Geekbench OpenCL, and the results are lopsided. The RX 6500 XT scores 48,289, while the GTX 590 scores 12,830, giving the AMD card a 73.4% advantage. This single data point is telling, as OpenCL performance often correlates with general compute workloads rather than pure gaming. The RX 6500 XT's additional benchmark scores paint a fuller picture: it achieves 54,724 in Geekbench Vulkan, 9,608 in Passmark G3D, and 4,456 in Passmark GPU Compute.

The GTX 590's single benchmark score of 12,830 places it at the 52nd percentile of all GPUs, while the RX 6500 XT's average score of 11,842 puts it at the 51st percentile. This near-identical percentile ranking is misleading, as the GTX 590's percentile is based on its one score, while the RX 6500 XT's is an average across ten different tests. The nearest rivals for the GTX 590 include the AMD Radeon Pro 455 (0% delta), AMD FirePro W5100 (-0.1%), and AMD Radeon 740M (-0.3%). The RX 6500 XT's rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (-1%), NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960A (-1.3%), and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 (+1.4%).

Where Each One Wins

The RX 6500 XT wins in nearly every measurable category that matters for modern use. It dominates in raw compute, with 5.765 TFLOPS FP32 versus the GTX 590's 1,244.2 GFLOPS — a 4.6x advantage. It also offers 11.53 TFLOPS FP16 (2:1), which the GTX 590 lacks entirely. The newer card's pixel rate and texture rate are both over 4.6x higher, indicating far superior fill-rate performance. Its 16 RT cores provide hardware ray tracing, a feature the GTX 590 cannot offer at any performance level. The RX 6500 XT also supports modern APIs like DirectX 12 Ultimate and Vulkan 1.4, making it compatible with current and upcoming game engines.

The GTX 590's wins are limited to historical or niche areas. It has a wider 384-bit memory bus, giving it higher peak bandwidth (164.0 GB/s) than the RX 6500 XT's 143.9 GB/s, despite the latter's faster GDDR6 memory. The GTX 590 also has more ROPs (48 versus 32), which could theoretically benefit certain legacy rasterization workloads. Its 3x DVI output configuration might appeal to someone connecting older monitors without adapters. However, these advantages are dwarfed by the practical realities of power draw (365 W versus 107 W) and the complete lack of modern feature support. For anyone building a system today, the RX 6500 XT is the only viable choice; the GTX 590 remains a relic best suited for retro computing enthusiasts.