AMD Radeon RX 590 vs GeForce RTX 3050

We compared two discrete desktop gaming GPUs: the Radeon RX 590 with 2304 shaders against the 3 years and 3 months newer GeForce RTX 3050 that utilizes 20 pipelines and 2560 shaders. Here you will find complete details about specs, efficiency, performance tests, and more.

Review

General comparison of performance in games, applications, power efficiency, and other metrics
Gaming
Performance in DirectX, OpenCL, and Vulkan games
Workstation
Perf. in 3D modeling, video editing and rendering apps
AI/ML
Capabilities for machine learning and AI-related tasks
Energy Efficiency
Power consumption efficiency in different scenarios
NanoReview Final Score
Overall video card score

Value for money (Beta)

We use average GPU prices from all manufacturers by default. Enter the current price of a specific card for better accuracy.
Currency
8 GB GDDR5
VS
8 GB GDDR6
36.2
(Mediocre)
Value Index
47.6
(Average)

Key differences

Key distinctions and advantages of RTX 3050 over RX 590
Reasons to consider the GeForce RTX 3050
  • Performs better (up to 38%) in 3DMark Steel Nomad Lite
  • Shows 40% higher average frame rate in modern games at QHD resolution – 42 vs 30 FPS
  • Manufactured using a more efficient 8 nm process technology
  • 28% higher maximum theoretical performance (9.1 vs 7.1 TFLOPS)
  • Ray-tracing support with 20 dedicated RT cores
  • Supports Nvidia DLSS 2 technology
  • Achieves 46% more points in the GeekBench 6 Compute test (67K vs 45K)
  • Features 80 tensor cores for effective deep learning and AI workloads

Gaming Performance

Frame rate comparison across popular AAA titles at different resolutions
GPU
vs

Games

FPS Table
Forza Horizon 5
80
42
33
20
92
53
43
26
The Witcher 3
58
46
29
15
90
70
49
24
Counter-Strike 2
92
66
42
20
139
101
72
31
Far Cry 6
61
53
38
19
76
66
49
25
Hogwarts Legacy
37
29
22
10
49
38
30
13
CoD: Modern Warfare III
51
43
31
16
59
49
35
22
Ghost of Tsushima
36
26
18
9
46
35
28
15
Cyberpunk 2077
33
33
18
-
48
45
26
11
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
65
56
35
16
80
73
49
25
Average FPS by Resolution
1080p High 57 75
1080p Ultra 44 59
1440p Ultra 30 42
4K Ultra 15 21
Margin of Error Low Low

Benchmarks

Graphics cards’ performance in recent benchmarking apps

3D Mark

Multiplatform graphics benchmark suite that directly correlates with performance in modern games
Steel Nomad Lite Score
4613
RTX 3050 +38%
6348
Time Spy 4778 6235
Solar Bay - 30191
Port Royal - 3546
Fire Strike 16527 15967
Wild Life Extreme 9737 12795
Night Raid 62043 74854
Sources: 3DMark [1], [2]

GeekBench 6 OpenCL

GPU test for computational tasks (image processing, photography, computer vision, and ML)
GB6 Compute Score
45783
RTX 3050 +46%
67028
Background Blur 69 img/sec 110.4 img/sec
Face Detection 38.2 img/sec 64.4 img/sec
Horizon Detection 1.75 Gpixels/sec 2.87 Gpixels/sec
Edge Detection 3.31 Gpixels/sec 3.76 Gpixels/sec
Gaussian Blur 3.31 Gpixels/sec 2.89 Gpixels/sec
Feature Matching 0.38 Gpixels/sec 0.81 Gpixels/sec
Stereo Matching 180.5 Gpixels/sec 270.9 Gpixels/sec
Particle Physics 6238 FPS 9339.7 FPS
API OpenCL OpenCL
Sources: Geekbench [3], [4]

Cinebench 2024 GPU

Hardware benchmark using Maxon's Cinema 4D rendering engine
Cinebench 2024 GPU
n/a
4722

Passmark Graphics

Videocard test that focuses on compute shaders, multi-texturing, tessellation, and other features
G3D Mark Score
9277
RTX 3050 +34%
12471
G2D Mark 789 916
DirectX 11 65 FPS 90 FPS
DirectX 12 45 FPS 59 FPS
GPU Compute 3732 Ops/s 6415 Ops/s
Sources: PassMark [5], [6] – 4365 & 9379 samples

Blender

Rendering performance test for 3D modeling
Blender GPU
487.92
RTX 3050 +200%
1462.18
Sources: Blender [9], [10] – 1 & 1092 samples

Recent User Tests

The latest benchmark tests that have been submitted by users
Radeon RX 590
No benchmark results yet
GeForce RTX 3050
DateBenchmarkResult
📘 2026-04-21 -> DmitryDmitryCinebench 20244722
📘 2026-04-21 -> DmitryDmitrySteel Nomad Light6237

Artificial Intelligence Tests

Performance in machine learning and artificial intelligence tasks

GeekBench 6 ML

Tests throughput of AI operations in single, half, and quantized precision
GB6 ML Single Precision
9064
RTX 3050 +31%
11848
GB6 ML Half Precision
9971
RTX 3050 +114%
21368
GB6 ML Quantized
6293
RTX 3050 +26%
7905
Image Classification (SP) 3307 4958
Image Segmentation (HP) 4895 12747
Image Super Resolution (Q) 9072 9816
Face Detection (HP) 12467 22467
Pose Estimation (Q) 43468 41362
Text Classification (SP) 1547 2563
Machine Translation (HP) 2504 3721
Object Detection (SP) 3746 5929
Depth Estimation (Q) 15075 18361
Style Transfer (SP) 96813 84665
Framework ONNX ONNX
Backend DirectML DirectML
Sources: Geekbench [9], [10]

Specifications

Technical specifications of Radeon RX 590 and GeForce RTX 3050

General

Vendor Amd Nvidia
Build Discrete Discrete
Released November 15, 2018 January 27, 2022
Launch price (MSRP) $279 $249
Case Desktop Desktop
Purpose Gaming Gaming
Segment High-end Entry-level
Architecture GCN 4.0 Ampere
GPU Codename Polaris 30 GA106
Rival Equivalent - GeForce GTX 1060 -
Recommended CPU - Intel Core i5 8500 or above - Intel Core i5 12400 or above
Desktop GPU rating (80th and 71st place)

Graphics Processing Unit

Base Clock 1469 MHz 1552 MHz
Boost Clock 1545 MHz 1777 MHz
Shading Units 2304 2560
Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) 144 80
Render Output Units (ROPs) 32 32
Compute Units (Pipelines) - 20
Tensor Cores No 80
Ray-tracing Cores No 20
L1 Cache 16KB per cluster 128KB per cluster
L2 Cache 2MB shared 2MB shared
Instructions Per Cycle 2 IPC 2 IPC

Raw Performance

Pixel Fill Rate 49 GPixel/s 57 GPixel/s
Texture Fill Rate 222 GTexel/s 142 GTexel/s
FLOPS (FP32)
7.1 TFLOPS
RTX 3050 +28%
9.1 TFLOPS

Physical

Interface PCIe 3.0 x16 PCIe 4.0 x8
TGP 175 W 130 W
Manufacturing GlobalFoundries Samsung
Fabrication Process 12 nm 8 nm
Die Size 232 mm² 276 mm²
Transistor Count 5 billion 12 billion
Transistor Density 21.55 MTr/mm² 43.48 MTr/mm²

Memory

Memory Type GDDR5 GDDR6
Memory Size 8 GB 8 GB
Memory Clock 2000 MHz 1750 MHz
Effective Memory Speed 8000 Mbps 14000 Mbps
Bus 256-bit 128-bit
ECC No No
Memory Bandwidth
RX 590 +14%
256 GB/s
224 GB/s

API

DirectX 12 12
Vulkan 1.3 1.3
OpenGL 4.6 4.6
OpenCL 2.1 3.0
CUDA - 8.6
Ray Tracing No Yes
DLSS No DLSS 2
DisplayPort 1.4a 1.4a

Cast your vote

Choose between two graphics cards
8 (36.4%)
14 (63.6%)
Total votes: 22

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