We're finally in a post-mining world, with stable pricing and supply for graphics cards. The situation isn't exactly ideal yet in India, but it's getting there. The hope that we had of low prices due to oversupply hasn't really panned out – instead, both AMD and Nvidia are using game bundles to add value to the sales of new units.
Nvidia's recent GeForce RTX series launch has also pushed prices upwards, and even the brand new GeForce RTX 2060 doesn't really serve the value-conscious gamer who just wants a smooth experience at high settings. The mid-range segment, typically with prices between Rs. 15,000 and Rs. 30,000 is still ruled by the GeForce GTX 1060, and to a lesser extent, AMD's Radeon RX 580.
Both are relatively old products now, and against that backdrop, AMD[1] recently launched a new GPU model — the Radeon RX 590[2]. This is a relatively minor refresh of the Radeon RX 580[3], using a new manufacturing process to extract higher speeds from the same chip design.
We've got a Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 590 Special Edition graphics card featuring this new chip in for review. Let's see how much of an upgrade it is, and whether it poses a challenge to Nvidia's[4] old but still popular GeForce GTX 1060[5].
AMD Radeon RX 590 GPU architecture and specifications
AMD's big news with the Radeon RX 590 is the shift from a 14nm manufacturing process to 12nm, which has allowed it to raise clock speeds to squeeze out a bit more performance. Otherwise, this is essentially the same GPU as the Radeon RX 580, codenamed Polaris (which itself is essentially the same GPU...