GTX 1060 Review 1

Nvidia is having fun with Pascal. their newly launched architecture has already garnered a lot of praise from critics, with cards like the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 surpassing expectations and delivering a generational leap after the sublime Maxwell range. They are, however, two very premium cards, and indicative of the market Nvidia has been prey on for years now. The team in green loves being the best out there for the highest cost, sometimes at the expense of leaving room in the more populated mid-range market for the likes of AMD to scoop up.

And with the recent launch of the RX 480, it seemed to be happening again. Until Nvidia revealed the GTX 1060 just a few weeks ago – a card that has lived up to all the incredible claims made, and then some.

The GTX 1060 impresses straight out of the box. Instead of cutting back on the same boards used in both the biggest 1080 and 1070, Nvidia has opted to create a new one entirely. The 16nm FinFET transistors are housed on a new GP106 board, cramming in a full 6GB of GDDR5 memory at a speed of 8GBps and over a 192-bit bus. There’re 1280 CUDA Cores for some powerful performance, with a stock Core Clock of 1506MHz and a Boost Clock of 1706MHz – not too far off from the stock speeds of its faster brethren.

The Founder’s Edition we were sent for review (a Nvidia store exclusive this time, which makes local stock unlikely) featured a slightly different design from the previous GTX 1080. The same black and silver metal finishes were present, retaining the premium NVTTM cooler design, but with some compromises. The small translucent heatsink window is gone, replaced by a now opaque piece of black plastic. The cooler itself also isn’t the same vapour-chamber as the 1080 (much like how the 1070 skimped out on this too), but still draws in air from inside our case and exhausts it out the back.

GTX 1060 Review 2

There’s also no backplate too – a feature I’d love to see migrate exclusively from premium cards and become more of a staple across the board. The design itself is just as gorgeous as you’d expect, but also functional. In use the Founder’s Edition remained quiet and relatively cool, idling at below 70 degrees Celsius for the most part and peaking at just over 70 at stock clocks. This all with the low TDP of just 120W, delivered here through a single 6-pin PCI-e power connection. Rounded off with a choice of a single DVI and HDMI 2.0b ports, as well as three DisplayPort connections and you’re spoiled for choice if you’re running multiple displays. Something the GTX 1060 is fully capable of handling.

What it isn’t capable of, however, is SLI. In Nvidia’s increasing bid to move away from multi-card support, they’ve straight up disabled SLI on the GTX 1060. The reason behind this comes down to some market research, with Nvidia claiming that it’s uncommon for customers in this price range to be looking at dual card setups. SLI aside, the GTX 1060 does retain all the exclusive features of the Pascal range. That includes the gorgeous screenshot technology Ansel, Simultaneous Multi Projection for VR and more.

GTX 1060 Review 3

But the above has little meaning without raw performance to back it up. Before launch Nvidia claimed that this GTX 1060 was the mid-range card to beat, delivering GTX 980 performance or better for a fraction of the cost. Those are claims that would’ve made RX 480 buyers (and AMD personally) quake in their boots. Does it hold up in real life testing though. In a word, yeah. It certainly does. And it’s pretty remarkable to see from such a competitively priced card.

DOOM

GTX 1060 Review benchmark DOOM

Sticking with the OpenGL version of the game for the sake of control, DOOM continues to impress with its optimization across the board. The GTX 1060 even manages 60FPS averages at 1440p, which is incredible considering the game is running at full tilt in test.

Grand Theft Auto V

GTX 1060 Review benchmark GTA V

GTA V brings it down a peg, and it’s the first instance where the 6GB of VRAM are truly tested. Taking the most taxing of the benchmark runs, the GTX 1060 manages just fine at 1080p, but starts struggling to keep things stable at anything higher. Considering MSSA is cranked up to 4x here, that’s still mighty impressive.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

GTX 1060 Review benchmark The Witcher 3

The Witcher 3 is still one of the best looking games on PC, and still just as hard on your machine to do it. In a surprising move though, the GTX 1060 blows HD out of the water, and shows that it’s able to stand tall at 1440p too. With a few settings dialled down a solid 60FPS is possible, which isn’t bad for a mid-range card.

Metro: Last Light

GTX 1060 Review benchmark Metro Last Light

Metro: Last Light continues to be one of the most taxing benchmarks out there, but the GTX 1060 performed admirably. The same tune is sung here, with the mid-range Pascal card making a compelling case for 1440p gaming. It’s a marvel really, and one which some of the Nvidia flagships from Maxwell almost failed to match.

FireStrike Benchmark

Firing up Futuremark’s FireStrike (and newly added Time Spy) demoes, the results of the GTX 1060 remain consistently bewildering.

GTX 1060 Review FireStrike

GTX 1060 Review FireStrike Extreme 2

GTX 1060 Review FireStrike Ultra

Taking a closer look at the performance in comparison to our previous tested GTX 980, we check framerates of the Metro: Last Light benchmark and compared the two directly. It is the only game that we’ve managed to test both cards on, but also the most robust benchmark test we run (the GTA V benchmark still throws in some randomisation here and there), making it the best arena to put the two head to head.

GTX 1060 Review Metro Last Light vs. GTX 980 Benchmark

We reviewed the GTX 980 long after the card hit shelves, with the ASUS version we received arriving with a substantial boost to its core clock and memory speeds. This makes testing it directly with the GTX 1060 a little unfair, but the Pascal card more than makes up for it when receiving a little overclock on it’s own. I was able to achieve a stable overclock of 2050MHz on the Boost Clock (an increase of 175MHz) and 4356MHz on the Memory Clock (an increase of 350MHz). Limiting the temperature to 80 degrees Celsius and allowing the Power Limit to drive right through to 110% was simple and easy, and achieved some marginal gains in testing.

GTX 1060 Review benchmark GTA V Overclocked

GTX 1060 Review benchmark Metro Last Light Overclocked

There’s no doubt the GTX 1060 can be pushed a little further (especially with point-based overclocking, exclusive to Pascal), but seeing it break the 2GHz ceiling so effortlessly was staggering.

GTX 1060 Review FireStrike OC

GTX 1060 Review FireStrike Extreme

So what about the RX 480?

So does the GTX 1060 live up to the billing of matching performance of the GTX 980? Pretty much, with some here’s and there’s along the way. But the real test is the comparison to the RX 480 – the AMD card that Nvidia is directly competing with here. It’s arguably the reason the GTX 1060 is out so early too, with Nvidia unable to let the market slip from them again. Considering the RX 480 is just $30 cheaper than the $250 asking price of the GTX 1060 (and with 2GB more memory), Nvidia had their work cut out for them.

The results tell a story of their own though, and it’s clear Nvidia’s past focus on efficiency have helped them craft a better card in the end. That’s if temperatures, power consumption per frame and, more importantly, raw framerates are most important to you.

GTX 1060 Review Metro Last Light vs. Rx 480 Benchmark GTX 1060 Review GTA V vs. Rx 480 Benchmark

It’s clear from the results that the additional 2GB of memory on the RX 480 isn’t exactly making a difference yet, especially in areas where it would. The gap between the two cards is certainly reduced as the resolutions increase (which taxes memory a lot more), but the raw speed of the GTX 1060 keeps it either ahead or exactly on par in all of our tests. Yes, the GTX 1060 is the slightly more expensive card, but it’s money seemingly well spent if you’re looking for an immediate increase in performance. And at this level, 10FPS more in some cases is significant.

The story for AMD becomes even worse when looking at local South African pricing. The $299 Founder’s Edition we reviewed probably won’t be making it here (and honestly, it’s the AIB cards that you’re going to be wanting to look at anyway, just as with the GTX 1080), but third-party cards are arriving on the same day. They’re carrying a RRP of just R4,600 locally, which is already at least R200 cheaper than the cheapest RX 480 you can find on shelves. We’re still waiting to see how that plays out with retailers, but if it sticks relatively close the RX 480 has a problem. Not only is it lagging in performance, it’s lagging in price in South Africa, and that makes it an easy decision for those in the market for a new card.

GTX 1060 Review 4

The Founder’s Edition here, again, is an afforded luxury. It’s gorgeous, silent and sleek, but it’s still a tough ask for the additional cost it carries. At $70 more than the RX 480 it starts asking the wrong questions, but thankfully the AIB versions of the GTX 1060 are asking the right ones. They could arguably be even faster, widening the performance gap while simultaneously closing the price gap down to just $30. And at that price the GTX 1060 becomes the obvious choice, regardless of what your history has forced you to align with.

The GTX 1060 is a sublime mid-range card that stands up to its billing, and presents a major problem for AMD in the same space. It’s the reason why competition is good too, and it’s clear the move by AMD has forced Nvidia to refocus their efforts on a market that they were lacking in. The GTX 1060 is a resounding answer to that call, and probably the most important Pascal card to date.

 

Last Updated: July 19, 2016

Nvidia GTX 1060 (Founder's Edition)
Founder’s Edition luxuries aside, the GTX 1060 is a phenomenal card with an almost criminal price, setting a new benchmark for the price/performance battle in the mid-range market. It simply is the Pascal card to beat now.
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49 Comments

  1. I need it

    Reply

    • HairyEwok

      July 20, 2016 at 12:12

      The price though…. R6k

      Reply

  2. Kromas GG

    July 19, 2016 at 15:08

    Where is the Doom Vulkan charts??

    Reply

    • Spathi

      July 19, 2016 at 15:13

      Yeah, Vulkan is going to mix things up a lot again. The AMD cards seems to get some substantial improvements when running on Vulkan.

      Reply

      • Pariah

        July 19, 2016 at 15:15

        That’s just one game though. How many devs will support it when only a small portion of the market will see any benefit? DX12 is the parallel to Vulkan, offering the same low-level access.

        I can’t see Vulkan being a factor in buying decision, when you take the full picture into account, one game isn’t enough to sway a vote, or make the results relevant to a review of this nature.

        Reply

        • Spathi

          July 19, 2016 at 15:17

          Definitely, but I’m fairly certain that more games will support Vulkan as Nvidia is also seeing improvements on Vulkan, but just not that substantial.

          Reply

          • Pariah

            July 19, 2016 at 15:19

            Perhaps, but I think it’s still too early and really not in a place to be suited to a review. Vulkan is definitely something that should be looked at though – I’m interested in those numbers certainly. Just in a new article 😀

          • Spathi

            July 19, 2016 at 15:21

            I agree! I’m not saying the RX 480 will be the card to get, only that it will make the choice even harder! Not that I’m in the market for a R 5000 GPU at the moment :`(

          • Pariah

            July 19, 2016 at 15:28

            Yeah it’s still a bit too much out of my price range. Will need to wait for Christmas.

        • Kerrits

          July 19, 2016 at 15:44

          Vulcan and DX12 are the future. No real use testing DX11 and OpenGL unless you want to see which is faster with the games that are out currently.

          According to this review: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2016/07/19/nvidia_geforce_gtx_1060_founders_edition_review#.V44tf7h96Uk

          RX480 takes Hitman DX12 with 18% and doom with 32%
          1060 takes RotTR with 7%.

          Interestingly, on the minimum frames the nVidia cards are lower than the AMD ones across the board.

          Reply

          • Pariah

            July 19, 2016 at 15:50

            DOOM Vulkan – where AMD is greatly biased towards. That’s again, not a fair comparison. Great %, but it’s no different to what’s expected.

            But the article ALSO states “Once again the lower the resolution, the greater the impact RX 480 has over 1060 with Vulkan or DX12” ~ Meaning that as you bump the res, the 1060 does better and better, with the RX480 losing ground. So basically, for the future use – 4K and VR, the 1060 is better, while for current, 1080p needs, in DX12 and Vulkan ONLY, the RX480 may provide a good boost.

            Also keeping in mind that Nvidia will improve performance over time with drivers. Not just lower power consumption. And it can be overclocked.

          • Spathi

            July 19, 2016 at 15:53

            Either the 1060 does better and better, or it just doesn’t suck as much at higher resolutions 😛

            Edit: Serious post – have a look at the DX11 charts above, the higher the resolution, the less evident a performance gap is. You argument can go for or against AMD and Nvidia if you look at the DX11 charts shown in this article.

            ANYWAY – Will wait for more benchmarks, but it sure seems like AMD will gain more performance with DX12 and Vulkan.

          • Pariah

            July 19, 2016 at 16:00

            The thing so far is that’s the only site that’s giving any credit to the RX480 at the moment. Despite that – they still say the value proposition for the after-market $249 cards is super strong, and not a waste of money. In fact, it’s only really in Vulkan, Async compute, and a bit in DX12 where AMD comes out on top. And only really at lower resolutions. And that’s only because Nvidia haven’t really delved into those yet, or aren’t going to for whatever reason. And remember Nvidia were a little rushed to market – meaning they may not have had the time to release proper drivers to support some of these technologies.

          • Kerrits

            July 19, 2016 at 16:15

            I’m not so sure about that bias. nVidia did launch the 1080 with Doom on Vulcan.

            I don’t think the 1060 or the RX 480 is suitable for 4k gaming, maybe 1440p at a stretch. If that’s what you want, 1070 or 1080 is what you have to get.

            But hey different cards for different buyers. I keep my cards long, and with the way my R9 290 performs on vulcan and most of the DX12 games compared to the other cards on the market at the time, I know I made the right choice. The way things stand at the moment, it seems like this will be the case for the new generation of mid range cards as well.

    • Pariah

      July 19, 2016 at 15:31

      Also I can’t resist.

      *are

      Reply

      • Pariah

        July 19, 2016 at 15:31

        Ah I feel better now. Thanks. XD

        Reply

      • Kromas GG

        July 19, 2016 at 17:35

        I are happy. 😛

        Reply

    • Halaster

      July 19, 2016 at 16:52

      Nvidia said they are working on Vulkan drivers. Be patient. You will be sorely disappointed placing all your hopes on the singular game where Poolaris has the temporary advantage. Then again, AMD is all about disappointment.

      Reply

      • Kromas GG

        July 19, 2016 at 17:34

        Did I even mention AMD? Vulkan is my hope for complete Linux gaming. Wow the fanboys are coming out of the woodworks today.

        Reply

  3. Ottokie

    July 19, 2016 at 15:11

  4. Greylingad[He Charges!]

    July 19, 2016 at 15:16

    WOW Sandy! 5/5, YOH!! Nice review man, I’m correct in assuming you did use the Vulkan update for Doom?

    Reply

    • Pariah

      July 19, 2016 at 15:18

      As I said earlier – using that is in fact irrelevant. Using the OpenGL for both provides the best objective scores and comparisons. Vulkan only benefits AMD, and it’s only really in DOOM, nowhere else.

      Reply

      • Greylingad[He Charges!]

        July 19, 2016 at 15:21

        Vulkan doesn’t just benefit AMD, Bethesda released a video showcasing Doom running at 200fps on a GTX 1080, but you’re right, the actual benefit with the mid range cards might give you a small percentile in advantage, nothing more(single digits, if so much)

        Reply

        • Pariah

          July 19, 2016 at 15:23

          See my biggest thing is that it’s a point of discussion, something that should be looked at – but as a Vulkan article rather than a review. Because it’s still too new, not widely implimented, and very much not something stable enough to give a good comparison. AMD has proven to show far more benefit early on, but that may change with driver updates from Nvidia later down the road. Time will tell.

          Reply

          • Spathi

            July 19, 2016 at 15:26

          • Pariah

            July 19, 2016 at 15:27

            Red Alert <3 <3 <3

  5. Werner Ackermann

    July 19, 2016 at 15:18

    First prices I’ve seen locally is well over R5k and as high as R7k 🙁

    If anyone finds one at RRP, I’m sold 😉

    Reply

    • Pariah

      July 19, 2016 at 15:20

      On Evetech the cheapest of GTX1060 is R5399, only R100 more than the RX480. Still a good price, imho.

      Reply

      • Werner Ackermann

        July 19, 2016 at 16:38

        Also saw a Galax for R5199 at Wootware.

        Reply

  6. chimera_85

    July 19, 2016 at 15:36

    Evetech has pricing between R5 399 and R5 999…

    Reply

    • Pariah

      July 19, 2016 at 15:41

      And considering that R5 999 is the MSI Gaming X version, that’s really decently priced if you’re in the budget range.

      Reply

      • chimera_85

        July 19, 2016 at 15:59

        Yeah true but still haha.

        I’m sure EVGA will be cheaper, they always are and curios about the ASUS Rog Strix cos it’s sexy af????

        Reply

        • Pariah

          July 19, 2016 at 16:01

          EVGA turns out the same price as the MSI – R5399 – on rebeltech. And the MSI has a far superior cooler on it, so may as well.

          Reply

          • chimera_85

            July 19, 2016 at 16:08

            Yeah but what counts in the end is the clock speeds haha, not to mention Nvidia cards in general don’t have an issue with overheating and I currently use EVGA and no issues with temperatures.

          • Pariah

            July 19, 2016 at 16:09

            Well yeah, EVGA isn’t a bad buy – but for me, considering the same price, MSI is an insta win. I don’t know, you can’t go wrong with either choice really though.

  7. Kerrits

    July 19, 2016 at 15:46

    Why only test on the old versions of the APIs?

    Reply

  8. Frost

    July 19, 2016 at 15:53

    So much for RRP

    Reply

    • Pariah

      July 19, 2016 at 15:57

      It is just recommended. And the price is about the same as the $30 cheaper RX480, so there’s that to consider too. We ARE getting a good deal locally, despite the R700 more than RRP price tag on the MSI cards. Still, with the Strix hitting R6999, I think R5 399 is a great price, with the RX480 being R5 299

      Reply

      • Frost

        July 19, 2016 at 16:05

        Point is RRP used to mean something.
        Now they’re asking 14% over that and I should be happy?

        Reply

        • Pariah

          July 19, 2016 at 16:06

          Nah, you don’t have to be happy, but there’s little we can do about it. Considering the market – the price we got is good, comparatively. So I’ll take it, because it’s better than the R5 999 it would’ve cost if the same conversion as the AMD cards had happened.

          Reply

          • bluegoon

            July 20, 2016 at 07:06

            You could always just import.

          • Pariah

            July 20, 2016 at 07:36

            Sure, but there’s always the risk of no after-market support or warranty with that. Just do some research and make sure you have a way to return or fix faulty hardware. 🙂

          • bluegoon

            July 21, 2016 at 06:39

            You could always just import.

  9. Halaster

    July 19, 2016 at 16:50

    Shame, AMD gets rekt again

    Reply

    • Cat

      July 19, 2016 at 16:57

      In DX11 yes, yes it does. In DX12 or Vulkan that’s a totally different bowl of soup.

      Reply

  10. Alessandro Barbosa

    July 19, 2016 at 17:14

    Hey everyone 🙂 So I see many asking for the DOOM Vulkan scores, so I just want to walk you through the process as to why we stuck to OpenGL in this instance.

    Firstly, all previous tests with DOOM were done prior to the Vulkan API being released, so for the sake of comparison to past GPU tests I decided to remain with OpenGL. That’s basic control testing methodology, and it’s part of my explanation in the review itself.

    As for not posting Vulkan scores at all, there are multiple reasons for this. Right now Vulkan in DOOM is still in a bit of an incomplete phase, so much so that the game is still rendering in a sort of borderless windowed mode even when running in exclusive fullscreen. It’s the reason why tools like FRAPS, MSI Afterburner and even Digital Foundry’s own capture tool (which admittedly also doesn’t support Vulkan too) don’t have their in-game overlays working with the game yet.

    So that presented a bit of difficulty when it came to accurately capturing test results in the exact same manner that we do all our tests, and I wasn’t comfortable using a completely different, approximation methodology which could’ve skewed comparisons.

    I’ve used Vulkan quite a bit already and I can safely say that there are significant gains on both AMD and Nvidia cards. Right now AMD is making the best of this implementation (as many other Vulkan specific articles will tell you), but a single test would not have impacted the overall conclusion I had of the GTX 1060, nor would it have marked a meaningful reversal of the general trends it has with the RX 480. So few games are using the API right now, so it’s easy to speculate would could be in a year or two. But truth be told by then both of these cards will have likely have been surpassed anyway, which makes that side of the argument a little null and mute.

    Hope this clears up any confusion anyone has over the omission of these results 🙂

    Reply

    • Frost

      July 19, 2016 at 20:29

      While I agree adding these tests in this review is a bit difficult, I don’t think calling the argument “null and mute” is accurate.

      When I spend R5k on a gpu, I want to know about future proofing as far as possible. I need that card to last longer than a year.

      I’m not sure if I’m mistaken, but I’m getting a strong team green vibe from the lazygamer.net team, for a while now. Would be unfortunate if you guys can’t be unbiased.

      Reply

      • Alessandro Barbosa

        July 19, 2016 at 20:50

        Maybe a bit of clarity: We review hardware based on the games and applications they’re meant to serve today. I simply meant that assuming mass adoption of the likes of Vulkan and DX12 in the near future would be speculation, and not of value to the current review.

        If I could have, I would definitely have included the results for DOOM running on Vulkan. I too am interested to see how more games possibly use it in the future. I cannot, however, assume what that future will be, and thus can only work with what we currently have.

        Will more games run on Vulkan? Possibly? Will that give AMD the edge? Maybe? Will Nvidia support the API more through drivers and claw it back? Who knows? That’s all I’m trying to say 🙂

        Reply

  11. Galbedir

    July 19, 2016 at 19:22

    I hate to admit it….but after being a Loyal Team Red supporter for going on 12 years now…I will, come end of year, be switching sides. Team Green!!!

    Reply

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