Geforce GTX 1060 Thread: faster than RX 480, 120W, $249

[Sweepr]

3GB model confirmed, once again:

https://twitter.com/CarstenSpille/status/760263327192842241

 

[zinfamous]

3GB model confirmed, once again:

https://twitter.com/CarstenSpille/status/760263327192842241

This thing better be ~$100-130, otherwise it has very little reason to exist.

 

[Keysplayr]

It will be a nice 1080p card. Easily. And The prices you suggest are crazy low. 199.00 is about right.

 

[zinfamous]

It will be a nice 1080p card. Easily. And The prices you suggest are crazy low. 199.00 is about right.

No person can in good conscious recommend to their friend (or anyone) pay $199 for a new 3gb card in 2016. Why would you suggest buyers neuter themselves with hardware that is ostensibly limited in current games?

You have a much better-peforming $199 card at that price, not to mention the 470 for at least $20 cheaper that has a reasonable chance of outperforming it.

...you'd be the first nVidia guy (well, next to sweepr), that I have seen not criticizing this design. It really makes no sense today.

 

[Glo.]

It will be a nice 1080p card. Easily. And The prices you suggest are crazy low. 199.00 is about right.

You have to be out of your mind to suggest that this is worth more than 140$ with 3 GB of RAM.

NOTHING justifies 199$ price tag for this GPU. Nothing at all. Especially if it will have less than 1280 CUDA cores.

 

[Jaskalas]

Two lines of thought... 4GB is the minimum I'd recommend for a new card.
If not that, then price is surely your primary concern and 3GB better be cheaper than a 470.

 

[Arachnotronic]

This thing better be ~$100-130, otherwise it has very little reason to exist.

$100-$130 for GP106 is too cheap. This will be a $199 card, IMO -- 4GB RX 480 spoiler.

 

[Sweepr]

...you'd be the first nVidia guy (well, next to sweepr), that I have seen not criticizing this design. It really makes no sense today.

Another callout that adds nothing to the discussion. Misleading as well, because I have criticized the 3GB model in this very thread.

 

[zinfamous]

$100-$130 for GP106 is too cheap. This will be a $199 card, IMO -- 4GB RX 480 spoiler.

480 spoiler? not a chance. You yourself said that this card should not exist--that you certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone

 

[zinfamous]

Another callout that adds nothing to the discussion. Misleading as well, because I have criticized the 3GB model in this very thread.

fair enough if I missed it, but it would certainly surprise me.

One thing to mention is that regarding the tiled whats-it that nVidia is using in their architecture, it sounds like these designs could be more efficient with memory--though I'm not sure how such tech overcomes a simple physical limit if that is what is involved--but reading the AT summary of that other article yesterday, it sounds like Pascal should be more efficient with memory allocations than otherwise assumed.

I'm happy to be wrong about 3gb, but considering the negligible price of VRAM these days and devs having pushed 4k textures with a minimum requirement of 4gb to (not even max) 1080p IQ and perf for nearly 2 years now, it remains axiomatic that recommending 3gb on a new card is very poor advice for anyone.

 

[Ranulf]

It will be a nice 1080p card. Easily. And The prices you suggest are crazy low. 199.00 is about right.

Utter insanity. Well, if they throw in a free game or two.

 

[Arachnotronic]

480 spoiler? not a chance. You yourself said that this card should not exist--that you certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone

I wouldn't have released this SKU. What I would have done to go after a lower price point with GP106 would have been to cut the memory bus down to 128 bits, use 4GB of GDDR5, and disable some SMs while I'm at it. I'd call it the 1050 Ti

 

[zinfamous]

I wouldn't have released this SKU. What I would have done to go after a lower price point with GP106 would have been to cut the memory bus down to 128 bits, use 4GB of GDDR5, and disable some SMs while I'm at it. I'd call it the 1050 Ti

Right, but it needs to be priced near the 470 and be a 470 spoiler, which is still possible (because nVidia name), even though the 470 will likely outperform it.

It can't possibly be a 480 spoiler if priced at $199. Granted, this assumes that 4gb 480 start seeing stock again at that point. Now, if we continue to see a bunch of 4gb 480 at $199 that are really 8gb cards, then this 1060 has no chance at that price. ...I have a feeling that run is mostly depleted, though, and we will start seeing the legit 4gb reference cards.

 

[Maverick177]

480 spoiler? not a chance. You yourself said that this card should not exist--that you certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone

Everything that is nvidia is AMD's spoiler to certain people xd




Threadcrapping isn't allowed.


esquared
Anandtech Forum Director

 

[torlen11cc]

I do not agree. Whether the GTX 1060 or the Rx 480 is the better choice comes down to the performance in games you are interested and how well the GPUs have aged from both vendors in the past. Kepler is murdered by GCN GPUs which were supposed to be its competitors. Maxwell gets the same treatment in DX12.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...iews/73040-nvidia-gtx-1060-6gb-review-21.html

I bet you were one of the GTX 970 supporters. Just look at the GTX 970 getting murdered by R9 390 (and R9 290x which is its equal) in DX12 and losing badly even in DX11 at 1440p when they were supposed to be equals. Now pushing the same argument in 2016 that GTX 1060 is better performing based on 2013-2015 games when there is clear evidence that Rx 480 is faster on avg in DX12 games is shortsighted. I can agree that power efficiency is Nvidia's major advantage and thats why in mobile they will be dominant. But for the desktop gamer interested in perf and perf/$ the Rx 480 is the better card for any person who keeps the GPU for 2+ years.

There is some basis to the matter. :thumbsup:
I haven't decided if I should buy the GTX 1060 or not. According to what I have seen and read, NVIDIA has a tendency to abandon its cards when new cards come out. R9 290, for example, that used to be much weaker than the GTX 780, and is much more powerful today. Same goes for the GTX 760 - which in the past was faster than the R9 270X, and is now overshadowed by it. Therefore I am taking a more cautious approach with buying the GTX 1060, because with time (in about a year and a half to two years), RX 480 may reveal large improvements and outdo the 1060 by a significant margin.

But... I don't think the GTX 970 getting murdered by R9 390, at least at 1080p:

 

[mohit9206]

It will be a nice 1080p card. Easily. And The prices you suggest are crazy low. 199.00 is about right.

$100-$130 for GP106 is too cheap. This will be a $199 card, IMO -- 4GB RX 480 spoiler.

I agree. This will be $199 card simply because Nvidia can price it that way and still sell lots. I mean afterall it will atleast still match RX480 4GB at its intended 1080p resolution so that by itself makes it a fair price. Its still a 1060.
Kinda like how AMD came out with a cheaper 1GB 7850 in 2012 to compete with 650Ti. So this is the exact same situation. And when those 1gb 7850 and 650Ti cards were reviewed they still performed the same as the 2gb models.

This will also be the case with 1060 3gb. Same performance in most games with lower price sacrificing futureproof-ness. Personally i would never sacrifice futureproof-ness as history has shown higher vram is always better but more options for the buyer is always a good thing.

 

[frozentundra123456]

What I would like to see is a card between the 460 and 470 at 125.00 or so (from either nVidia or AMD). Something with performance equivalent to something like 1280 shaders. Since nvidia still seems to have a power consumption advantage, I bet they could even do it without a six pin connector, but that is a minor factor to me, since both my computers have mid 400 watt psus.

I would like to upgrade my HD7770, but I game at 1080p and dont require really high framerates or IQ settings. But the 460 is just not enough of an upgrade, while even the 470 seems more than I need, plus I have a feeling the price and availability will be very bad initially as well. I do agree with the other poster, I would prefer to see a cut down nVidia card with 4gb of memory instead of a 3gb card.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I agree. This will be $199 card simply because Nvidia can price it that way and still sell lots. I mean afterall it will atleast still match RX480 4GB at its intended 1080p resolution so that by itself makes it a fair price. Its still a 1060.
Kinda like how AMD came out with a cheaper 1GB 7850 in 2012 to compete with 650Ti. So this is the exact same situation. And when those 1gb 7850 and 650Ti cards were reviewed they still performed the same as the 2gb models.

This will also be the case with 1060 3gb. Same performance in most games with lower price sacrificing futureproof-ness. Personally i would never sacrifice futureproof-ness as history has shown higher vram is always better but more options for the buyer is always a good thing.

I have to disagree. I could possibly accept 3gb on a lower performing 1050, but on a 1060 level performance, I just have a hard time accepting it. I think nVidia is making a big mistake with a 3gb 1060. Even if tests in current games show little difference, they are just giving more ammunition to the "nVidia cards age poorly" rhetoric, and with some justification. I mean performance is in the range of the 970 which has 4gb already, and runs into problems with some games.

 

[zinfamous]

I agree. This will be $199 card simply because Nvidia can price it that way and still sell lots. I mean afterall it will atleast still match RX480 4GB at its intended 1080p resolution so that by itself makes it a fair price. Its still a 1060.
Kinda like how AMD came out with a cheaper 1GB 7850 in 2012 to compete with 650Ti. So this is the exact same situation. And when those 1gb 7850 and 650Ti cards were reviewed they still performed the same as the 2gb models.


This will also be the case with 1060 3gb. Same performance in most games with lower price sacrificing futureproof-ness. Personally i would never sacrifice futureproof-ness as history has shown higher vram is always better but more options for the buyer is always a good thing.

why are you trying to push off a 2012 argument with 2012 (And as old as 2010) games as a relevant argument for 2015 and newer games?

1gb was typical then and 2gb was fine (recall that Skyrim's official "HD 2k texture pack" required a minimum of 2gb to work, and pushed up to 3gb if you had it--so 2gb was barely fine in the most popular game of that generation).

If you want to make a fair comparison of the difference in VRAM today, then you would point out that 4gb is the bare minimum today (like 1gb then). The difference between 3gb and 4gb today is not the same as 1gb and 2gb was then--both in cost and performance.

arguing for the 3gb 1060 over a 4gb 480, if you are being honest, would be telling someone to pay the same price for a card that will function at lesser quality in most of your games compared to this other card. Why would you recommend that?

Far more games today require 4gb minimum to push those kind of texture packs. At that time, Skyrim was really the only one. That is far more common today, and isn't going to cost nearly $100 premium to bump up to that extra GB like it did in 2012.

6gb 1060 really is the only 1060 that deserves a recommendation from anyone that considers themselves tech aficionados--unless that other thing is being priced sub $170 (even then, that should be a hard sell). Today, 3gb is really only useful for an HTPC with light/decent gaming.

EDIT: lol, I didn't even bother with your chart and it's actually making the argument that I made: Only Skyrim, the most important game of the time, realized the need for that difference (and it was even greater beyond 2gb). That is completely incomparable to the top games today which go beyond 4gb

 

[Headfoot]

3gb is a terrible, terrible idea in 2016 for a new card. I'd suggest nobody buy it. Anyone looking at that card is much better off either buying a RX480 or saving up another $50 for the 1060 6GB. 3GB just ensures you'll have to replace it earlier and ultimately save no money because of its shorter lifespan.

 

[Bacon1]

Wasn't the 3GB version also rumored to be more cut down than the standard 6GB card? So not just memory but cores, rops and others as well. Is it confirmed to be full except memory?

 

[raghu78]

There is some basis to the matter. :thumbsup:
I haven't decided if I should buy the GTX 1060 or not. According to what I have seen and read, NVIDIA has a tendency to abandon its cards when new cards come out. R9 290, for example, that used to be much weaker than the GTX 780, and is much more powerful today. Same goes for the GTX 760 - which in the past was faster than the R9 270X, and is now overshadowed by it. Therefore I am taking a more cautious approach with buying the GTX 1060, because with time (in about a year and a half to two years), RX 480 may reveal large improvements and outdo the 1060 by a significant margin.

But... I don't think the GTX 970 getting murdered by R9 390, at least at 1080p:

I said that in the context of the hardwarecanucks dx12 game perf summary which shows GTX 970 slower than R9 390 by 30-35%. For DX11 its slower but not by such a massive margin.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...iews/73040-nvidia-gtx-1060-6gb-review-21.html

 

[mohit9206]

why are you trying to push off a 2012 argument with 2012 (And as old as 2010) games as a relevant argument for 2015 and newer games?

It was just an example. My point mainly was companies introducing cards with less vram to hit a particular price point due to competition is nothing new.
Of course i know 1060 3gb will be vram bottlenecked and much less futureproof just like the HD 7850 1gb was but the companies still have to do it sometimes due to competition.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Is there a physical reason why nVidia has to go with either 6gb or 3gb? Is there some limitation with the memory bus that it can use only 3 or 6 effectively?

 

[eddman]

Is there a physical reason why nVidia has to go with either 6gb or 3gb? Is there some limitation with the memory bus that it can use only 3 or 6 effectively?

It has to be power of 2 of memory's bus width to keep the memory setup symmetrical.

128 bit: 128 MB, 256, 512, 1 GB, 2, 4, 8, etc.

192 bit: 192 MB, 384, 768, 1.5 GB, 3, 6, etc.

They could go with an asymmetrical setup, but then that'd end up being a partitioned memory like GTX 970. The 1 GB GTX 550 Ti, and 2 GB 660/660 Ti are better examples. GTX 970's memory is like that for other reasons, but the effect is the same, pretty much.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4221/nvidias-gtx-550-ti-coming-up-short-at-150/2

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6159/the-geforce-gtx-660-ti-review/2