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

[SimianR]

Kinda hard finding a 249.00 RX480 for under 300 as well.

Here you go:

http://accessories.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=A9005008



Edit: In stock as of July 7th (10:55pm EST) anyway

 

[sirmo]

I always feel like efficiency is what people talk about when they have lost the value and/or performance argument. If someone came out with a 600W GPU for $300 that beat the 1080, I'd be all over it.

Efficiency can be important, but not 10-20% difference like in this case.

rx480 has more VRAM which is a good chunk of the total TDP of the card, the Polaris 10 chip only draws like 110 watts. When playing Overwatch undervolted my average is 75 watts actually and I am slightly overclocked (1320Mhz).

We will see if Nvidia's 120watts total claims are true in the first place, but I don't expect them to be vastly different, certainly not enough to sway the purchase either way. I think many underestimate the power efficiency improvement AMD has accomplished with Polaris.

 

[Diogenes5]

Running some numbers.

A 1080 has 2560 cuda cores, a 1070 has 1920 cuda cores. The 1080 has 33% more cores but about 21% more performance. Scaling wise, the ratio is 1.5 between % cuda cores added and % performance gained. The cards are clocked slightly differently but also overclock by about the same (12-14% from what we've seen).

A 1060 has 50% less cuda cores than a 1070 at 1280. Assuming the same linear scale, a 1060 should be a little faster than a 980/390x or about 113% faster than a stock 480 (at least from initial reviews where it's almost entirely in line with a 390 for performance).

Assuming also that it overclocks just as well as other Pascal cards and can hit over 2000 mhz (often 2100) for about a 13% increase in performance, this puts it in range of a fury in terms of power and a little under a stock 980 TI.

That's a LOT of performance for a $250 base pricepoint.

I was going to get a 480 but all prelim reports says it hits about 1400-1500 with custom cooling. At 1370-1400, it matches a 390x. At 1500, It's about 10% faster on top of that if previews are to be believed.

So the 480 and 1060 are very similar in terms of price-point and performance but I think, if I did the math correctly, we can expect the fastest GTX 1060 AIB's to be a little faster than the fastest 480 AIB's after all is said and done.

On one side the 1060 will use less power and have unique nvidia features (I would use the gamestreaming and twitch encoder a lot more than most people). The 480 will be better at direct x12 and be crossfireable.

As it is, I want to give Nvidia the middle finger for this "no sli" bullsh*t but I'll probably just go with whatever gives me more performance for the dollar at the end of the day.

 

[tviceman]

For the 1060 to win at everything else, it would have to be faster than a 980.

I'm not talking reference RX480 that throttles on stock voltages. I'm talking custom RX 480s that are out later this month. Do you think they will be worse than AMD's reference design?

That's why the most important thing will end up in how the custom 1060 and 480 are priced at.

No, it doesn't have to be "faster" than the 980.
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/RX_480/24.html
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1748?vs=1716
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...9-radeon-rx480-8gb-performance-review-24.html (Quantum Break is a joke of a game and worthless benchmark and like I said Hitman skews heavily in favor of AMD, otherwise DX12 would be about equal between the 980 and RX 480)

And, like I said, it will overclock better than an RX 480 and scale better in performance than GP104 due to a higher percentage of bandwidth and ROP's to cuda cores. No need to undervolt, either. AIB RX 480's may overclock OK, but it won't be spectacular and the chip has already proven to shoot power draw through the proverbial roof considering it's smaller size. Also, as you pointed out there will be AIB GTX 1060's, and the AIBs will dominate the sales landscape beginning day 1. If GTX 1060 non-founders prices are $249-259, then Nvidia wins and puts a serious hurt on AMD's strategy. Not only does Nvidia get the win in performance, they win with a slightly higher price, less complex PCB's, less (but insignificant to performance) vram, and a smaller chip. It'll be like GM107 vs. Bonaire all over again. AMD's strategy to delay the high end and attemp to shoehorn the mid-range market will have failed.

If dual-card setup is important to a buyer down the road, than obviously RX 480 is the answer. Also 4gb $199 RX 480's, if they remain on the market, will continue to be attractive at $199 since Nvidia has nothing for $200 and the performance difference between the RX 480 4gb and 8gb is inconsequential. The only question now is whether AMD will stand pat in the mid-term on their prices like they tried to do with the R9 300 series, or will they crater and drop prices in an attempt to gain the coveted market share they've been seeking.

 

[SimianR]

Biggest factor I think is going to be how quickly the 1060 is actually available at its MSRP. It will also be interesting to see how the aftermarket 480's compare to the aftermarket 1060's. Once the gloves are off and we have better coolers, better power delivery, factory overclocked cards, what will the final numbers look like?

 

[desura]

Honestly, if I get a 1060 or similar, it will be the last video card purchase I make for at least five years or more. Maybe ever.

My 750ti works good enough on most games. 1080p is good enough, heck, 720p is good enough.

 

[frozentundra123456]

WhyTF is garbage posting like this allowed? I mean I know the video forum on here has a reputation for being a near P&N level cesspit, but seriously?

There's several very prominently pro-Nvidia posters who keep posting things and then literally defeating their own claims themselves. Its gotten to ridiculous levels.

We must not be reading the same forum. Granted objectivity is in very short supply, but it is hardly pro nVidia overall. In fact, nVidia bashing and AMD hype is pretty much the norm.

 

[Arachnotronic]

We must not be reading the same forum. Granted objectivity is in very short supply, but it is hardly pro nVidia overall. In fact, nVidia bashing and AMD hype is pretty much the norm.

I ran a poll a while back and it showed that if this forum is biased towards one vendor, it's not NVIDIA.

 

[littleg]

If you don't like the way someone posts then just put them on ignore, there's plenty of good posters on both sides of the fence who discuss things objectively and informatively.

 

[Silverforce11]

No, it doesn't have to be "faster" than the 980.
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/RX_480/24.html
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1748?vs=1716
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...9-radeon-rx480-8gb-performance-review-24.html (Quantum Break is a joke of a game and worthless benchmark and like I said Hitman skews heavily in favor of AMD, otherwise DX12 would be about equal between the 980 and RX 480)

And, like I said, it will overclock better than an RX 480 and scale better in performance than GP104 due to a higher percentage of bandwidth and ROP's to cuda cores. No need to undervolt, either. AIB RX 480's may overclock OK, but it won't be spectacular and the chip has already proven to shoot power draw through the proverbial roof considering it's smaller size. Also, as you pointed out there will be AIB GTX 1060's, and the AIBs will dominate the sales landscape beginning day 1. If GTX 1060 non-founders prices are $249-259, then Nvidia wins and puts a serious hurt on AMD's strategy. Not only does Nvidia get the win in performance, they win with a slightly higher price, less complex PCB's, less (but insignificant to performance) vram, and a smaller chip. It'll be like GM107 vs. Bonaire all over again. AMD's strategy to delay the high end and attemp to shoehorn the mid-range market will have failed.

If dual-card setup is important to a buyer down the road, than obviously RX 480 is the answer. Also 4gb $199 RX 480's, if they remain on the market, will continue to be attractive at $199 since Nvidia has nothing for $200 and the performance difference between the RX 480 4gb and 8gb is inconsequential. The only question now is whether AMD will stand pat in the mid-term on their prices like they tried to do with the R9 300 series, or will they crater and drop prices in an attempt to gain the coveted market share they've been seeking.

I'm not here to argue with you about whether NV will sell more GPUs, particularly the 1060. I have no doubts NV will outsell AMD even if they had a worse GPU.

I've seen it happen, custom (cool & quiet actually!) 290 vs 780, 290X vs Titan & 780Ti. Recently, 960 vs 380/X. So let's just agree that NV will outsell AMD regardless of the actual outcome of the products.

Let's debate on the actual metrics I care about. Perf, perf/w and perf/$.

It's now known the reference RX 480 throttles. Performance improves as various sites find, when it's able to actually run at 1266mhz, by around 4.7%. You can look at those performance charts, TPU or computerbase summaries. See how much the reference RX 480 is behind 390X/980 by? Not much at all. Add 4% to that at the bare minimum for custom cards that do not throttle.

Now custom cards are likely to ship at higher than 1266mhz, without throttling, easily GTX 980 performance or the @1060.

That's the competition from AMD, not the reference RX 480 which like in previous generations, are phased out as AIB cards come.

The combined DX12 situation now, has AMD punching above it's weight, whether you feel that Quantum Break or any other DX12 title is relevant or not is inconsequential. They add to the perception that AMD's GPU are superior for DX12 & Vulkan, more future proof. Much like AMD's horrible performance in GimpWorks titles, that gives the perception AMD is worse in DX11. Even you can't say with a straight face that AMD is worse for these next-gen API, can you? Deep down, your logic has already reached that conclusion with what you know of Mantle and it's evolution to DX12/Vulkan.

Now if both custom 1060 and 480 arrive at $249, they will have the same ~ performance in DX11, the 1060 wins on perf/w, 120W vs 150W, 480 wins on 8GB vs 6GB vram and wins on future proofing with DX12/Vulkan advantages. For OC, we will have to see how that turns out. Pascal OC 10-12% extra performance isn't going to blow the socks of anything.

Would the 1060 still sell better? For sure. But I don't think it's going to be 80:20 ratio like it was with Maxwell vs GCN.

 

[AnandThenMan]

I ran a poll a while back and it showed that if this forum is biased towards one vendor, it's not NVIDIA.

IIRC that poll showed that people on this forum place more importance on longevity and value versus brand perception/marketing. Which is what you'd expect on an enthusiast forum so the bias in this case is for valid reasons. At least that's the impression I got from that thread.

Put another way the 1060 will outsell the RX 480 by a large margin but the ownership on this forum could very well be flipped.

 

[hsjj3]

Efficiency can be important, but not 10-20% difference like in this case.

rx480 has more VRAM which is a good chunk of the total TDP of the card, the Polaris 10 chip only draws like 110 watts. When playing Overwatch undervolted my average is 75 watts actually and I am slightly overclocked (1320Mhz).

We will see if Nvidia's 120watts total claims are true in the first place, but I don't expect them to be vastly different, certainly not enough to sway the purchase either way. I think many underestimate the power efficiency improvement AMD has accomplished with Polaris.

What the hell man? Since when are we looking at the "chip" power draw only? I've been following graphics cards for some years now, and now with the RX 480 launch, it's the first time I see people suddenly focusing on the power draw of the chip. I think it's irrelevant.

Also, look at the reviews for the GTX 1070 and GTX 1080. The reference models heavily adhere to the TDP. Look at the reference GTX 960 and other Maxwell's. They too heavily adhered to the TDP.

So if the RX 480's power draw issue isn't fixed and we see the average gaming load power draw at 165W, for Nvidia it would likely be 115W. That 50W difference is quite something, especially since the Nvidia card has got even better performance (likely).

That 2GB extra memory, maybe, just maybe, contributes an extra 7 Watts of VRAM. And that's nothing in the grand scheme of things.

 

[JDG1980]

GTX 1080 has a nominal MSRP of $599. Not a single one of these cards from any major retailer has ever sold this low.

GTX 1070 has a nominal MSRP of $379, but again, not a single card from any major retailer has ever sold at that price.

I see no reason to take the official $249 MSRP assigned to the GTX 1060 any more seriously. As far as I'm concerned, the real MSRP is the $299 Founders Edition price until proven otherwise.

 

[R0H1T]

What the hell man? Since when are we looking at the "chip" power draw only? I've been following graphics cards for some years now, and now with the RX 480 launch, it's the first time I see people suddenly focusing on the power draw of the chip. I think it's irrelevant.

Also, look at the reviews for the GTX 1070 and GTX 1080. The reference models heavily adhere to the TDP. Look at the reference GTX 960 and other Maxwell's. They too heavily adhered to the TDP.

So if the RX 480's power draw issue isn't fixed and we see the average gaming load power draw at 165W, for Nvidia it would likely be 115W. That 50W difference is quite something, especially since the Nvidia card has got even better performance (likely).

That 2GB extra memory, maybe, just maybe, contributes an extra 7 Watts of VRAM. And that's nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Well since you put it this way, why don't we look at some actual numbers & see why some of this misinformation needs to be dispelled ~

I'm sure the reference 480 cards are the worst performing 480's out there, the AIBPC will not only have better performance but very likely higher perf/W however as you can see from the charts above it's not the case with Maxwell/Pascal cards, in fact the opposite wrt efficiency.

 

[sze5003]

GTX 1080 has a nominal MSRP of $599. Not a single one of these cards from any major retailer has ever sold this low.

GTX 1070 has a nominal MSRP of $379, but again, not a single card from any major retailer has ever sold at that price.

I see no reason to take the official $249 MSRP assigned to the GTX 1060 any more seriously. As far as I'm concerned, the real MSRP is the $299 Founders Edition price until proven otherwise.

Kind of with you on this one but someone posted earlier that a msi 1060 should be $249 when they release. We will have to see. I just want reviews even though who knows when I'll be able to actually purchase either card due to supply issues.

 

[Sweepr]

I see no reason to take the official $249 MSRP assigned to the GTX 1060 any more seriously. As far as I'm concerned, the real MSRP is the $299 Founders Edition price until proven otherwise.

Except this time custom AIB cards will be available at launch and Founder's Edition is a limited run for a few months. If it's available a $249-269 at launch it will steal 8GB RX 480's thunder. I don't think the competition predicted GP106 in July when they 'mentioned several months advantage to market'.

 

[Silverforce11]

Except this time custom AIB cards will be available at launch and Founder's Edition is a limited run for a few months. If it's available a $249-269 at launch it will stole 8GB RX 480's thunder. I don't think the competition predicted GP106 in July when they 'mentioned several months advantage to market'.

The thing about timing is it can move forward, retail volume will suffer, but the end result is a product has launched. Look at the 1070 and 1080 situation.

The good thing about a paper launch, it's out of stock everywhere so you can easily say "demand exceeded our expectations!".

If it's an actual hard launch with good volume, then Raja was clearly wrong and NV will win this generation easily.

 

[AtenRa]

Nice ASUS cards, even single slot.


http://www.tomshardware.com/news/asus-gtx-1060-graphics-cards,32217.html

ps. nice 4k gaming marketing BS :biggrin:

 

[96Firebird]

Single-slot blower? This thing must sip power...

Or is it really a dual-slot and the angle is messing with me?

 

[sze5003]

Looks like they will have 3 versions. My guess is the $249 one will be the blower model.

 

[Redentor]

It's a dual slot, not single. It has two screw slots.

 

[Keysplayr]

IIRC that poll showed that people on this forum place more importance on longevity and value versus brand perception/marketing. Which is what you'd expect on an enthusiast forum so the bias in this case is for valid reasons. At least that's the impression I got from that thread.

That's just what they say, "out loud".

 

[Keysplayr]

GTX 1080 has a nominal MSRP of $599. Not a single one of these cards from any major retailer has ever sold this low.

GTX 1070 has a nominal MSRP of $379, but again, not a single card from any major retailer has ever sold at that price.

I see no reason to take the official $249 MSRP assigned to the GTX 1060 any more seriously. As far as I'm concerned, the real MSRP is the $299 Founders Edition price until proven otherwise.

Well, the closest the 1070 got to it's 379.00 MSRP was a currently out of stock (for good reason) Gigabyte card at Newegg at 399.00. Twenty dollars over MSRP, especially for a slightly overclocked AIB is pretty good.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125875

 

[sze5003]

Well, the closest the 1070 got to it's 379.00 MSRP was a currently out of stock (for good reason) Gigabyte card at Newegg at 399.00. Twenty dollars over MSRP, especially for a slightly overclocked AIB is pretty good.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125875

Yea that's been out of stock for a very long time.

 

[Keysplayr]

Yea that's been out of stock for a very long time.

It'll be back, but hopefully newegg auto gouge code doesn't hit too hard.