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

[Hitman928]

GTX 1060 6GB
Ashes of the Singularity Benchmark
http://www.ashesofthesingularity.co...-details/9eda58c7-0b21-415b-962e-ad77566cf18a
Extreme 1080p
http://www.ashesofthesingularity.co...-details/2bb76033-7b29-4400-93b2-939cc0179618

That score would put it just above a 970 in this game.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-rx-480-polaris-10,4616-5.html

 

[littleg]

Most games that go for nice looking graphics are reasonably smart about vram use, 3GB should be enough for good graphics.

Still would've liked if nvidia just demanded 6GB, that way you'd really never have to worry about it.

At the speculated performance levels 3GB isn't enough, at least not if you plan on keeping the card for any length of time. The 6GB variant would be the sensible recommendation.

 

[Sweepr]

Thanks to Clukos @ Beyond3D, die size estimative for those who asked:

 

[crisium]

The problem with 3GB for the 1060 is a simple one.

It's got 980 class performance, but less vram than the 980 did. Heck, even less than the 970 did and it's what, 20% faster than a 970?

A lot faster than GTX 780 or 780Ti and it's got 3GB vram.

Not a future proof purchase at all.

4GB at least draws it parallel for the 980 performance class, which is still very capable.

Basically it's got the performance to max settings at 1080p and should do 1440p decently with an OC, but without the vram capacity to handle maxing texture quality, the most important setting that determines image quality.

People should take this into account and recommend the 6GB variant for users who come to tech forums to seek advice.

Very good points.

In fact it seems worse than the 2GB 960 compared to its performance peers. Certainly the 960 was capable of using more than 2GB and the outgoing 280 and 280X 3GB cards always made it look relatively weak. But at least compared to its prior gen brethren it performed closest to the GTX 760-670-680 which were largely sold as 2GB cards.

And the immediate same generation competition to the 960 was the R9 285 2GB. While the immediate same gen competition to the 1060 is the RX 480 which is minimum 4GB. So another comparison showing the 1060 3GB potentially more VRAM starved than 960 2GB, relative to other cards.

As you said, the 1060 will almost certainly perform closest to the 980 and faster than the 970 and these were both 4GB cards (or 3.5 + 0.5).

Competent developers tailor VRAM around whats out on the market. Get ready for the lower texture settings from day 1 in some games, and to continue forward. The lessons from the 8800GT 256MB are written on the walls (less VRAM than even slower 8800GTS G80 and Radeon 3870)

 

[kaanguner]

But if that's the case, for any purchaser that plans on keeping his/her card longer than 2 years, 4gb of 480's is a bad choice too.

I'm a mid-range gpu user. I usually use my card for 3 years minimum. So why should i buy a 3 or 4gb graphics card other than strict-strict-budget? But since I'm planning on using my card for several years 40$ difference something I should go to lengths to.

 

[jiffylube1024]

There's too much speculation going on right now about the 1060's performance and whether 3GB will (seriously) hamper the card or not. 6GB seems to be the smart choice for future proofing, but there have been a lot of cards in the past that had less VRAM and were just fine.

The 19th can't come soon enough (is that when official reviews are allowed to be posted online?), so we can get a more concrete picture of performance.

 

[kaanguner]

There's too much speculation going on right now about the 1060's performance and whether 3GB will (seriously) hamper the card or not. 6GB seems to be the smart choice for future proofing, but there have been a lot of cards in the past that had less VRAM and were just fine.

The 19th can't come soon enough (is that when official reviews are allowed to be posted online?), so we can get a more concrete picture of performance.

Considering titles like FarCry, GTA ans Shadows of Mordor use 3gb+ VRAM, I have enough reason to think next summer will have 3 titles that will use as much VRAM as 4gb. What do you think?

 

[boozzer]

if you are keeping your card for more than 1 year, 100% go for 4gb or more. just look at 960 2gb. it is now trash, and was trash when it was released. 960 is the precedent.

 

[dark zero]

Why I feel that the 3 GB version will flop very HARD? No SLI, lower vRAM than the competitor and newer games uses more RAM. If the cost is not noticeable to make people does not go to RX 470/80...
No ofense guys, but I see that version will be put on EOL faster than the 2GB 960.

They should put it on a GT 1040 (yeah is a theorical, but still there is no opponents for the RX 460) with that ammount of memory. That could be interesting to see.

 

[LTC8K6]

Is 3gb of VRAM seriously hampering the 280x or 780ti yet?

Given the card's overall capabilities, it may be that 3gb does not hamper the 1060.

 

[24601]

Is 3gb of VRAM seriously hampering the 280x or 780ti yet?

Given the card's overall capabilities, it may be that 3gb does not hamper the 1060.

Depends almost entirely on how much vram the textures take.

The features that eat vram other than textures usually shouldn't be turned on for this caliber of card anyways.

 

[tviceman]

Thanks to Clukos @ Beyond3D, die size estimative for those who asked:

Thanks! 64% the size of GP104. I think Nvidia made the right call going with 192-bit bus and 48 ROPs since GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 are demonstrated bandwidth starvation.

 

[tviceman]

The problem with 3GB for the 1060 is a simple one.

It's got 980 class performance, but less vram than the 980 did. Heck, even less than the 970 did and it's what, 20% faster than a 970?

A lot faster than GTX 780 or 780Ti and it's got 3GB vram.

Not a future proof purchase at all.

4GB at least draws it parallel for the 980 performance class, which is still very capable.

Basically it's got the performance to max settings at 1080p and should do 1440p decently with an OC, but without the vram capacity to handle maxing texture quality, the most important setting that determines image quality.

People should take this into account and recommend the 6GB variant for users who come to tech forums to seek advice.

GTX 1060 6gb > RX 480 8gb > RX 480 4gb > GTX 1060 3gb

3gb is worthless, it will look stupid when the GTX 1050 will have 4gb on board and does better in texture heavy situations.

 

[24601]

Thanks! 64% the size of GP104. I think Nvidia made the right call going with 192-bit bus and 48 ROPs since GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 are demonstrated bandwidth starvation.

Yeah the 256-bit hard limit for laptop use is very annoying.

There's no doubt that 1080 would still be pretty bandwidth limited even with 12 gbps GDDR5x.

 

[boozzer]

Depends almost entirely on how much vram the textures take.

The features that eat vram other than textures usually shouldn't be turned on for this caliber of card anyways.

480 is as good as a 980, so yes, turn those options on in 1080p 100%. and the claim from some forum members is that 1060 will be as good as 980 also .

 

[24601]

480 is as good as a 980, so yes, turn those options on in 1080p 100%. and the claim from some forum members is that 1060 will be as good as 980 also .

You go have your "cinematic" 10-25 fps experience at 8x MSAA and a bunch of crap tier shader slap-ons while I play on my R9 290 at 45-75 fps.

 

[tviceman]

Yeah the 256-bit hard limit for laptop use is very annoying.

There's no doubt that 1080 would still be pretty bandwidth limited even with 12 gbps GDDR5x.

I dunno. I think 12 gbps and 384 gb/s bandwidth would be just right for GTX 1080. I expect a Pascal refresh a la Kepler with nominal core clock increases, but substantial memory clock increases. It'll be an easy 10-15% performance improvement and counter to whatever Vega might bring.

 

[24601]

I dunno. I think 12 gbps and 384 gb/s bandwidth would be just right for GTX 1080. I expect a Pascal refresh a la Kepler with nominal core clock increases, but substantial memory clock increases. It'll be an easy 10-15% performance improvement and counter to whatever Vega might bring.

I just pine for the days where so much wasn't left on the table purely for laptop sku considerations. You shouldn't be able to get even 1% extra performance by increasing memory bandwidth by 10%.

 

[boozzer]

You go have your "cinematic" 10-25 fps experience at 8x MSAA and a bunch of crap tier shader slap-ons while I play on my R9 290 at 45-75 fps.

this is hilarious.

 

[flopper]

Nvidia has a super driver in the works that will enable dx12 in maxwell cards soon and will make the 1060 faster than the 1070.


Trolling and threadcrapping are not allowed.
Markfw900

 

[Redentor]

Nvidia has a super driver in the works that will enable dx12 in maxwell cards soon and will make the 1060 faster than the 1070.

Don't forget Fermi DX12 driver ...

 

[Sweepr]

Geforce GTX 1060 6GB 3DMark Results

www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/9202637/fs/9202684/fs/9202725/fs/9180075/fs/9181008#

Fire Strike Graphics Score: 12.951
Fire Strike Extreme Graphics Score: 6.063
Fire Strike Ultra Graphics Score: 2.902-2.911

 

[Thala]

Considering titles like FarCry, GTA ans Shadows of Mordor use 3gb+ VRAM, I have enough reason to think next summer will have 3 titles that will use as much VRAM as 4gb. What do you think?

So what reason do you have? You don't need higher resolution textures if your screen resolution stays constant.
That does not mean, that the developer would not provide higher resolution texture packs for those playing at 4k.
The mistake here clearly is, that people playing at 1080p are convinced that they would have to apply the highest resolution textures in order to get optimal quality.

 

[SPBHM]

Geforce GTX 1060 6GB 3DMark Results

www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/9202637/fs/9202684/fs/9202725/fs/9180075/fs/9181008#

Fire Strike Graphics Score: 12.951
Fire Strike Extreme Graphics Score: 6.063

I think this looks very positive for the 1060 and 480 4GB (but the 1060 3GB could ruin it), but kind of bad for the 480 8GB

problem is, I think the 480 is more competitive on 3dmark than some DX11 games

 

[Glo.]

Geforce GTX 1060 6GB 3DMark Results

www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/9202637/fs/9202684/fs/9202725/fs/9180075/fs/9181008#

Fire Strike Graphics Score: 12.951
Fire Strike Extreme Graphics Score: 6.063
Fire Strike Ultra Graphics Score: 2.902-2.911

Yeah, that GPU appears to have 1911 MHz core clock. 205 MHz higher than rumoured 1706 MHz core clock of GTX 1060.

Generic VGA (1x Off) (1 911 MHz)