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The GTX 1060 faces a determined foe in the Radeon RX 480 though; as it’s the first time the two companies’ new architectures will clash head-to-head in the same pricing arena. Prior to this matchup, Nvidia’s new GPUs were only competing with AMD technology from the previous generation, and ironically when the RX 480 launched it was doing the same, going up against Nvidia’s older GPUs as well. It’s a matchup for the ages too, because while Nvidia’s new Pascal GPUs use 16nm FinFET transistors, AMD has also moved to a smaller 14nm FinFET design, bringing engineering parity to the two warring camps and allowing them to compete on a level playing field.
Two Flavors of 1060
There are two different models of the GTX 1060 with two different memory configurations. Though Nvidia launched the 1060 with the now-familiar Founder’s Edition, which is a fancy way of saying “reference design,” but they were manufactured in very small numbers. That means if you’re in the market for this GPU you’ll need to select from a dizzying array of cards designed and sold by Nvidia’s partners including ones such as our review unit from MSI; the Gaming X 6G. Though the GTX 1060 initially launched with just a 6GB offering, Nvidia added a slightly detuned 3GB version shortly afterward for $50 less that it claims is about five percent slower overall. This strategy of launching two versions with different amounts of memory mirrors AMD’s tactic, as it launched the RX 480 in both 4GB and 8GB variants. This review is of the MSI Gaming X 6GB version of the GTX 1060, as we have not had a chance to test its baby brother. The 6GB GTX 1060 has an MSRP of $249, while the 3GB version starts at $199, though this overclocked MSI card retails for around $300.
The Specs
Since the RX 480 was released first, Nvidia had the opportunity to fashion a GPU it knew would be just slightly faster, but the rub is that it costs more, too. The RX 480 tends to sell for around $239 while the GTX 1060 6GB is about $250 or so, but as we noted above, this MSI version (and others) cost as much as $300 so it's a bit like bringing a gun to a knife fight.
As for the GTX 1060, it features a 192-bit memory interface, which is narrower than the RX 480’s 256-bit wide path, but makes up lost ground with much higher base and boost clock speeds. One of Pascal’s defining features is its ability to sustain clock speeds that required liquid nitrogen cooling in the previous generation, and the GTX 1060 carries on this tradition quite well. Whereas the RX 480 can boost up to 1,266MHz, the GTX 1060 is able to clock all the way up to 1,708MHz and beyond, which is a sizable advantage for Nvidia. One interesting aspect of the GTX 1060 is that it also consumes less power than the RX 480, continuing Nvidia’s dominance in the performance-per-watt battle. Also, unlike with its higher-end GPUs, Nvidia is not allowing for two-card SLI setups on the GTX 1060, though the RX 480 does allow multi-card configurations.
The Benchmarks
To test the MSI GTX 1060 Gaming X 6G we pulled some data from our sister site Computer Shopper, which tested it on a system featuring the following specs:- Haswell Intel Core i7-4770K CPU
- 16GB DDR3 memory
- Gigabyte Z87X-UDH5 Socket 1150 mobo
- OCZ Vector 180 (480GB) SSD
- 850-watt Thermaltake Toughpower PSU
When Nvidia was pitching the GTX 1060 to the media, it claimed it essentially offered the same level of performance as the GTX 980, which if you recall was $549 when it launched over two years ago. Not surprisingly the benchmark charts show it performs almost exactly the same, making today’s mid-range GPU equal to last generation’s flagship GPU. The GTX 1060 is also clearly faster than the RX 480 by about ten percent on average, though in some games the advantage was as high as 40 percent. This isn’t too shocking since again, the Nvidia GPU is more expensive. AMD’s card certainly gives the GTX 1060 a run for its money, which is impressive since it has such a dramatic clock speed disadvantage.
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It’s also of note that the RX 480 really closed the gap to the GTX 1060 in two out of three games tested in DirectX12. This is one area where AMD seemingly has an advantage over Nvidia, but it’s too early in the DX12 lifecycle to say so definitively just yet.
Overclocking
Like the previous Pascal cards, the GTX 1060 was born to boost, as Nvidia has given it conservative reference clock speeds that seemingly have no bearing on the real world. For example, its Boost clock is listed as just 1,708MHz but thanks to its GPU Boost 3.0 technology it was able to power all the way up to over 1,900MHz right out of the box without any input from us. We eventually goosed it up to just a smidge over 2GHz, which is right inline with our experience with other Pascal GPUs as well.Most of the time in the GPU world performance scales in-line with pricing quite evenly, and that’s the case with the GTX 1060. It was faster than the RX 480 in every test we ran, and it costs between $30 and $50 more too, so you get what you pay for when choosing between these two cards. Of course, there are also unknowns such as whether or not VR and DX12 will become larger factors in a GPU purchasing decision, but right now it’s too early to tell. Also though Nvidia’s software package has long been considered superior to AMD’s, AMD just revamped its entire suite to compete more fiercely with Nvidia, but again, it’s too early to tell how that will all shake out.