The GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition & ASUS Strix GTX 1060 Review
by Ryan Smith on August 5, 2016 2:00 PM ESTOverclocking
For our final evaluation of our GTX 1060 cards, let’s take a look at overclocking.
We’ll start things off with NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition. This card has a 3+1 power delivery system and a 116% TDP limit. Like the earlier GTX 1080 and 1070 cards, the GTX 1060FE can be “overvolted” to 1.093v to unlock an additional boost bin.
| GeForce GTX 1060FE Overclocking | ||||
| Stock | Overclocked | |||
| Core Clock | 1506MHz | 1706MHz | ||
| Boost Clock | 1709MHz | 1909MHz | ||
| Max Boost Clock | 1911MHz | 2100MHz | ||
| Memory Clock | 8Gbps | 9Gbps | ||
| Max Voltage | 1.062v | 1.093v | ||
We were able to overclock the GTX 1060FE’s GPU an additional 200MHz (12%), bringing the boost clock to 1909MHz. Unsurprisingly, this is very similar to the GTX 1080 and 1070, both of which overclocked by around 200MHz as well. Consequently it looks like both GP104 and GP106 seem to have similar voltage/frequency curves. Meanwhile we were able to push the memory another 1Gbps (13%) to 9Gbps.
Our other GTX 1060 is ASUS’s ROG Strix GTX 1060 OC. This card features a more advanced cooler and 6+1 power delivery system, but it also ships with a factory overclock. So all things held equal it’s likely that there’s not as much headroom for additional end-user overclocking. Meanwhile the card also ships with a built-in OC setting via ASUS’s GPU Tweak II software, which offers a small, virtually guaranteed overclock.
| ASUS Strix GTX 1060 OC Overclocking | |||||
| Stock | OC Mode | Overclocked | |||
| Core Clock | 1620MHz | 1646MHz | 1720MHz | ||
| Boost Clock | 1848MHz | 1874MHz | 1948MHz | ||
| Max Boost Clock | 2025MHz | 2050MHz | 2113MHz | ||
| Memory Clock | 8.2Gbps | 8.2Gbps | 9.2Gbps | ||
| Max Voltage | 1.062v | 1.062v | 1.093v | ||
As expected, due to its factory overclock the ASUS GTX 1060 doesn’t offer quite as much end-user overclocking. We were able to add another 100MHz (5%) to the GPU, half that of the stock clocked GTX 1060FE. Though it should be noted that in absolute terms the ASUS card has overclocked a bit farther than NVIDIA’s card, with a base clock 14MHz higher and a boost clock 39MHz higher. Meanwhile we got a slightly higher memory overclock out of the card as well, with the card topping out at 9.2Gbps, 1Gbps (12%) over the card’s shipping memory frequency.
The overall performance gains and resulting power/temperate/noise costs are about as expected. The additional overclock helps the performance of the GTX 1060, but it’s nowhere near enough to close the gap with the GTX 1070. Meanwhile the final overclocks of the NVIDIA and ASUS cards are close enough that their peak performance is neck-and-neck.
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Samus - Sunday, August 7, 2016 - link
You are free to go elsewhere. Just about everyone else is content waiting for the most detailed and balanced reviews of products on the Internet. For free no less. 20 years ago you had to pay CR or someone like that for unbiased reviews.close - Tuesday, August 9, 2016 - link
Then isn't it ironic that you always seem to think that it's all about yours ddriver?snowmyr - Tuesday, August 9, 2016 - link
compared to your happiness? I mean you seem so upset you replied to your own post all because you misread the statement "We weren't sampled" like it was a complaint instead of just a statement of fact. Entitled people suck balls.DominionSeraph - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
Like the GTX 960 review?Morawka - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
guru3d is right up there with anandtech on deep dive analysis.damianrobertjones - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link
Sire like Engadget will eventually die as sites like The Verge and Engadget thrive. Why? They're shiny, lame, breeze over the details and make people feel great about their purchases. In other words: They're filled with absolute rubbish, paid for articles, which annoys the heck out of me.Just look at Tom's Hardware... they might as well shut down.
Chaser - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link
Really? they've gotten great, indepth reviews out on all the Nvidia Pascal cards much faster than here.Vorl - Monday, August 8, 2016 - link
That comment only works if they EVER give the reviews. There are cards they have never reviewed... so you don't get your answers no matter how long you wait.... I am not talking specific manufacturers, I am talking whole series of cards like the 960.. and so far the 1070 and 1080... I poke at this a lot because I have been coming here for years, it's even in one of my opening tabs for my browser... but they are starting to lose my faith in their ability to remain relevant.I remember when they used to do roundups and such.. haven't seen one of those in quite a while. It's not like the video world is saturated with news all the time and keeping them busy.
Ranger1065 - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link
I am 100% with you on this ddriver, screw anyone who disagrees. Criticism is needed.Ryan Smith - Sunday, August 7, 2016 - link
Criticism is more than welcome; it's how we get better.=) I do ask that it be constructive, though.