The GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition & ASUS Strix GTX 1060 Review
by Ryan Smith on August 5, 2016 2:00 PM ESTAshes of the Singularity
Sorely missing from our benchmark suite for quite some time have been RTSes, which don’t enjoy quite the popularity they once did. As a result Ashes holds a special place in our hearts, and that’s before we talk about the technical aspects. Based on developer Oxide Games’ Nitrous Engine, Ashes has been designed from the ground up for low-level APIs like DirectX 12. As a result of all of the games in our benchmark suite, this is the game making the best use of DirectX 12’s various features, from asynchronous compute to multi-threaded work submission and high batch counts. What we see can’t be extrapolated to all DirectX 12 games, but it gives us a very interesting look at what we might expect in the future.
Ashes is a game that in our GTX 1080 review we found AMD does rather well in, with their last generation cards still challenging GTX 1070 at times. So I was surprised to see GTX 1060 and RX 480 so close here. At 1440p GTX 1060 trails by just a couple of percent, and at 1080p it’s a dead heat. Given that of all of the games in our current benchmark suite this is the game that AMD seems to do the best on, it’s notable that GTX 1060 can keep up with AMD’s card even when it’s on the backfoot. Given that NVIDIA is charging a slight price premium for the GTX 1060, it’s helpful for NVIDIA that the card never falters against its slightly cheaper competitor. That said there is also the spoiler effect of the cheaper 4GB RX 480, but that’s a slightly more complex matter for the conclusion of this article.
Meanwhile on a generational basis, GTX 1060 continues to deliver GTX 980-like performance. Or against the GTX 960, we’re looking at a considerable 74% performance improvement. GTX 1060 is even fast enough to do better than 30fps at 1440p with the Extreme settings, which for an RTS is perfectly playable. However GTX 1070 still has a significant lead over the GTX 1060 here.
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Greeba77 - Wednesday, August 10, 2016 - link
I don't subscribe to some of the bitchier comments on here and I do read Anandtech because of the depth of the reviews. I do feel a trick or two has been missed on this one, because since the 1080 and 1070 review, the results came out elsewhere to show the low level API performance on the Pascal cards seemed to be a problem (the Vulkan Doom benchmarks were awful compared to the RX480). I was hoping this review would include a deeper dive in to this as it's a potential question mark on the 1060's future proofing vs the RX480.Thermalzeal - Monday, August 15, 2016 - link
I will please ask that you use "other" review sites for your insatiable impatient needs.No way AnandTech will be left out because it's the only site that Industry professionals actually read these days. And if for some reason this catastrophe happened...I'm pretty sure one call to Anand, and he'll walk right into Jen Hsun's office and take the card right out of his computer. Especially now that he's just hanging out at Apple. ,
Colin1497 - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
Clearly the last couple months have been unfortunate, as whatever dynamic has happened has corresponded with the most exciting time in the GPU world in years. The question is where he can get back on track. I doubt that Ryan is unaware of all of the issues surrounding this. We will see how he responds. :)just4U - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link
100% certain he's aware of the criticisms.. as he does comment on some of them. Also a likely reason why Daniel Williams was brought on board to help with overflow.. Although I'd really like to see Ian take a stab at the video card reviews.. (just for sh... and giggles) as processors are not so interesting these days with incremental bumps... but they all have their niche areas to work with so whatever.The only real criticism I have would be the waiting game.. If Ryan says something will be ready on a certain date (or in a few days..) and then it takes weeks.. well shoot that's disappointing and shouldn't happen. But hey.. I was one of those happy with the Preview the Review was just icing on the cake (even if I disagree on the 480 vs 1060 assessment)
Ryan's good at what he does late or not, many of us look forward to Anandtech's takehome on new Video Cards.
ridic987 - Sunday, August 7, 2016 - link
what about his 480 vs 1060 assessment do you disagree with?just4U - Monday, August 8, 2016 - link
He puts it at and around 10% faster than the RX480. The feel I am getting from most who have hands on experience with both cards suggest the 480 might be a little better.It reminds me of the 380/960 comparisons online initially.. both excellent products overall but after a lot of time with both I kind of felt ripped off by the 960 which I paid a premium for and it certainly wasn't as good as the 380.
Cygni - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
Then go start your own review website, nerd. This one ain't yours, and nobody cares about how you think it should be run.Devo2007 - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
Actually, very few (if any) sites were sampled Titan X Pascal cards - has nothing to do with Anandtech's review schedule.Nagorak - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link
They didn't sample anyone on Titan X it seems like.Tabalan - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
What about RX470? It would be nice to see some decent AIB cards compared. Also, I really would like you to add 2 charts in summary - overall performance and perf/$. This would help comparing your review to other reviews without going though all benchmarks and game tests.