The GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition & ASUS Strix GTX 1060 Review
by Ryan Smith on August 5, 2016 2:00 PM ESTBattlefield 4
One of the older games in our benchmark suite, DICE’s Battlefield 4 remains a staple of MP gaming. Even at its age, Battlefield 4 remained a challenging game in its own right, as very few mass market MP shooters push the envelope on graphics quality right now. As these benchmarks are from single player mode, based on our experiences our rule of thumb here is that multiplayer framerates will dip to half our single player framerates, which means a card needs to be able to average at least 60fps if it’s to be able to hold up in multiplayer.
Switching gears to a game that has traditionally favored NVIDIA, the GTX 1060 comes out swinging here. At 60.6fps the card is just fast enough to crack 60fps at 1440p, meaning that even the minimum framerates should stay above 30fps. The ASUS card adds a further 5% here, which still a decent gain, though lower than we’ve seen elsewhere.
Compared to the last-gen GTX 960, this is an above-average game for the GTX 1060, as it improves on its predecessor by 87%, and more still with the even older NVIDIA cards. Meanwhile the performance gap between it and the GTX 1070 is about average, with GTX 1060 delivering 72% of GTX 1070’s performance.
As for RX 480, the GTX 1060 takes its largest performance lead. Overall the card is head of AMD’s 8GB competition by 30-35% depending on the resolution.
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Ryan Smith - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
Since there is no standard benchmark, it depends on the area you use. We purposely picked a section of the game that would be among the most demanding.Arbie - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
I really want to 'need' a new graphics board for FPS gaming. But I can't find any such games worth playing that need one. They're all console ports with mediocre graphics and even worse mechanics. And my GTX 770 is more than enough even on 2560x1440. I still read about the new cards but... how long...Simplex - Sunday, August 7, 2016 - link
"And my GTX 770 is more than enough even on 2560x1440"So you play at sub-30 fps and/or low details?
Arbie - Sunday, August 7, 2016 - link
Simplex - Can't see how you jumped to that conclusion, so I guess you're just trying to be contentious. FOR THE GAMES I *DO* PLAY the 770 is fine. That's my point, and the reason I personally am not in the market.I don't check frames per sec unless the gameplay is laggy. When it is - which is rare with the 770 - I dial down the eye-candy. Beyond a certain point that doesn't matter anyway, compared to game design & mechanics. The problem is that there are NO NEW FPS GAMES that deliver on those two aspects. My benchmark game is Crysis (and its siblings) which I run at "Very High" settings. There are a few games now with equally good graphics, but nothing even compares for fluidity, control, physics, level design, AI quality etc etc. Until there is, I won't need a new card. I wish it were otherwise.
just4U - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
A note for Nvidia since they will likely read these comments (..as will AMD)I've said there is a market for a reference design using a stylish reference cooler (like what you see on the Titan series..) For some it's worth the $50 admission. If your going to do that at the lower end but charge a premium... make sure it's got the same goodness as the upper end models.
Your 1060 Founders might sell.. but it won't sell as well as it could have if you'd gone all out on the cooler like you have for the higher end models. Plastic? Ugh.. No full backplate? Please.. Come on!
AnnonymousCoward - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
Now that you mention it, I've got a note for NVIDIA too: support the VESA standard Adaptive-Sync already! My monitor supports it, why won't you.Gigaplex - Monday, August 8, 2016 - link
If they do that, then there would be no reason for manufacturers to produce G-SYNC monitors. They'd all flock to Freesync compliance.Beararam - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
Great review, Ryan. Hope all the negative comments don't bring you down. Probably a lot going on behind the scenes that we don't see.VulkanMan - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
Why no encoding tests?Both camps support H.265 HEVC encoding & decoding.
Ryan Smith - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link
I've looked into it, but I haven't found any good encoding tests right now, particularly those that use HEVC. But if you happen to come across something, then I'm all ears.=)