The Test

For our review of the GTX 1060, we’re using NVIDIA’s 368.81 driver. Our 2016 benchmark suite is otherwise identical to how it was described in our GTX 1080 review.

Meanwhile I’ve gone ahead and included a spectrum of cards, not only contemporary competitors like the Radeon RX 480 8GB, but also historical cards such as the GTX 760 and GTX 660, to give us an idea of how performance has improved in this segment over the generations.

CPU: Intel Core i7-4960X @ 4.2GHz
Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty X79 Professional
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200i
Hard Disk: Samsung SSD 840 EVO (750GB)
Memory: G.Skill RipjawZ DDR3-1866 4 x 8GB (9-10-9-26)
Case: NZXT Phantom 630 Windowed Edition
Monitor: Asus PQ321
Video Cards: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Founders Edition
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660
ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1060 OC
AMD Radeon RX 480
AMD Radeon R9 390
AMD RAdeon R9 380X
AMD Radeon R9 290
AMD Radeon HD 7970
Video Drivers: NVIDIA Release 368.81
AMD Radeon Software Crimson 16.7.2 (RX 480)
AMD Radeon Software Crimson 16.7.1 (All Else)
OS: Windows 10 Pro
Meet the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1060 OC Rise of the Tomb Raider
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  • Raniz - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link

    Good review, though I must say that calling it a review of a $249 MSRP card when neither of the cards actually reviewed has an MSRP of $249 is a bit weird.

    I think you should have at least one card that is actually priced at $249 in the review, even if the FE is supposed to be exactly the same as those cards.
  • Nephelai - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link

    Never been a tin foil hat guy but I'm starting to believe nvidia is holding first borns on threat of including a GTX 980 TI or two in SLI in any review.
  • MarkieGcolor - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link

    Yes! The GPU market is wacked
  • Sushisamurai - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link

    I feel sorry for you Ryan. So much work out put in and yet there's still so many people that blast you and Anandtech as if you owe the vendors and readers "timely" reviews. Don't let it get to you guys - they'll still come and read just like I do, as your site offers something many don't.

    Anyways, back on topic, I feel the MRSP is a little BS In Canada, Newegg sells the products at ~$280 USD (1 SKU), with the Asus Strix @~$330 (other SKU's listed >$330). For $100 over the 480 in CAD (only reference boards available ATM) that 1060's perf/$ is too intense, almost priced at the next bracket (1070's only $50-$100 off the 1060 price, might as well get the 1070 then). Neat to see the 1060 #'s in action, too bad there's a limit on overvolting and TDP for over clocking.
  • IKeelU - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link

    This review really needed some Doom vulkan to paint a more accurate picture of how these cards will perform in the future. I understand that Anandtech will expand on this review later on, but many of us are buying cards now (well, trying to at least).
  • Simplex - Sunday, August 7, 2016 - link

    I'd love to see more Vulkan based, but how realistic is it? How many games were announced to use Vulkan?
    How popular was Vulkan's predecessor (OpenGL) in the past?
  • Tech-Curious - Wednesday, August 10, 2016 - link

    Problem is that the nVidia optimizations for Doom Vulkan haven't even been attempted yet. You can find a bunch of reviews that show the 480 blowing the 1060 out of the water in Doom Vulkan, but we really don't know how representative those results are.

    Those results are very encouraging for the 480 though, just in general performance terms.
  • Tech-Curious - Wednesday, August 10, 2016 - link

    Correction, the quote I had in mind references async compute specifically. From Bethesda's Doom Vulkan FAQ:

    "Does DOOM support asynchronous compute when running on the Vulkan API?

    Asynchronous compute is a feature that provides additional performance gains on top of the baseline id Tech 6 Vulkan feature set.

    Currently asynchronous compute is only supported on AMD GPUs and requires DOOM Vulkan supported drivers to run. We are working with NVIDIA to enable asynchronous compute in Vulkan on NVIDIA GPUs. We hope to have an update soon."

    https://community.bethesda.net/thread/54585?tstart...
  • eddman - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link

    Thanks for the review. I hope to see an HTPC review down the line, with a short 1060 or the upcoming 1050 (/Ti?).
  • jackbutler - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link

    Could we please see a review of the new HEVC/H265 encoding performance of GTX1060 vs RX480?

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