The GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition & ASUS Strix GTX 1060 Review
by Ryan Smith on August 5, 2016 2:00 PM ESTGrand Theft Auto V
The latest edition of Rockstar’s venerable series of open world action games, Grand Theft Auto V was originally released to the last-gen consoles back in 2013. However thanks to a rather significant facelift for the current-gen consoles and PCs, along with the ability to greatly turn up rendering distances and add other features like MSAA and more realistic shadows, the end result is a game that is still among the most stressful of our benchmarks when all of its features are turned up. Furthermore, in a move rather uncharacteristic of most open world action games, Grand Theft Auto also includes a very comprehensive benchmark mode, giving us a great chance to look into the performance of an open world action game.
On a quick note about settings, as Grand Theft Auto V doesn't have pre-defined settings tiers, I want to quickly note what settings we're using. For "Very High" quality we have all of the primary graphics settings turned up to their highest setting, with the exception of grass, which is at its own very high setting. Meanwhile 4x MSAA is enabled for direct views and reflections. This setting also involves turning on some of the advanced redering features - the game's long shadows, high resolution shadows, and high definition flight streaming - but it not increasing the view distance any further.
Otherwise for "High" quality we take the same basic settings but turn off all MSAA, which significantly reduces the GPU rendering and VRAM requirements.
While more often than not GTX 1060 trails GTX 980 by a couple of percent, in GTAV the tables get turned. Now GTX 1060 has the lead, albeit a trivial 1-2%. The net result is that much like its last-generation predecessor, GTX 1060 can deliver framerates in the mid-40s at 1440p, but you need to go to 1080p to average better than 60fps.
Meanwhile compared to GTX 960 we’re looking at another case where more VRAM and GPU performance improvements combine to make GTX 1060 punch above its weight. Here the new NVIDIA card outperforms the last-generation x60 card by 93%. Otherwise compared to the more powerful GTX 1070, we’re looking at about 73% of that card’s performance.
Finally, this is another game where the GTX 1060 compares very favorably to the RX 480. Here NVIDIA leads by 30%.
Shifting gears to 99th percentile framerates, the story is much the same as with the averages. GTX 1060 retains a comfortable lead over the competition and in the process stays above 30fps, even at 1440p.
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Younanomous - Monday, August 8, 2016 - link
So would it be a good investment to go for the 1070 for 1080p if I plan t keep the card for 3+ years? I'm always told that the X70's are overill for 1080p.JamesAnthony - Monday, August 8, 2016 - link
Thanks for another Excellent review.The review shows the GTX 1060 is an excellent value/performance card.
While there is a bunch of arguing back and forth I think it's fairly clear to say that:
a. There is a huge installed base of people with monitors running 1920x1080
b. The GTX1060 offers excellent performance from a price / performance standpoint
c. For most intents and purposes the GTX 1060 and RX 480 8gb have similar performance under most applications and give or take a bit are similar in price & the prices will drift down a bit as supply finally fully catches up with demand. (I was able to land 2 of the Overclocked Zotac ones at $275 each on launch day).
d. If you have a lot of brand loyalty (in my case Nvidia drivers just work better for me), you'll pick based on your preference, and then people who truly don't care (I think there are less of those) can pick based on specific things they want, but neither is a bad choice unless you have to have FP64 then it's AMD only.
The RX 460 is going to be quite interesting from the extreme cheap budget / power capped viewpoint if it comes in around the $120 range & has a 75w power draw that doesn't need a power connector.
I'd love to see a GTX 1050 that was PCIe power only and could go standard single slot or low profile single / dual slot to compete. (with it being able to go single slot, low profile as the ultimate idea).
loop - Monday, August 8, 2016 - link
buy rx 480 or gtx 1060?elessar25 - Monday, August 8, 2016 - link
I read on Eurogamer that AMD's GPUs outperform NVIDIA on "close to metal" APIs like DX12. Although this review proofs without a doubt that the GTX 1060 is more powerful overall than the RX 480, I'm curious if this will hold true going forward? For someone who wants to future-proof their system, which is the better GPU? Disclaimer: I'm not a fanboy and I currently run a GTX 670.Greeba77 - Tuesday, August 9, 2016 - link
This is pretty much what I was getting at in my above comment, curious to know...Tech-Curious - Wednesday, August 10, 2016 - link
We don't know, but it seems reasonable to guess, based on recent history, that:1.) AMD's relative performance will likely increase, whereas nVidia's will probably decrease with time, as a result of driver optimizations for the former and the lack thereof for the latter. Keep in mind that this isn't necessarily an indictment of nVidia or a compliment to AMD; it could be interpreted as nVidia's optimizing their drivers better at the outset, leaving them less headroom to improve. But for whatever reason, past-gen nVidia cards seem to fall back relative to their competition later on.
2.) AMD will tend to gain more from DX 12. Whether "gaining more" means that any particular AMD card will outperform its nVidia counterpart is a whole 'nother issue.
Hrel - Tuesday, August 9, 2016 - link
Wow, based on these numbers AMD needs to drop their prices at least $40 to even be viable, let's not even talk about competitive.Fuck, so now we officially have a monopoly in the CPU and GPU space.
Younanomous - Wednesday, August 10, 2016 - link
It's not a monopoly if you have another choice, even if that other choice isn't as good in your eyes.Casecutter - Wednesday, August 10, 2016 - link
Would've been nice to see where a $249 unit (with lower end dual fans) slots into this line up. This Asus doesn't really impress for $315 (working a $15 rebate right today).thunderwave_2 - Wednesday, August 10, 2016 - link
For the upcoming RX 480 review, could you post power, temps and noise results for the Compatibility mode? (they perform almost identically, so performance results might be redundant)