The GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition & ASUS Strix GTX 1060 Review
by Ryan Smith on August 5, 2016 2:00 PM ESTSynthetics
As always we’ll also take a quick look at synthetic performance. While GTX 1060 is of course a cut down Pascal architecture part, how it has been cut down is interesting. Compared to GP104, GP106 has half the SMs and GPCs, but 3/4 the ROPs, which may prove to have an impact.
Starting off with tessellation performance, we find the GTX 1060 coming in just behind the GTX 980, showing that NVIDIA’s performance estimates generally apply not only to games, but synthetic tests as well. But perhaps more interesting is the fact that the card is neck-and-neck with the Radeon RX 480. NVIDIA has traditionally enjoyed a sizable geometry performance lead over AMD cards, but it looks like those days have come to a close.
Up next, we have SteamVR’s Performance Test. While this test is based on the latest version of Valve’s Source engine, the test itself is purely synthetic, designed to test the suitability of systems for VR, making it our sole VR-focused test at this time. It should be noted that the results in this test are not linear, and furthermore the score is capped at 11. Of particular note, cards that fail to reach GTX 970/R9 290 levels fall off of a cliff rather quickly. So test results should be interpreted a little differently.
As NVIDIA’s now entry-level VR card, GTX 1060 looks very good in the Steam VR test. A score of 7.9 Newells means that it’s comfortably above the 6.x range generally required, and it also means the GTX 1060 is comfortably ahead of the RX 480 in this scenario.
Finally, for looking at texel and pixel fillrate, we have the Beyond3D Test Suite. This test offers a slew of additional tests – many of which use behind the scenes or in our earlier architectural analysis – but for now we’ll stick to simple pixel and texel fillrates.
Starting with the pixel fillrate, we can see the impact of GTX 1060’s slightly more unusual ROP and GPC arrangement when it’s compared to the GTX 980. At 54.8 GPixels/second, GTX 1060 trails GTX 980 significantly. The card not only has fewer ROPs, but it has half of the rasterizer throughput (32 pixels/clock) as GTX 980. As we’ve seen in our gaming benchmarks the real-world impact isn’t nearly as great as what happens under these synthetic tests, but it helps to explain why sometimes GTX 1060 is tied with GTX 980, and other times it’s several percent behind. If nothing else, at an architectural level this is what makes GTX 1060 a better 1080p card than a 1440p card.
As for texel throughput, things are right where we expect them. GTX 1060 is virtually tied with GTX 980, and while it’s ahead of RX 480 in the process, it’s not by a massive amount.
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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.