The GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition & ASUS Strix GTX 1060 Review
by Ryan Smith on August 5, 2016 2:00 PM ESTOverclocking
For our final evaluation of our GTX 1060 cards, let’s take a look at overclocking.
We’ll start things off with NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition. This card has a 3+1 power delivery system and a 116% TDP limit. Like the earlier GTX 1080 and 1070 cards, the GTX 1060FE can be “overvolted” to 1.093v to unlock an additional boost bin.
| GeForce GTX 1060FE Overclocking | ||||
| Stock | Overclocked | |||
| Core Clock | 1506MHz | 1706MHz | ||
| Boost Clock | 1709MHz | 1909MHz | ||
| Max Boost Clock | 1911MHz | 2100MHz | ||
| Memory Clock | 8Gbps | 9Gbps | ||
| Max Voltage | 1.062v | 1.093v | ||
We were able to overclock the GTX 1060FE’s GPU an additional 200MHz (12%), bringing the boost clock to 1909MHz. Unsurprisingly, this is very similar to the GTX 1080 and 1070, both of which overclocked by around 200MHz as well. Consequently it looks like both GP104 and GP106 seem to have similar voltage/frequency curves. Meanwhile we were able to push the memory another 1Gbps (13%) to 9Gbps.
Our other GTX 1060 is ASUS’s ROG Strix GTX 1060 OC. This card features a more advanced cooler and 6+1 power delivery system, but it also ships with a factory overclock. So all things held equal it’s likely that there’s not as much headroom for additional end-user overclocking. Meanwhile the card also ships with a built-in OC setting via ASUS’s GPU Tweak II software, which offers a small, virtually guaranteed overclock.
| ASUS Strix GTX 1060 OC Overclocking | |||||
| Stock | OC Mode | Overclocked | |||
| Core Clock | 1620MHz | 1646MHz | 1720MHz | ||
| Boost Clock | 1848MHz | 1874MHz | 1948MHz | ||
| Max Boost Clock | 2025MHz | 2050MHz | 2113MHz | ||
| Memory Clock | 8.2Gbps | 8.2Gbps | 9.2Gbps | ||
| Max Voltage | 1.062v | 1.062v | 1.093v | ||
As expected, due to its factory overclock the ASUS GTX 1060 doesn’t offer quite as much end-user overclocking. We were able to add another 100MHz (5%) to the GPU, half that of the stock clocked GTX 1060FE. Though it should be noted that in absolute terms the ASUS card has overclocked a bit farther than NVIDIA’s card, with a base clock 14MHz higher and a boost clock 39MHz higher. Meanwhile we got a slightly higher memory overclock out of the card as well, with the card topping out at 9.2Gbps, 1Gbps (12%) over the card’s shipping memory frequency.
The overall performance gains and resulting power/temperate/noise costs are about as expected. The additional overclock helps the performance of the GTX 1060, but it’s nowhere near enough to close the gap with the GTX 1070. Meanwhile the final overclocks of the NVIDIA and ASUS cards are close enough that their peak performance is neck-and-neck.
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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.