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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Flunk - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
It doesn't seem like any of the large tech sites were sampled GTX Titan Xs. All the reviews I've seen are from small sites, most of which I've never heard of before. Maybe they're just borrowing retail cards from owners.fanofanand - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
I read that Nvidia wasn't sampling Titan X's to any publications. It's possible that those smaller sites are run by hobbyists who bought the card themselves.jabbadap - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
Just wondering are you doing those great in depth HTPC oriented graphics card comparisons in future.HideOut - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
Or see review for the S7 since its just the same stuff.Psyside - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link
Please do NOT let Joshua Ho review ANY Samsung product anymore!fanofanand - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link
I agree with this, his reviews read like advertisement for Apple.rtho782 - Sunday, August 7, 2016 - link
And the 960! We're missing the immediate predecessor to this for comparison...Ballist1x - Monday, August 15, 2016 - link
What the review is missing is that the GTX 1060 is actually a replacement in pricepoint to the GTX 970 and therefore has only increased performance by 10-20% in the space of 2 years for the same price.The GTX 960 is a different price segment completely and therefore is not such a direct comaprison.
nathanddrews - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
Too bad the $249 MSRP models aren't available anywhere. This is essentially marketed as a 960 replacement, but priced like a 970 replacement IRL.Cygni - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
Cards at $249 have been in stock off and on with Newegg since launch. They may not be available right this exact second, but you shouldn't be waiting too long for stock at MSRP, as the article talks about.