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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fanofanand - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link
You keep saying that but there are no 1060s that can be bought for $249. MSRP is meaningless when none sell at that price.eddman - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link
...and you keep at it as if it isn't the same with 480s. I just looked for 8GB 480s on newegg. All out-of-stock except for one model that is going for $400!!!I suppose you've never heard of shortages. There are $250 1060s. They simply sell as soon as they get restocked.
Dr. Swag - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
Any word on the progress of the rx 480 review? I haven't seen any good dives on the Polaris architecture so I'm really stoked on your review!Ryan Smith - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
I want to do a bit more on the Polaris architecture, but it will have to wait until after RX 470 and RX 460.Dr. Swag - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
Ah OK. Thanks for the response!xenol - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
Anyone else chuckle at the heatsinks past the fan that apparently aren't attached to anything?DanNeely - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
Yeah those stubs are cosmetic; but there's not much to them either.Tom's has a detailed teardown of the cooler. A few ornamental fins on the front edge with the entire actual heatsink between the blower and case exhaust holes. The 1080's is about the same.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce...
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce...
tipoo - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
Pretty funny, main heatsink comes off and that little heatsink nub remains. Maybe it manipulates airflow to the fan, at most? Or, more likely, it's just cosmetic to make this look like a bigger GPU.Mr Perfect - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
When you inevitably do a custom card round up, could you please get some blower style fully exhausting cards in there? It would be immensely helpful for the SFF crowd who can't stuff a tipple fan behemoth in the case, much less dump 120 watts of heat in there. Off hand, Asus has the Turbo, Gainward has one and Galax has another.fanofanand - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
When was the last time Anandtech did a custom card roundup? They don't really do that sort of thing anymore.