MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming X 6 GB

W1zzard · Jul 19, 2016

MSI's GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming X comes with a large dual-fan thermal solution that's incredibly quiet and stops the fans in idle and light gaming. The card is overclocked out of the box as well without sacrificing any of the marvellous power efficiency NVIDIA's Pascal provides.

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rtwjunkie · Jul 19, 2016

So, it is cheaper than the FE. However, as I predicted, FE price has made MSRP a pipe dream. I seriously hope no one actually hoped for that.

$60 more than the RX 480 is ALOT of money for the same card segment.

It looks like a great card however. It trounces the RX 480 at most games on 1080p. I didn't expect that.

Thanks for the review!

Dammeron · Jul 19, 2016

The PCB size is laughable. So much empty space. It's so absurdly huge it should be counted among the drawbacks...

Rowsol · Jul 19, 2016

Why isn't the 4gb rx 480 on the price/perf charts?

Ungari · Jul 19, 2016

rtwjunkie said:
It trounces the RX 480 at most games on 1080p. I didn't expect that.

That's because something is very wrong with the RX 480 benchmarks, especially in games like Rise Of The Tomb Raider and Crysis 3.
We shall see when we compare other reviews, but for now I call Bravo Sierra.

W1zzard · Jul 19, 2016

Rowsol said:
Why isn't the 4gb rx 480 on the price/perf charts?

RX480 4 GB doesn't exist in the market anymore it seems

silkstone · Jul 19, 2016

I thought that there was an alternate bios to restrict the review cards to 4gb?

I'm assuming that the 4gb card will be available soon?

GhostRyder · Jul 19, 2016

Good looking card, MSI delivers again on a nice aftermarket card. Overall seems like the GTX 1060 is an excellent card. also it over locks to pretty much the exact same levels as the other 2 Pascal cards.

ShurikN · Jul 19, 2016

So there is already a custom 1060, yet we haven't got a single custom RX 480 out. What the fuck AMD... It's like they want to fail. And I'm not talkin about performance, OC and power consumption. I'm talking reference vs reference, where the NV card is a lot quieter and colder.

Mussels · Jul 19, 2016

are these results backwards?

okidna · Jul 19, 2016

Mussels said:
are these results backwards?

I think it's driver limitation or protection for "power viruses" a.k.a. FurMark, etc. You can see similar behavior with RX 480 and newer NVIDIA cards.

FurMark will draw less or similar power compared to typical gaming power draw.

Mussels · Jul 19, 2016

well when maximum is anything but the highest recorded number, it brings into question the validity/usefulness of the test.

W1zzard · Jul 19, 2016

Mussels said:
well when maximum is anything but the highest recorded number, it brings into question the validity/usefulness of the test.

Peak gaming has spikes that go above and below the power limit. Our test equipment measures faster than the board power limiter, which means it can catch spikes before they get cut off by the power limit circuitry.
With Furmark the card is always in power limit, so there is no chance of any spikes.

Caring1 · Jul 19, 2016

Mussels said:
well when maximum is anything but the highest recorded number, it brings into question the validity/usefulness of the test.

It looks fine to me, maximum is more an average, while peak accounts for spikes
Pity they still have a DVI connection, as it would be neater without and allow better cooling too.

ZeppMan217 · Jul 19, 2016

Any chance of seeing Vulkan Doom in the test list?

rruff · Jul 19, 2016

This is one reason I'd pick the 1060 over the 480 even if it was $50 more:

Idle power: 5W vs 15W
Multi-monitor: 6W vs 40W
BluRay: 6W vs 39W
Gaming: 116W vs 163W

Electric consumption alone will be >$20/yr difference for my use. And resale will probably be higher on the 1060. In the end it's actually cheaper.

Plus looking at the FE and comparing it to the 480 reference card, the FE OCs 14% and the 480 5%, which added to the 8% performance deficit at reference clocks gives a 17% performance difference. Not trivial.

Maybe in the future the 480 will make gains with better drivers and Vulkan and DX12 implementation, but the 1060 has a substantial lead.

rtwjunkie said:
So, it is cheaper than the FE. However, as I predicted, FE price has made MSRP a pipe dream. I seriously hope no one actually hoped for that.

Gigabyte card is $249 at newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...6-Index-_-DesktopGraphicsCards-_-14125879-S0B

silkstone · Jul 19, 2016

rruff said:
This is one reason I'd pick the 1060 over the 480 even if it was $50 more:

Idle power: 5W vs 15W
Multi-monitor: 6W vs 40W
BluRay: 6W vs 39W
Gaming: 116W vs 163W

Electric consumption alone will be >$20/yr difference for my use. And resale will probably be higher on the 1060. In the end it's actually cheaper.

Plus looking at the FE and comparing it to the 480 reference card, the FE OCs 14% and the 480 5%, which added to the 8% performance deficit at reference clocks gives a 17% performance difference. Not trivial.

Maybe in the future the 480 will make gains with better drivers and Vulkan and DX12 implementation, but the 1060 has a substantial lead.

You'd have to be gaming 6-7 hours a day, every day of the year for that to add up. Not unheard of, but damn, that's a lot of gaming.

Prima.Vera · Jul 19, 2016

I'm impressed with this card. It basically trashes away anything AMD has right now, while being faster than last generation's 980 GTX. Amazing.

Foxiol · Jul 19, 2016

Now just for the reference guys...in Spain the Gigabyte G1 and MSI version cost what a GTX970 (Asus Strix in my case) less than a year back, 369€ each version. And there is an EVGA version which is the cheapest one that costs 309€ (small factor too compared to the others, single fan).

And again for the reference the RX480 in Spain costs 269€.

They are murdering us here with the prices for Nvidia cards. It can't be that what should be a mid end GPU now costs as much as a what a mid-high end card like a GTX970 back in the day. (still 970's are being sold for 300+€)

They are charging us this much because of the performance or just because taxes went absurdly higher from one year to another?

Really pissed with what is happening here. (Yet I don't need to upgrade since I still play at 1080p...Going to skip 10XX series for sure)

john_ · Jul 19, 2016

Pity.

Hitman was run in DX11 while other sites used DX12.
No Doom numbers.

I have said in the past that Nvidia created two different price points. Founders Edition, which is the REAL MSRP and a fake MSRP that it is just the price they expect sites to use in their price/performance charts.A price that will become a reality weeks or even months after this review. But, by then, other cards will also be cheaper.

Unfortunately TPU is happy to swallow Nvidia's marketing, to follow Nvidia's rules in this one and put a "pipe dream" as correctly was called, in it's charts, to make GTX 1060 look better compared to the RX 480. On the other hand @W1zzard is happy to find an excuse and remove the 4GB RX 480 version.

eddman · Jul 19, 2016

@W1zzard Any chance you might review the short evga 1060s?

rruff · Jul 19, 2016

silkstone said:
You'd have to be gaming 6-7 hours a day, every day of the year for that to add up. Not unheard of, but damn, that's a lot of gaming.

Nope. There is $10/yr just at idle. My computer is always on because it's always doing something. Watch a couple hours of video a day (use a projector for movies so multi), game 1 hour or so, it adds up. If it was only while gaming it would be trivial for me.

Caring1 · Jul 19, 2016

john_ said:
I have said in the past that Nvidia created two different price points. Founders Edition, which is the REAL MSRP and a fake MSRP that it is just the price they expect sites to use in their price/performance charts.A price that will become a reality weeks or even months after this review. But, by then, other cards will also be cheaper.

Unfortunately TPU is happy to swallow Nvidia's marketing, to follow Nvidia's rules in this one and put a "pipe dream" as correctly was called, in it's charts, to make GTX 1060 look better compared to the RX 480.

I agree with the part I have quoted, as for the 4Gb version of the RX480, i believe it is no longer available so it would be pointless including it in charts.

trog100 · Jul 19, 2016

it seems the 1060 is on a par with a 980 and 480 on a par with a 970.. there was a huge price difference between 980 and 970 cards.. not such a huge one between the 1060 and 480 cards..

sad to say but this puts the nvidia offering out in front of the amd offering.. the only way amd can win is a super cheap 4 gig 480.. which as wizzard says dosnt seem to exist..

trog

deemon · Jul 19, 2016

So where is DOOM (Vulkan) benchmark? AotS DX12? Hitman DX12? Total War: Warhammer DX12?

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MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming X 6 GB

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