ASUS STRIX GTX 1060 O6G GAMING Video Card Review @ [H]

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ASUS STRIX GTX 1060 O6G GAMING Video Card Review - We are reviewing the ASUS ROG STRIX GTX 1060 O6G GAMING video card today. We’ve put it through the tests and overclocked this video card as high as possible. We will compare performance with an overclocked ASUS ROG STRIX RX 480 O8G GAMING video card and match game for game to find out which is better performing in realworld gaming.
 
nice review. seems like a decent cards but the 480 is so close that $60 extra is questionable, I think.
 
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nice review. seems like a decent cards but the 480 is so close that $60 extra is questionable, I think.


In that same vein- I purchased the 3gb version, as just looking at the specs was hard to justify the extra price of the 6gb. Hard to pass up a $200 Nvidia card with this performance for us casual gamers.
 
On the Egg you can get a 1070 Mini for $359 with the included $10 rebate. The $60 between the 480 to 1060 does not give that much more performance (depending upon game) while the $60 from the 1060 to the 1070 would be astronomical almost in performance difference. Just buyer beware but $60 over the 480 is 25% more, while the $60 for the 1070 over the 1060 is 20% with a clear performance advantage, 8gb of ram, SLI capable, much better in VR etc.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...4125893&cm_re=1070_gtx-_-14-125-893-_-Product

The review was very good, love how they were tested and method for OCing - amazing OCer that 1060 card was, I can see why it gets the Gold being the best of the best of all 1060's out there and beating the best 480 out there.
 
nice to see the mid-range staying so competitive:)
imo it seems hard to justify the premium for a cooling solution given all the 1060s overclock similarly irregardless of the cooler (and can run <$250)... but those temperatures + OC are impressive!
 
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nice to see the mid-range staying so competitive:)
imo it seems hard to justify the premium for a cooling solution given all the 1060s overclock similarly irregardless of the cooler (and can run <$250)... but those temperatures + OC are impressive!
If you are looking for stock clocks and temperatures, HardOCP is likely not the website for you. :)
 
Another review showing how well the Radeon do in Vulkan. Was gobsmacked by the improvement in Doom with this 480 at ultra.
 
If my video card upgrade cycle was 2 or less years and was exclusively for gaming, the 480 is far more compelling. BUT; issues associated with the brand AMD such as trash drivers, faster purging of support for cards older cards, lack of PhysX, still no support for H.265 encoding , etc make spending that extra $60 on team green's 1060 easy and Asus seems to have a fine implementation of it here.
 
If my video card upgrade cycle was 2 or less years and was exclusively for gaming, the 480 is far more compelling. BUT; issues associated with the brand AMD such as trash drivers, faster purging of support for cards older cards, lack of PhysX, still no support for H.265 encoding , etc make spending that extra $60 on team green's 1060 easy and Asus seems to have a fine implementation of it here.
half of that is not true. drivers are fine, have been for a while now and are only getting better. old cards are still supported, back to the hd7/8000s maybe more. cant argue aboot no physx but does it really make that much of a difference?! and x265 encoding JUST came to nv/intel, its not like amd is years and years behind on that! ive seen people saying that x265 encode works just fine on the 480s too so idk?! there was arguing in another thread about it. oh and vega will most likely have it.

I think with the current price points 480 is a smarter buy as its bound to get better performance through driver development and it will probably meet and hopefully beat a 1060 relatively soon. or make the jump to a 1070 for a massive performance improvement.
 
Great review as always. Both cards are beasts in the mid range buyer's category. Asus truly does a great job with their coolers!
 
No way that card deserves a Gold award when it costs $60 more than an AIB 480. That $60 can be used to buy a much better MB/CPU/Case/etc etc..........
 
Nice. But $300? I paid $340 for my Asus GTX 1070 Strix Dual card after MIR... granted that was open box, but I'm not complaining.
 
If my video card upgrade cycle was 2 or less years and was exclusively for gaming, the 480 is far more compelling. BUT; issues associated with the brand AMD such as trash drivers, faster purging of support for cards older cards, lack of PhysX, still no support for H.265 encoding , etc make spending that extra $60 on team green's 1060 easy and Asus seems to have a fine implementation of it here.

H.265 and HEVC encoding is supported by the RX 480 in the latest drivers. I did some encoding for science in this thread on the forums. Skip to post #7 and start reading from there to see my testing.
https://hardforum.com/threads/as-video-converter-h-265-and-hevc.1920651/

The drivers have been great for quite awhile now. AMD does revamps on the drivers and find more power over time still. But as you see in the review the difference between AMD and Nvidia is a few frames for the most part. Thus both cards have received a Gold award. Can't get Gold awards with crap drivers.

Older cards are well supported. Just gave a nephew a PC with a HD7950 in it and they are LOVING it!
 
H.265 and HEVC encoding is supported by the RX 480 in the latest drivers. I did some encoding for science in this thread on the forums. Skip to post #7 and start reading from there to see my testing.
https://hardforum.com/threads/as-video-converter-h-265-and-hevc.1920651/

The drivers have been great for quite awhile now. AMD does revamps on the drivers and find more power over time still. But as you see in the review the difference between AMD and Nvidia is a few frames for the most part. Thus both cards have received a Gold award. Can't get Gold awards with crap drivers.

Older cards are well supported. Just gave a nephew a PC with a HD7950 in it and they are LOVING it!
x265 encoding JUST came to nv/intel, its not like amd is years and years behind on that! ive seen people saying that x265 encode works just fine on the 480s too so idk?! there was arguing in another thread about it.
I knew I saw it around here somewhere that x265 was fine now for everything but the 280x. like mine :(
 
If one is basing their decision on performance alone then I agree that the 1060 isn't worth an additional $60 more than the 480. But if you factor in power requirements and driver reliability then it is arguable that the price premium is justified.
 
you need to look into that supposed driver "reliability issue". there isn't one. and the power "savings" of the nv card wouldn't equal the $60 for at least 2-3 yrs(google it)!
 
you need to look into that supposed driver "reliability issue". there isn't one. and the power "savings" of the nv card wouldn't equal the $60 for at least 2-3 yrs(google it)!
Well, if you want to throw out that argument, we have continually had driver issues with AMD cards and using those in VR. And one more issue to point out is that NVIDIA's 1060 has continually outperformed the RX 480 in VR by a wide delta. That may or may not be issue with the buyer however.
 
Buyer beware in what you are getting. Pro's and Con's on both sides. As for AMD drivers I like them better in some things while Nvidia's in others. Multi-monitor you know who wins there, VR then again. Just do your research and get the best product for you. If you like multiple computing devices and at times all running at the same time then I recommend some diversity in those machines.
 
If you have any desire to run VR, the 1060 pounds the ever living shit out of the rx480. I think at least a blurb in the review is warranted, if not just a single game test showing the results. That's worth the $50 by itself and why I shelled out $30 extra for a 1060 vs a 480. I wanted to buy the 480 but it sucks in VR.
 
Good read. I love my 1060, and even with my old 1100t all my games run like butter @ 1080p.
I was on the fence between the 480 and 1060, but at the sale price it was around $15-$20 difference at the time, so i looked at power usage. The mini only had 1 6-pin and the 480 needed 1 8pin and because my power supply is pretty old, i went with the 1060. Sure the 480 currently has an advantage on DX12 and vulcan, but honestly this little card runs all my old games without stutter, cranked up GTA 5 everything maxed and its like I'm playing on a new PC. My old system has new life. I have been team red for years, and with so many DX11 titles in my library, the 1060 was a perfect choice for me.
 
If you have any desire to run VR, the 1060 pounds the ever living shit out of the rx480. I think at least a blurb in the review is warranted, if not just a single game test showing the results. That's worth the $50 by itself and why I shelled out $30 extra for a 1060 vs a 480. I wanted to buy the 480 but it sucks in VR.
how does that 955 handle the Rift?
 
how does that 955 handle the Rift?

Suprisingly well, but it will depend on the game. If you can get 110fps avg 55fps min at 1080p on your current setup in the games you want to run in VR, you should be good to go, it adds very little cpu overhead but pounds the video card. Goal is to maintain 90fps in the rift with occasional drops to no less than 45fps. In the games I spend most of my time in (iRacing, Assetto Corsa) it doesn't struggle and the other games I've tried worked fine as most stuff is vid card limited and turning up gfx options don't tax the cpu much, if it all. You may have to turn down particles and shadows depending on the game engine, but again nbd.

You also have to disable ASW as the Phenom II doesn't have the ssse3 instructions necessary. Easy to do by hitting ctrl+num1 when launching Oculus home. I'm trying to hold out for Ryzen release and will upgrade at that point as even if I go with Intel it'll hopefully provide some price pressure on them.
 
I think at least a blurb in the review is warranted, if not just a single game test showing the results.
You are correct, and I have done some of this in past reviews. If you are buying for desktop now and find yourself in VR in the future, it is something I would like to know before I bought a GPU.
 
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Suprisingly well, but it will depend on the game. If you can get 110fps avg 55fps min at 1080p on your current setup in the games you want to run in VR, you should be good to go, it adds very little cpu overhead but pounds the video card. Goal is to maintain 90fps in the rift with occasional drops to no less than 45fps. In the games I spend most of my time in (iRacing, Assetto Corsa) it doesn't struggle and the other games I've tried worked fine as most stuff is vid card limited and turning up gfx options don't tax the cpu much, if it all. You may have to turn down particles and shadows depending on the game engine, but again nbd.

You also have to disable ASW as the Phenom II doesn't have the ssse3 instructions necessary. Easy to do by hitting ctrl+num1 when launching Oculus home. I'm trying to hold out for Ryzen release and will upgrade at that point as even if I go with Intel it'll hopefully provide some price pressure on them.

Same here, hopefully the prices come way down. Might even go with fx 8370 if the prices come down enough.
 
The ASUS MSRP on this video card is $329.99, however ASUS has informed us that it is running a $20 mail-in-rebate in December. The video card is in fact available at $299.99 after $20 MIR at Newegg. It is currently $299.00 after $20 MIR with Prime Shipping at Amazon.


$330 before MIR is just one big NOPE.

If you are not caring about VR, you could get a RX480 for ~$200-250ish that competes well enough with the 1060.

If you are caring about VR, i would be looking at prices and realize that the next step up (1070) is <$100 and absolutely smokes the 1060.

This card should be $250 (or less).

If there's actual room in the market segment between the 1060 and 1070, NVidia needs to do a 1060 Ti and charge appropriately.
 
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