Did I make a mistake buying a 1060 3GB? Upgrading from a R9 280x

[LittleRedPC]

I've been desperately trying to upgrade my GPU, But due to Bitcoin miners not able to find a decently priced card, even at second hand. Even then, Every card seems to be out of my price range.

I came across a 1060 3GB on Game.co.uk today at 190.00. It's literally the only 1060 In stock at around that price on any site.

http://www.game.co.uk/en/asus-geforce-dual-gtx1060-o3g-graphics-card-1648326

Did I make a mistake purchasing this card? to get a 6GB, I'd be paying an extra 40-50 GBP Atleast, Is this a good upgrade from a 280x? Is it worth the 190 I paid for it? I can cancel the order if need.

Thanks

 

[Barty1884]

Whether it's a "mistake" is a matter of opinion.
The 3GB 1060 is a little better than a 280X in most cases, with the 6GB 1060 outperforming the 3GB variant.

How is your system performance? Have you seen an increase in FPS? If so, were they in line with your expectations? If so, then it wasn't a "mistake".


My $0.02.... a 280X is still a strong card, and I would not have recommended you upgrade to a 1060 (even a 6GB variant).
While there are gains in the 'upgrade', they're not wholesale improvements given the (relatively) comparable performance.
I would've suggested a minimum of a 1070 as an upgrade from a 280X.


The 3GB 1060 serves a purpose. I have one, and it works perfectly fine for me, the games I play and the monitor I use (1080p/60Hz).
If I could go back in time and rethink my decision, would I? Probably not.

To other people, playing different titles, the added VRAM and overall improved performance may well be worth the additional cost. To me, it isn't.


As I said, if the card has netted you improvements in line with your expectations, then it's totally "worth it" and not a "mistake".

FWIW, you could probably sell your 280X for 140GBP or so for mining. A net cost of ~50GBP is likely still a little high for the difference in performance, but whats done is done I guess.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&LH_ItemCondition=3000&_nkw=r9%20280x&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&rt=nc&_trksid=p2045573.m1684

The most recent sales seem to be a little low (like 80-100GBP) for some reason.

 

[LittleRedPC]

Whether it's a "mistake" is a matter of opinion.
The 3GB 1060 is a little better than a 280X in most cases, with the 6GB 1060 outperforming the 3GB variant.

How is your system performance? Have you seen an increase in FPS? If so, were they in line with your expectations? If so, then it wasn't a "mistake".


My $0.02.... a 280X is still a strong card, and I would not have recommended you upgrade to a 1060 (even a 6GB variant).
While there are gains in the 'upgrade', they're not wholesale improvements given the (relatively) comparable performance.
I would've suggested a minimum of a 1070 as an upgrade from a 280X.


The 3GB 1060 serves a purpose. I have one, and it works perfectly fine for me, the games I play and the monitor I use (1080p/60Hz).
If I could go back in time and rethink my decision, would I? Probably not.

To other people, playing different titles, the added VRAM and overall improved performance may well be worth the additional cost. To me, it isn't.


As I said, if the card has netted you improvements in line with your expectations, then it's totally "worth it" and not a "mistake".

FWIW, you could probably sell your 280X for 140GBP or so for mining. A net cost of ~50GBP is likely still a little high for the difference in performance, but whats done is done I guess.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&LH_ItemCondition=3000&_nkw=r9%20280x&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&rt=nc&_trksid=p2045573.m1684

The most recent sales seem to be a little low (like 80-100GBP) for some reason.

I read online I could be seeing a 38% Improve over the 280x... Is this not going to be the case?
Problem I'm seeing now with the 280x is Im getting about 25-35 Frames on a game I've been playing a lot recently and It's fairly frustrating (Playerunknown Battlegrounds). My friend claims he's getting upward of 70 Frames per second on his 6GB 1060... and judging from Youtube videos, The 6GB only awards you a few more frames on each game.

I don't currently have the card, I just ordered it but I'm disputing cancelling the order if it's not worth it.

 

[Barty1884]

The 6GB 1060 is stronger than the 3GB variant, yes. I didn't say it wasn't.

I don't know much about the game, but a quick google search would lead me to believe it's pretty poorly optimized. There's people having issues with stronger cards than a 280X..... might be it favours nVidia over AMD though.

I'm only going from memory here, as I can't find any benchmarks I believe to be reliable from my 2 mins searching.
a 1060 3GB traded blows back and forth with a 390X I believe, with a 6GB bettering a 390X.

A 390X resulted in something like 30-40% "improvements" over a 280X when it launched.
So, based on that (rough) comparison, a 3GB 1060 should net you somewhere around +30-40% improvements.
That would (loosely) mean your 25-35 FPS would look more like 33-50 FPS*.

*Not a guarantee, and can't find any decent links to confirm those numbers.... just recalling from memory.


Overall, you were asking whether a 3GB 1060 was a worthwhile upgrade over an R9 280X.
My honest opinion is no. The 1060 3GB is definitely "better", but it's not 190GBP better. Similarly, the 6GB variant is better still.... but not 250GBP "better" IMO.

If you've already ordered it, and Game's return policy is reasonable..... try it out. See how it compares. If it does what you want, then fine. If it doesn't, return it. I'd anticipate, either way you'll be paying some form of restocking fee though....

 

[The Paladin]

I play the game and use a GTX 970, and I get 60-90FPS during play time on PUB, and the GTX 970 is pretty much equal if not a little more powerful than a 1060 3GB so I would expect you go get similar FPS on PUB, this depends if you have an ssd, more ram than 8gb and I5 or higher as a CPU. I run an old i7-4790K with 32GB for the record.

 

[Barty1884]

I don't know much about the game, but it sounds like it favours nVidia quite a bit.
Considering using the same chain of logic 1060 ~= 970, which competes with a 390X, which is about 30-40% faster than a 280X.

If you were moving to another, better AMD card (say a 480) you'd probably expect 30-50 FPS as I mentioned above (based on the 280X to 390X comparison), but a comparable (to a 1060) nVidia card sees even better gains.

Can't find anything definitive online stating it performs substantially better on the green team, but it's sounding like it.


As an aside, if anything, I would say the 3GB 1060 is a tiny bit more powerful than a 970, not the other way around (with the 6GB being in 980 territory) but that's besides the point.

 

[kgt1182]

The GTX 1060 6GB version is faster than the GTX 1060 3GB version. It is quite unkown, but the 6GB variant has 1280 CUDA cores and 10 SMs while the 3GB variant only has 1152 CUDA cores and 9 SMs.
The 6GB variant is about 25% more expensive, 11% faster and has 2x more VRAM.

And with games nearing 4 GB of VRAM usage I decided to buy myself the 8 GB version of the RX 480 for more "future-proofing".

Enjoy your card, and overclock to see even greater performance gains over your old card!