Mid Range GPU upgrade question (gtx 1060)

[animositygamers]

Hi,

So, I got a little cash from some extra work (400$ Cad) and I'm looking at upgrading a part of my rig. Seems processors are sold out for new Intel 8X series (was looking for i5-8400) but then that means a new mobo and new ram. I checked some sites and found that swapping my current CPU (i5-3570k) to the 8400 would yield 20% cpu performance increase but for a larger investment than i have right now. So next I looked towards my old faithful GPU, the GTX 760...Too bad prices are driven insane from Crypto currency farmers. So basically it makes my options limited.

gtx 1060 3gb - 275$ cad to buy with dual fans for better cooling (84% increase in performance)
gtx 1060 6gb - 350$ cad to buy with dual fans (97% performance, for 20% increase in cost)
gtx 1070 8gb - 540$ cad to buy with dual fans (174% performance, for double the price)
(performance % from user benchmarks website)

I game at 1080p and i'd like the new card to last 2-3 years at least for playing games on high/ultra such as Guild wars 2 (game of choice lately, Its on Medium settings and only 53 FPS), CS:GO, Dota 2 and perhaps other MMORPG's . From the numbers i'm wondering if I should go for a budget buy of the 1060 3gb or just wait because 1070 is slightly out of my price range and I don't really see the merit of getting the 1060 6gb but perhaps I'm wrong?

Alternatively If I wait a little to try to get around 700-800$ I could try to upgrade into the i5-8400 or i5-8600k more likely + Mobo + 8GB of DDR4 Ram (to start, HOLY HELL that stuff is expensive) and hold onto my GTX 760 for a while longer although I know it will bottleneck then.

Specs:
CPU- i5-3570k 4.2ghz OC
GPU - gtx 760
Mobo- Z77 extreme 4
Storage- samsung evo SSD
Have after market CPU cooler

 

[SkyNetRising]

GPU upgrade makes most sense in your situation.
Possibly also ram upgrade to 16GB ( if you have less than that).

 

[bjornl]

Personally I can't stand the 3gb 1060. It is a crippled version of the 1060 and should probably be called a 1055. There are games which play nicely on the 6gb that won't play at all on the 3gb. Although normal range is 2-15 fps better on the 6gb.

The 'tricky' part is the last for 2-3 years part. No such promise can be made. If you want more than you got, then the 1060 6gb is a nice sweet spot. It is not fast enough for HDR as the 1070 is probably going to choke on that as well. And, if you want to game at 144hz 1440p, the 1060 is also not right for that... again a 1070 would struggle some. But for fast, highly detailed 1080p @ 60hz, the 1060 6gb is the best bang for the buck (in my opinion).

You could potentially move from medium settings to medium/high to high settings on most games. It won't be night and day, but it will be nicer. Is nicer worth $350 to you?

 

[animositygamers]

GPU upgrade makes most sense in your situation.
Possibly also ram upgrade to 16GB ( if you have less than that).

I do only have 8gb of ram currently but unless i can get some 2nd hand ddr3 ram for cheap I won't buy more because of the new DDR4 ram slots aren't backwards compatible for DDR3 Ram. Which Option would you recommend given my situation?

 

[bjornl]

GPU upgrade makes most sense in your situation.
Possibly also ram upgrade to 16GB ( if you have less than that).

I do only have 8gb of ram currently but unless i can get some 2nd hand ddr3 ram for cheap I won't buy more because of the new DDR4 ram slots aren't backwards compatible for DDR3 Ram. Which Option would you recommend given my situation?

The performance difference between 8 and 16gb is so trivial for gaming you can just ignore it. Above 8gb is for HEAVY multi-tasking, content creation and that sort of thing.

 

[animositygamers]

Personally I can't stand the 3gb 1060. It is a crippled version of the 1060 and should probably be called a 1055. There are games which play nicely on the 6gb that won't play at all on the 3gb. Although normal range is 2-15 fps better on the 6gb.

The 'tricky' part is the last for 2-3 years part. No such promise can be made. If you want more than you got, then the 1060 6gb is a nice sweet spot. It is not fast enough for HDR as the 1070 is probably going to choke on that as well. And, if you want to game at 144hz 1440p, the 1060 is also not right for that... again a 1070 would struggle some. But for fast, highly detailed 1080p @ 60hz, the 1060 6gb is the best bang for the buck (in my opinion).

You could potentially move from medium settings to medium/high to high settings on most games. It won't be night and day, but it will be nicer. Is nicer worth $350 to you?

Thanks for the Info, I was actually steering away from the 1060 6gb but honestly you make it sound alot better. I know the 2-3 year performance will wade over time like my 760 has but that's the nature of tech. Only reason i'm upgrading now is because im starting to fall into the Low/Medium settings zone which I notice a big difference in from Med High/High/Low ultra.

Another question for you, On Newegg.ca they have a GTX 1060 6gb for $330 but its single fan. I've never had a single fan gpu, would you steer towards the ....
Single fan - https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487260&cm_re=gtx_1060-_-14-487-260-_-Product

Dual fan Off brand (zotac?) - https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500403&cm_re=gtx_1060-_-14-500-403-_-Product

If you were buying one.

 

[animositygamers]

GPU upgrade makes most sense in your situation.
Possibly also ram upgrade to 16GB ( if you have less than that).

I do only have 8gb of ram currently but unless i can get some 2nd hand ddr3 ram for cheap I won't buy more because of the new DDR4 ram slots aren't backwards compatible for DDR3 Ram. Which Option would you recommend given my situation?

The performance difference between 8 and 16gb is so trivial for gaming you can just ignore it. Above 8gb is for HEAVY multi-tasking, content creation and that sort of thing.

I was under this impression as well. I don't render videos or use heavy ram dependent software so buying into a dying series of ram seems not so good.

 

[bjornl]

Personally I can't stand the 3gb 1060. It is a crippled version of the 1060 and should probably be called a 1055. There are games which play nicely on the 6gb that won't play at all on the 3gb. Although normal range is 2-15 fps better on the 6gb.

The 'tricky' part is the last for 2-3 years part. No such promise can be made. If you want more than you got, then the 1060 6gb is a nice sweet spot. It is not fast enough for HDR as the 1070 is probably going to choke on that as well. And, if you want to game at 144hz 1440p, the 1060 is also not right for that... again a 1070 would struggle some. But for fast, highly detailed 1080p @ 60hz, the 1060 6gb is the best bang for the buck (in my opinion).

You could potentially move from medium settings to medium/high to high settings on most games. It won't be night and day, but it will be nicer. Is nicer worth $350 to you?

Thanks for the Info, I was actually steering away from the 1060 6gb but honestly you make it sound alot better. I know the 2-3 year performance will wade over time like my 760 has but that's the nature of tech. Only reason i'm upgrading now is because im starting to fall into the Low/Medium settings zone which I notice a big difference in from Med High/High/Low ultra.

Another question for you, On Newegg.ca they have a GTX 1060 6gb for $330 but its single fan. I've never had a single fan gpu, would you steer towards the ....
Single fan - https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487260&cm_re=gtx_1060-_-14-487-260-_-Product

Dual fan Off brand (zotac?) - https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500403&cm_re=gtx_1060-_-14-500-403-_-Product

If you were buying one.

I would absolutely buy the dual-fan Zotac. In fact I have one in my secondary system. Zotac is generally my preferred video card company now after issues with several other brands . I have 3 gaming age boys, a guest PC, my wife's and I have a couple, so we have a few more gaming PCs than most. My experience with them is top notch. I mostly switched to them 3-4 years ago now.

Here is a review of the 1060 3 v 6gb
https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/2604-gtx-1060-3gb-vs-6gb-benchmark-review/page-4

 

[SkyNetRising]

The performance difference between 8 and 16gb is so trivial for gaming you can just ignore it. Above 8gb is for HEAVY multi-tasking, content creation and that sort of thing.

This simply is not true. Latest games together with OS constantly push past 8GB limit.

If you don't have enough ram, then you have to settle with frame drops and lowered performance, when game requests more ram than physically is available. If that is not important for you, then you can safely ignore it.

12GB would be OK in most situations, but you have to give up dual channel memory operation. So 16GB solves that.

 

[bjornl]

The performance difference between 8 and 16gb is so trivial for gaming you can just ignore it. Above 8gb is for HEAVY multi-tasking, content creation and that sort of thing.

This simply is not true. Latest games together with OS constantly push past 8GB limit.

If you don't have enough ram, then you have to settle with frame drops and lowered performance, when game requests more ram than physically is available. If that is not important for you, then you can safely ignore it.

12GB would be OK in most situations, but you have to give up dual channel memory operation. So 16GB solves that.

Sorry man, but it is true. I have a lot of ram in my main system. But we have many gaming systems in our house and I simply don't even bother to install the extra ram we have laying about because there is no difference. Kill all background tasks, tune your startup to look as it should and then log a few gaming sessions. Even ram pigs like a heavily modded fallout-4 drop not 1 FPS unless it is due to operator error; so if you want to game with 42 chrome windows open, then yeah you do need a lot of ram. However in my main (render/modeling/compiling) system I was upgrading from 16 to 64gb of ram. Two of the sticks I got were 2400 instead of 3200 and so I was curious about the lower latency over the higher bandwidth and was playing around. I forgot and left just 8gb of ddr2400/c14 ram in my system and it changed nothing until the next time (over a month later) when I wanted to run Cinema 4d and a few other heavy ram consuming pigs at once. Not only did I not notice the difference. I never even ran LOW on ram. 99% of games are hard coded to use only 2.5gb of ram. A few select AAA titles can use more. But even then I never had my monitor program trigger an alert unless I was an idiot and left chrome running in the background.

 

[animositygamers]

Personally I can't stand the 3gb 1060. It is a crippled version of the 1060 and should probably be called a 1055. There are games which play nicely on the 6gb that won't play at all on the 3gb. Although normal range is 2-15 fps better on the 6gb.

The 'tricky' part is the last for 2-3 years part. No such promise can be made. If you want more than you got, then the 1060 6gb is a nice sweet spot. It is not fast enough for HDR as the 1070 is probably going to choke on that as well. And, if you want to game at 144hz 1440p, the 1060 is also not right for that... again a 1070 would struggle some. But for fast, highly detailed 1080p @ 60hz, the 1060 6gb is the best bang for the buck (in my opinion).

You could potentially move from medium settings to medium/high to high settings on most games. It won't be night and day, but it will be nicer. Is nicer worth $350 to you?

Thanks for the Info, I was actually steering away from the 1060 6gb but honestly you make it sound alot better. I know the 2-3 year performance will wade over time like my 760 has but that's the nature of tech. Only reason i'm upgrading now is because im starting to fall into the Low/Medium settings zone which I notice a big difference in from Med High/High/Low ultra.

Another question for you, On Newegg.ca they have a GTX 1060 6gb for $330 but its single fan. I've never had a single fan gpu, would you steer towards the ....
Single fan - https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487260&cm_re=gtx_1060-_-14-487-260-_-Product

Dual fan Off brand (zotac?) - https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500403&cm_re=gtx_1060-_-14-500-403-_-Product

If you were buying one.

I would absolutely buy the dual-fan Zotac. In fact I have one in my secondary system. Zotac is generally my preferred video card company now after issues with several other brands . I have 3 gaming age boys, a guest PC, my wife's and I have a couple, so we have a few more gaming PCs than most. My experience with them is top notch. I mostly switched to them 3-4 years ago now.

Here is a review of the 1060 3 v 6gb
https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/2604-gtx-1060-3gb-vs-6gb-benchmark-review/page-4

The performance difference between 8 and 16gb is so trivial for gaming you can just ignore it. Above 8gb is for HEAVY multi-tasking, content creation and that sort of thing.

This simply is not true. Latest games together with OS constantly push past 8GB limit.

If you don't have enough ram, then you have to settle with frame drops and lowered performance, when game requests more ram than physically is available. If that is not important for you, then you can safely ignore it.

12GB would be OK in most situations, but you have to give up dual channel memory operation. So 16GB solves that.

Sorry man, but it is true. I have a lot of ram in my main system. But we have many gaming systems in our house and I simply don't even bother to install the extra ram we have laying about because there is no difference. Kill all background tasks, tune your startup to look as it should and then log a few gaming sessions. Even ram pigs like a heavily modded fallout-4 drop not 1 FPS unless it is due to operator error; so if you want to game with 42 chrome windows open, then yeah you do need a lot of ram.

Review on your site really helped me out. One last comparison for you to have a look at because of it being on sale for a similar price for more Clock speed but back to one fan .
https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA9H55Z16638&cm_re=1060_6gb-_-14-487-261-_-Product

 

[bjornl]

Review on your site really helped me out. One last comparison for you to have a look at because of it being on sale for a similar price for more Clock speed but back to one fan .
https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA9H55Z16638&cm_re=1060_6gb-_-14-487-261-_-Product

Glad to help. That card is faster, but it is probably going to be loud. For 1 fan to move the same amount of air as two it logically has to spin much faster.

 

[animositygamers]

Review on your site really helped me out. One last comparison for you to have a look at because of it being on sale for a similar price for more Clock speed but back to one fan .
https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA9H55Z16638&cm_re=1060_6gb-_-14-487-261-_-Product

Glad to help. That card is faster, but it is probably going to be loud. For 1 fan to move the same amount of air as two it logically has to spin much faster.

Thanks alot for your help. Picking your prior answer as the answer to my question. Going to order the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1060 AMP! edition card because I believe i'll get more millage from 2 fans for OCing a little in the future. Thanks again.

 

[bjornl]

You're welcome. I hope it serves you well. It works great for me (no subsitute for my 980ti, but then I only paid 220 on sale for my Zotac AMP).

 

[SkyNetRising]

Kill all background tasks, tune your startup to look as it should and then log a few gaming sessions.

Yes you're absolutely right. If that's your kid, who complains about sluggish gaming performance, then you can just say - "why didn't you close all the browser tabs and all the other software before gaming session?"

But if that's your own personal pc, then you kinda like freedom of doing whatever you want and expect top notch performance in any situation. So enough ram is definitely worth the freedom of not worrying about some open browser window in the background.