Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB Review

[tamalero]

Why Toms is putting so many benchs that favour Nvidia?
HardOCP benchmarks on many vulkan and DX12 shows the 480 having a huge advantage over the 1060...

 

[rush21hit]

...

I was about to say something here, then I find that 3gb 1060 would be priced at 149 for AIB partners.

Totally would buy that.

 

[dwdesign]

This review just doesn't match up with many other reviews that say the cards are basically even with the edge going to the 480 for price compared to performance.

 

[somebodyspecial]

Project cars has sold 1/2mil on PC (steamspy/vgcharts), while Doom has sold 1mil for PC. Project cars has far outsold Assetto Corsa (~350K) and that game has been out a year longer, so if you're including a race game, it would seem Pcars is valid.

Dirt Rally 2016 has sold 330K. So again, you would go with the higher selling version by far right? Or you don't like cars because NV wins? Get over it. I say bench the highest selling games in each genre and more of particular genre's if they just awesome sellers vs other genre. Then again, I'd add that if a game doesn't sell 300K what is the point in wasting time benching it at all? There are far too many games above this. Should we concentrate on games nobody plays, or the most popular stuff? The answer should be simple. Should be concentrate on DX12/Vulkan (5-10 games...ROFL) or the other 99% of the market? Again, with DX12 only being on 19% of the machines out there (and that is by MSFT partner netmarkeshare numbers...LOL fudge factor says 10-15% tops for win10 IMHO and ZERO for enterprise), and a large portion of those being $199 laptop cheap pc junk (under $200 the OS is free) or people who accidentally had it forced on them (autoupdate etc...LOL) that can't run games, I'd say DX12 should be an afterthought at best. Vulkan too until I see at least a dozen games running it.

Even if you say 10% of the market has win10 and GAMES on that OS, what portion of those have DX12 hardware? Even if it is 50%, that would be 5% of the market. Benchmarking much stuff for that small a slice would be like wasting time on 4K in every review when it is <2.5% of the market and many games won't run 4K without turning details off which is against my religion. LOL. If you're benchmarking 10 games, it should be DX11-9, and DX12-1 because even that is being generous regarding market share of games available, OR market share of the OS with dx12 gpus. I care about what we DO today, not what we HOPE we do in a year or two. I could see running a DX12 ARTICLE testing all the games (since there is so few) and a vulkan game or two on 3-5 gpus or something (top card/mid from both sides or something). But not wasting time on it in every gpu review. That is overstating it's importance by orders of magnitude.

One more point on Vulkan Doom. There isn't really a point to benching it until it works properly for pascal IMHO.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2016/07/19/nvidia_geforce_gtx_1060_founders_edition_review/4
While AMD is winning here, note NV isn't using the latest API yet. It remains to be seen how much improvement you get from 1.0.8 vs. 1.0.11.1 vs. 1.0.17.0. Since the libraries are loaded with NV's driver, this may just be a glitch that will be fixed shortly. Until they're on the same playing field I'm skeptical here.

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Doom-2016-Spiel-56369/Specials/Benchmark-Test-1195242/
One more point showing something fishy with doom/pascal. 980ti should not be eating 1070 for breakfast! Clearly pascal is hindered by something. I'm thinking the glitch is massively hurting NV's new cards perhaps because Id obviously has had more time with the older gen which sold pretty massively by now.

https://community.bethesda.net/thread/54585?tstart=0
Bethesda faq, showing NV not working right yet, updates coming, and many cards with issues:
“Does DOOM support asynchronous compute when running on the Vulkan API?
Asynchronous compute is a feature that provides additional performance gains on top of the baseline id Tech 6 Vulkan feature set.
Currently asynchronous compute is only supported on AMD GPUs and requires DOOM Vulkan supported drivers to run. We are working with NVIDIA to enable asynchronous compute in Vulkan on NVIDIA GPUs. We hope to have an update soon.”
Kind of important to have the right stuff working or what is the point in benchmarking it and claiming a winner? The other product is CLEARLY not working right yet as shown by hardocp and the german site.

Also note, Hardocp shows doom easily runs out of 4GB in their review. So out goes the 4GB 480 IMHO and this will start happening more and more with new games. So no point in comparing 4GB 480 to 1060 obviously as some kind of bargain. I'm far more worried about hitting 4GB limits than dx12 perf. I would not buy a card under 6GB today unless I'm broke (and I'm not...LOL). It was wise of NV to just put out a 6GB 1060. No point in a 3GB that would likely be running 1080 most of the time and running out a lot since most devs are aiming 4GB or higher.

"This game will not run "Nightmare" settings with any video card less of 5GB of VRAM, it displays an error message and won't allow it." said hardocp above. As noted 980 was excluded due to this. IF buying a 480, you'd best get the 8GB model! Dynamic memory might save you some, but you're counting on the game dev, or AMD supporting it (or both?). Not sure yet about how that works, and I don't care until Vega hits and I look more closely at a buying decision and I may end up going the new titan for xmas if it's great at some app stuff I'm interested in now. I hope toms tests titan against some quadros for 3dsmax/maya/blender and maybe some AE cuda stuff too. Cuda NV vs. AMD OpenCL if you include an AMD card in there or whatever is fastest for each side in the chosen apps.

Most Titan's are not sold to gamers, but rather pro people on a budget who game as an afterthought also. IE, M6000 is $4K! Which makes the coming $1200 Titan a no-brainer if you're into content creation on top of gaming. I doubt its aimed at fp64 and hope not, as those people can buy a tesla! Content creation on the cheap is what I'd want from it and that makes $1200 very reasonable if it's anywhere near m6000 (or better in some stuff probably). M6000 would only make sense then if you were doing stuff like 4K vid with large data sets needing the 24GB, otherwise save some cash or heck, buy two and still save $1600...LOL. Can't wait to see Vega/Titan.

 

[somebodyspecial]

OH, and yes I know Win10 has been free for a year (making the numbers above even worse), i was mentioning the $200 machines because those sell a bunch and HP, Dell, Acer (cloudbook 14in for example) etc get the OS free which was mentioned on MSFT's Q report as hurting income some. Old farts etc, pick these up and have no intention of gaming on win10 so have no need for more expensive stuff apparently in a lot of cases. They're like my parents these days, and just check email/stocks/browse the web and maybe do some simple edits on some pics...ROFL.

 

[cryoburner]

Should be concentrate on DX12/Vulkan (5-10 games...ROFL) or the other 99% of the market? Again, with DX12 only being on 19% of the machines out there (and that is by MSFT partner netmarkeshare numbers...LOL fudge factor says 10-15% tops for win10 IMHO and ZERO for enterprise), and a large portion of those being $199 laptop cheap pc junk (under $200 the OS is free) or people who accidentally had it forced on them (autoupdate etc...LOL) that can't run games, I'd say DX12 should be an afterthought at best. Vulkan too until I see at least a dozen games running it.

Even if you say 10% of the market has win10 and GAMES on that OS, what portion of those have DX12 hardware? Even if it is 50%, that would be 5% of the market. Benchmarking much stuff for that small a slice would be like wasting time on 4K in every review when it is <2.5% of the market and many games won't run 4K without turning details off which is against my religion. LOL. If you're benchmarking 10 games, it should be DX11-9, and DX12-1 because even that is being generous regarding market share of games available, OR market share of the OS with dx12 gpus. I care about what we DO today, not what we HOPE we do in a year or two. I could see running a DX12 ARTICLE testing all the games (since there is so few) and a vulkan game or two on 3-5 gpus or something (top card/mid from both sides or something). But not wasting time on it in every gpu review. That is overstating it's importance by orders of magnitude.

NetMarketShare is not a good resource at all for something like this, since it will include a lot of business and other non-gaming systems in the mix. Why not look at the Steam Hardware Survey for a more accurate representation of DX12 users who play games? It's undoubtedly a lot more relevant than a stat tracker aimed at web users in general.

According to Steam's June results, approximately 44.5% of Steam users are on Windows 10, and 41.4% of Windows Steam users are running Windows 10 with a DX12 GPU. That's a pretty substantial portion of gamers who can already benefit from DX12 optimizations. Certainly 41.4% is a bit more than your 5% estimate. And that number is only going to grow, especially once more people see games getting a substantial performance boost in DX12 mode on some hardware. While not many games make use of it now, that's undoubtedly going to change over the course of the next year or so, and the vast majority of people buying a card today will be keeping it for at least a couple years, if not longer, so it's definitely notable information to include in a review.

I will agree that there's simply not a large enough sample size to make a definitive ruling on the effect of DX12/Vulcan performance on particular cards yet though. While some of the games tested so far may show more significant gains on particular hardware, that may just be due to those games specific optimizations. It's a bit early to say that one particular card will do better than another in DX12.

 

[Sakkura]

Besides, it's nonsense to claim that sites should only benchmark the best selling games. Then we could all sit here concluding that it doesn't matter whether you buy Nvidia or AMD, 1060 or 1070, 480 or 470, because it all runs League of Legends perfectly at max settings.

 

[alextheblue]

On that review, as a matter of fact, you use pretty much only DX11 games and only one DX12 title; new API paths are available in Dota2, Talos Principle and Doom 2016... Why not include them, as a reference for the future of gaming, instead of only showing off DX11 games?

Public-use Mantle is getting deprecated (and essentially superseded by Vulkan) so I'm not too interested in that. However on the point quoted above, Mitch is dead on. At a minimum any modern graphics card review that does not include Doom (with both APIs) should be considered incomplete. Over the next couple years Vulkan and DX12 render paths will be in most titles (not exclusively - they'll still run on DX11 or OGL, but it won't be as fast or as pretty). So people considering a graphics card purchase today that will carry them for a year or two will be looking at these things. There are of course other review sites but TH is one of my favorites so it is a little disappointing.

 

[Matteo_3]

GTX 1060 supports or will support HDR or Dolby vision and Atmos at 4K? (Please be detailed)

 

[n0ns3ns3]

GTX 1060 supports or will support HDR or Dolby vision and Atmos at 4K? (Please be detailed)

Atmos is not a GPU function. It is receiver or sound card.

 

[Matteo_3]

We know that GPU doesn't decode Atmos but the HDMI driver of GTX 1060 correct supports Atmos/Dtx audio streams ?

( I am surprised of "detailed"review of GTX 1060 without any information about these HT features )

thanks in advance

 

[madmatt30]

Atmos 4k carries 64 audio channels, HDMI2 & display port are only capable of 32 so full support is impossible.

 

[n0ns3ns3]

Atmos 4k carries 64 audio channels, HDMI2 & display port are only capable of 32 so full support is impossible.

The consumer (home) version of Atmos is not 64 channels.
It's not about channels in the stream. It's about objects and their position which is translated to the available number of channels by decoder.

 

[rcflier]

I sold my 970 as soon as I knew the 10xx series were arriving. And everyone and his dog quoted NVIDIA's prices - not caring about VAT and such. Now the cards are still overpriced, so I bought another second hand 970. Just as good as a 1060. And later (Christmas, maybe?) I'll see, if I can find a good deal or a second hand 1070 or 80.
Cheers
Erik

 

[RedJaron]

The reason for SLI is a cheaper upgrade in the future.

Except it's not always a cheaper upgrade option. You need a mboard with SLI support and a PSU with the requisite wattage and PCIe power leads to do it, both of which add to the total cost.

And as I said before, by the time you're ready for that upgrade in the future, is a second 1060 ( which will be old tech at that time ) the better upgrade over a similarly priced new-fangled single GPU? Usually, the new card is the more cost effective option.

I see no point to spend 200+ $ to lower settings from max on 1080p
Same way you can use 750ti with lower settings

Right, because dropping one or two pointless settings from Max to Very High is just as noticeable as changing the whole preset from Max to Medium. Can you be any more misleading?

 

[Capulis]

I knowthe price that the 480 is supposedto be but due to the shortage the only rx480 in stock at newegg.com (at the time of this writing) is selling for over $400... and they have 1070s for only $20 more.

rx 480 $409 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA85V4ME3998

gtx 1070 $429 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814126111

 

[logainofhades]

Nvidia and AMD seem to be having issues getting cards out to retailers, this generation, more so than I remember in previous gen's.

 

[17seconds]

I'm expecting to see some eye popping numbers when the latest Steam survey is released.

 

[cdrkf]

This is first gen on a new node in years... I think many people have been avoiding buying a second 28nm card and waiting for this gen to arrive.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

This is first gen on a new node in years... I think many people have been avoiding buying a second 28nm card and waiting for this gen to arrive.

And we saw a larger jump when Maxwell was released and there wasn't a node shrink.

 

[Sakkura]

There are some rumors that crypto miners in China have been buying new GPUs in bulk, contributing to shortages.

https://www.chiphell.com/forum.php?mod=redirect&goto=findpost&ptid=1622684&pid=34091913

 

[cdrkf]

This is first gen on a new node in years... I think many people have been avoiding buying a second 28nm card and waiting for this gen to arrive.

And we saw a larger jump when Maxwell was released and there wasn't a node shrink.

Did we really though? The GTX 980 just outpaced the previous gen flagship the 780ti:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1515264/gtx-980-vs-gtx-780-ti-benchmarked-1440p-performance

Those reviews show it leading by 9%.

On the other hand, with have the GTX 1080 pasting the 980ti and Titan X by a whopping 25%.

I mean this is the first time in recent history where the *second tier* gpu matched the last gen top card. The last time that happened from memory was when AMD released the HD7000 series- the HD 7870 matched the GTX 580 (which was also a node jump).

I think what made Maxwell such a surprise was just how late it was in the generation on an established node- normally by that point you'd expect gains to be a few % here and there, so it kinda came out of nowhere... what that generation didn't do though was really improve price / performance in a meaningful way. That's looking much better this time (thanks to the cost savings of the node shrink).

 

[turkey3_scratch]

Yeah but the 970 = 780Ti just like how the 1070 = 980Ti. ANd Maxwell had way larger efficiency boosts and also those chips could handle higher temperatures unlike Pascal which throttle lower (we see the GTX 1060 throttling at 75C).

 

[littleleo]

All the shortages are frustrating I've run out of the RX 480s, 1060s,1070s and the 1080s. They are all selling as fast as we get them in. I got big pending orders for the 1070s I hope I can fill.

 

[rhysiam]

All the shortages are frustrating I've run out of the RX 480s, 1060s,1070s and the 1080s. They are all selling as fast as we get them in. I got big pending orders for the 1070s I hope I can fill.

Are you a retailer? I'd be interested to know whether you're getting good numbers of cards and demand is just beyond anything we've seen in the recent past, or are you only getting your hands on small numbers suggesting yield/production issues?