Question Replacing a GTX1060

greigm78

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Sep 28, 2018
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Good morning all,

My son currently has an Asus 1060 6GB Dual OC GPU in his system which is;
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 (OC'd to 4GHz)
Mem: 16GB Hyperx Predator 3200
MB: MSI B450 Tomahawk
GPU: Asus GTX 1060 Dual OC 6GB
PSU: Corsair CXM550 80+
Case: Thermaltake View 32TG

His birthday has just passed and he has been saving pocket money as well and says he wants to upgrade the 1060 (which I can have for my budget system so have no objections :)) but he is unsure which option is best.
Budget he has is £300 max and he has been looking at the GTX 1660Ti and there are a couple of GTX 1070 cards that can be had for sub £300. He has also looked at the AMD RX590 and Vega 56.

What would be his best move here.

He plays Fortnite, Mincecraft, Fifa, Forza and, like most kids, he records his gameplay and edits the video for uploading to youtube (weird kids!).

Suggestions welcome.
 

99StefanRO

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Oct 25, 2016
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For 300£ he can look for a 2060 on the second hand market or even a nice discount for a new product. Here, in my country I can even get a 2070 for around that price (second hand market, of course) without warranty, but new. I do recommend warranty though.

Btw, your son has a beast of a rig there imo :D. Hmm, I wish him good luck with that youtube, if he manages to get a good amount of subs, he'll make money!

EDIT: 1070 is also okay if he gets it brand new.
 

greigm78

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For 300£ he can look for a 2060 on the second hand market or even a nice discount for a new product. Here, in my country I can even get a 2070 for around that price (second hand market, of course) without warranty, but new. I do recommend warranty though.

Btw, your son has a beast of a rig there imo :D. Hmm, I wish him good luck with that youtube, if he manages to get a good amount of subs, he'll make money!

EDIT: 1070 is also okay if he gets it brand new.

Thanks, I mentioned to him about 2nd hand but he says he would prefer new for warranty and "he doesn't know how badly treated a card was" - sensible boy.

He has seen a Zotac 1070 mini (but still dual fan) brand new for £240 on ebuyer.
Is it any good? Anyone any experience of that card? Reviews seem ok save for some noise complaints but in the view32 its quite well sound proofed.
 

99StefanRO

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Hmm, as opposed to what your son said about SH market - I bought SH GPUs and actually got a very very good, like new product. Yes, indeed, card may be treated the "wrong" way but there are honest people that just upgrade theirs to a 1080 or to the RTX series, they have the money so.. why not?

My last experience with the SH market was: I found a 1060 6 gb from MSI for 100 pounds and it was brand new. The card was used one day and recieved the full warranty for it, that guy just jumped from it to the 1080 in a matter of days.

As for the Zotac, I've read that they offer a 5 year warranty in the EU at least, IF YOU REGISTER YOUR PRODUCT ON THEIR WEBSITE, otherwise it goes for only 2. Their build quality is good. He can go for it if he does not find a good SH offer. He won't have any problem with the Zotac.

Browse the SH market with him, since you're the big guy you know how things work xD. You may find a really good offer and I wish you all the luck!
 

Wendigo

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I would ask - what is the resolution and refresh rate of your son's monitor, and does it have FreeSync, GSync, or neither?
A very good point. If he has a 60Hz monitor, upgrading toward a 144Hz freesync/gsync monitor would be more significant than upgrading the graphic card. I would take a 1060 on a 144Hz VRR monitor anytime over a 1660Ti on a 60Hz one...
 

greigm78

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I would ask - what is the resolution and refresh rate of your son's monitor, and does it have FreeSync, GSync, or neither?

Its a 28" Acer KG1 4k @ 60Hz. I think it has Freesync but obviously never been able to use it if it has.
I am close to convincing him to consider 2nd hand but overall should he just stick with the 1060? Is that future proof enough?
 

King_V

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Am I correct in assuming that he games with the resolution set to 1920x1080? At 4k, it's going to be difficult to maintain 60 frames/sec for most video cards (depending on the games, of course).

If he's going for 1920x1080 gaming, then a GTX 1660 would be an upgrade, though I'm not sure if it's enough of one to justify the cost. The monitor can't show more than 60fps,and the GTX 1060 6GB is more or less in that area. Maybe a GPU upgrade isn't in the cards.

If he games at 2560x1440, though, then that's a different story. If he games at full 4K resolution, then I'm wondering how he's getting any smoothness at all! :eek:
 

greigm78

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Am I correct in assuming that he games with the resolution set to 1920x1080? At 4k, it's going to be difficult to maintain 60 frames/sec for most video cards (depending on the games, of course).

If he's going for 1920x1080 gaming, then a GTX 1660 would be an upgrade, though I'm not sure if it's enough of one to justify the cost. The monitor can't show more than 60fps,and the GTX 1060 6GB is more or less in that area. Maybe a GPU upgrade isn't in the cards.

If he games at 2560x1440, though, then that's a different story. If he games at full 4K resolution, then I'm wondering how he's getting any smoothness at all! :eek:

The monitor is relatively new (less than a month as was an early birthday present). I don't think he utilises the full resolution and is why he wants to upgrade the card.

I am thinking he might as well stick as he is and not worry about resolution and maybe hang fire and get a better monitor later.

But out of interest, at £300 budget if, in theory, you didn't have a card, would you go 1060 and save £60, 1070 mini at £250 or 1660ti at the full £300?
 

Wendigo

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The monitor is relatively new (less than a month as was an early birthday present). I don't think he utilises the full resolution and is why he wants to upgrade the card.

I am thinking he might as well stick as he is and not worry about resolution and maybe hang fire and get a better monitor later.

But out of interest, at £300 budget if, in theory, you didn't have a card, would you go 1060 and save £60, 1070 mini at £250 or 1660ti at the full £300?
With a 4k monitor, I would go with the cheapest between the 1070 and the 1660Ti. Which, most of the time would mean the 1660ti, but nothing wrong with the 1070 if you've lucky enough to find a great deal on it.
 

King_V

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Well, hopefully he's sticking with running his games at a lower resolution. At 3840x2160 (ie, native 4K resolution) only a 2080Ti can run almost everything at max settings, and a 2080 with some settings turned down.

I imagine the games he's playing are less demanding, though.

Sort of a digression: In my own case, I went from 1920x1080 to an ultrawide of 3840x1600 (21:9 aspect ratio vs 16:9). I did want an ultrawide for gaming, but I went with 3840 resolution for the days I work from home, to basically give me as much horizontal space as the pair of 1920x1080 monitors I have at the office.

It's nice, but games running at native resolution brought my old video card to its knees. I have a GTX 1080 now, and I haven't gamed much (and typically not the latest and greatest games) so it's handling it ok.

That said, in hindsight, I wish I would've gone 3440x1440. That would've still been a 21:9 aspect ratio, but would've put less demand on the video card (though I still would've had to upgrade) - and seeing as half of 3440 is 1720, well, I would've only been losing about 10% of the horizontal space I have compared to my work monitors. I probably could've easily lived with that.

Ok, so the point of all that rambling is that if he wants to utilize the full native 4K resolution, that'll require one brute of a video card. At least, that's my assumption, as I am not familiar with the particular games your son plays, so I don't know how demanding (or undemanding) they'd be on the video card.
 

Karadjgne

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For 1080p the 1660ti is stronger than the older 1070. At 1440p it's game dependant as to which is better, the 1070 has more vram, which can make a difference, if slight, but the 1660ti is slightly stronger fps, so it can go either way. At 4k, the 1070's larger vram makes a sizable difference, and beats out the faster 1660ti.

Since #1 son is gaming at 4k, a 1070 would be a minimum, a 2070 would be better.
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce GTX 1070 8 GB SC GAMING ACX 3.0 Black Edition Video Card (£315.78 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: MSI - GeForce RTX 2070 8 GB Video Card (£459.99 @ Box Limited)

I know you said his budget is £300, but would you be willing to buy the 1060 from him for £150...
 

greigm78

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Quick update on this. Of his own volition, no 1 son decided a second hand 1070 was a good option after all.
After much searching he has ordered a MSI GTX1070 Gaming X 8GB foe £195 delivered. Card looks clean in the pictures and its an eBay purchase from a seller with good feedback, but also PayPal protection if its a dud.

Seems like a shrewd investment or should be have maxed out his budget (he now has £100 spare to buy BF5 and a new controller).
 
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99StefanRO

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Quick update on this. Of his own volition, no 1 son decided a second hand 1070 was a good option after all.
After much searching he has ordered a MSI GTX1070 Gaming X 8GB foe £195 delivered. Card looks clean in the pictures and its an eBay purchase from a seller with good feedback, but also PayPal protection if its a dud.

Seems like a shrewd investment or should be have maxed out his budget (he now has £100 spare to buy BF5 and a new controller).
Tell your son he's made the right decision. He now has a, once been, high end gaming card that delivers really good performance up to this date and also some spare money. Congrats!