Upgrade from a 1060 3GB to an RX 580 8GB?

[Watrevir]

Title says it all really. I made the mistake of getting a 1060 3GB instead of 6GB a couple of years ago and I'm finding that it's starting to struggle with high texture load with newer games even at 1080p. I need more memory, but I'm limited to about £180. The 580 is quite a lot cheaper than the 1060 6GB - would I notice much of a difference from my card?

 

[ARAN_108]

The Rx580 is a tad better than the 1060 6GB and consumes more power. That's just it.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-1060-3GB-vs-AMD-RX-580/3646vs3923
Compare ^

Wouldn't be a huge improvement!

 

[LordVile]

The 580 is better than the 1060 6GB which is around 15% faster than the 3GB variant. So you should notice a fair amount of improvement.

 

[Nirmith Akash Anawarathne]

RX 580 Is slightly bad in performance when it compared with the 1060 6GB but in your case it will be a advantage having it because moving from 3GB VRAM to 8GB VRAM is something much to consider over that performance gap especially in nowadays games as you’ve mentioned.

So if not planning to buy another 1060 with 6GB VRAM then this one will be fine. But AMD is also announcing a new family of GPUs soon… it will be good if can be patient and give it some time to see what exactly it is.

 

[ARAN_108]

Okay, I will give you my decision. Go with the RX580 if you want a GPU now. Down the line it'll get better drivers and edge out a bit from the 1060 6GB.

With the 1060 - 3GB even with the processing power to run games on high, you won't be able to because of the VRAM limit.

Some games stutter bad because of VRAM limitation.

New GPUs are inbound and I would wait to see what they offer too.

 

[punkncat]

IMO it would be better to save up the pennies for a while and make a more meaningful upgrade. The difference will be slight for most things unless they are very memory intensive.
With the looming 1160 release as well as the supposed AMD GPU release I would probably take a wait and see attitude.

There is a good hierarchy list here on Tom's that shows a recommended upgrade path to maximize spending, in that only GPU so many tiers up are recommended for best result.

 

[LordVile]

Nirmith where are you getting the info? The 580 on average is better than the 1060 plus it has better support for DX12 and Vulkan. The 3GB 1060 is not just short of VRAM it has a fair few cores hacked off too.

They also haven’t breathed a word of Navi at CES so we’re not likely to see them until at least Q3 2019. 7 months from now.

 

[geofelt]

RX580 and GTX1060 are in the same performance tier on tom's gpu hierarchy chart.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html

Probably not worth it.
You are likely to be disappointed if you do not see good results.

Also, Nvidia and AMD use vram differently. One should probably not use that spec as a buying decision.
The vram on a card will be appropriate to the card.

The reason the 6gb GTX1060 is a better performer than the 3gb version is not the vram difference, the 6gb version has more CUDA cores.

Think about saving up for a gpu that is a couple of tiers higher.

One possible help would be to convert to a ssd if you have not already done so.
Texture loads will be considerably faster from a ssd than from a HDD.

 

[LordVile]

Some games will flat out say no to enabling certain settings when you don’t have enough VRAM.

The RX580 is significantly better than the 3GB 1060

 

[Nirmith Akash Anawarathne]

Nirmith where are you getting the info? The 580 on average is better than the 1060 plus it has better support for DX12 and Vulkan. The 3GB 1060 is not just short of VRAM it has a fair few cores hacked off too.

They also haven’t breathed a word of Navi at CES so we’re not likely to see them until at least Q3 2019. 7 months from now.

Yes I see 3GB version is lack of some CUDA cores… But when comparing 1060 6GB and 580 I don’t think that RX would gain anything other than much compatibility in DX12 and making little bit better texture detail. So far 1060 6GB slightly ahead in performance especially in GTA V, Fortnite and LOL there will be 32% more performance in GTX over RX. Also RX is doing only at 1340MHz at top while 1060 is doing it at 1708Mhz. definitely RX can’t be the best but at the moment it is the best option if we consider the $. Isn’t it?

 

[ohiou_grad_2006]

Depending on budget, seeing used Rx 480 cards on eBay earlier for about 120. Which should be almost the same as the 580. The 580 would be slightly faster though. But for that money, you might be able to sell the 1060 you have, and come out with an almost free upgrade.

 

[LordVile]

You mean in a mainly CPU dependant title and 2 games where both cards are both capable of running well over 100FPS?

Frequency on different Arcs is incomparable.

DX12 and Vulkan are what games are being developed for now. It would be stupid to not take that into consideration.

 

[Watrevir]

Okay, I will give you my decision. Go with the RX580 if you want a GPU now. Down the line it'll get better drivers and edge out a bit from the 1060 6GB.

With the 1060 - 3GB even with the processing power to run games on high, you won't be able to because of the VRAM limit.

Some games stutter bad because of VRAM limitation.

New GPUs are inbound and I would wait to see what they offer too.

Thanks all. I went for it and got a second hand 580 8GB off Ebay for £125 (Powercolor Red Dragon - not a Chinese knock off). I'll see how it goes but 1060 3GB are selling for a similar price so if I can sell mine for that I just might have got a free upgrade...

Anyone want to buy a Zotac Mini 1060 3GB?

 

[ohiou_grad_2006]

Not I. I'm happy with my new Vega 56. They are talking new GPUs in June/July. So you have the option of holding out and selling the 580 later if you want.