AMD RX480, nVidia 1060 GTX 6GB or save a bit more for 1070GTX?

[BlizzardX]

Hello

I appreciate that this is another 'spec me a gpu' thread and I do apologise about this, but I have a particular requirement that must be met and so far none of the other threads have highlighted this. I will also apologise for the potential wall of text!

So, to start I live in New Zealand so all purchases will be made here due to consumer guarantees / warranties etc. I currently have $560NZD available for a purchase which is roughly in line with the 1060s and RX480s here (range $419 to $679.99). The 1070GTX starts at 699.99 presently.

My ultimate requirement: must be able to play well over a streaming setup. Giving context to this, I do not have an office or a fixed PC location due to small house, kids and no space for a desk so my gaming PC is currently located under the house in a rack cabinet with the rest of my home lab. For the foreseeable future until I sort out HDMI cabling around the house I am forced to use steam streaming, RemotR etc. to play games to the various 1080p TVs around the house. This is fine, except the frame rate often suffers as the current card is a Radeon 270x. I am looking for a card that can consistently stream well across my fixed 1GBe network upto 1080p.

Out of the two cards, 1060GTX and the RX480, which one performs better for streaming? At 1080p (and for the future as I don't need a 4K set yet) I am looking for 60fps + and the ability to run games like Star Citizen at a decent quality setting. I've traditionally used AMD/ATi cards and my last nVidia card was probably about 10 years ago but I'm not fussed this time around. Which one would people recommend?

Regarding the 1070GTX, I appreciate it is 'overkill' for 1080p currently, but I do keep my cards for quite a while so wonder whether adding more to my kitty will be beneficial?

I appreciate any thoughts or comments that you might have.

Cheers,

Chris

 

[humbug]

Hello

I appreciate that this is another 'spec me a gpu' thread and I do apologise about this, but I have a particular requirement that must be met and so far none of the other threads have highlighted this. I will also apologise for the potential wall of text!

So, to start I live in New Zealand so all purchases will be made here due to consumer guarantees / warranties etc. I currently have $560NZD available for a purchase which is roughly in line with the 1060s and RX480s here (range $419 to $679.99). The 1070GTX starts at 699.99 presently.

My ultimate requirement: must be able to play well over a streaming setup. Giving context to this, I do not have an office or a fixed PC location due to small house, kids and no space for a desk so my gaming PC is currently located under the house in a rack cabinet with the rest of my home lab. For the foreseeable future until I sort out HDMI cabling around the house I am forced to use steam streaming, RemotR etc. to play games to the various 1080p TVs around the house. This is fine, except the frame rate often suffers as the current card is a Radeon 270x. I am looking for a card that can consistently stream well across my fixed 1GBe network upto 1080p.

Out of the two cards, 1060GTX and the RX480, which one performs better for streaming? At 1080p (and for the future as I don't need a 4K set yet) I am looking for 60fps + and the ability to run games like Star Citizen at a decent quality setting. I've traditionally used AMD/ATi cards and my last nVidia card was probably about 10 years ago but I'm not fussed this time around. Which one would people recommend?

Regarding the 1070GTX, I appreciate it is 'overkill' for 1080p currently, but I do keep my cards for quite a while so wonder whether adding more to my kitty will be beneficial?

I appreciate any thoughts or comments that you might have.

Cheers,

Chris

I think they all perform about the same for Steam streaming.

If you can afford it you should get the 1070.

On Star Citizen, something i do know a lot about.

In its current state its performance completely bound by the servers, sometimes that is ok 50+ FPS, most of the time its not good 25+ FPS...

That should change with a new netcode coming online sometime this year.

For GPU performance, i'm running it maxed out at 1440P with visual enhancements hacks, when the server is good to me i get over 60 FPS with those settings on the rig you see in my signature.
The GPU is very similar to a GTX 1060 or RX 480 in performance.

The only other advice i can give you is don't bother with the 3GB 1060, it will simply run it badly at 1080P, 4GB is only just enough, 6GB is better but the more Vram you have the better it will be, its very Vram heavy because of the vastness of it all.
And 16GB of system memory, 8 is not enough to run it well.

 

[humbug]

PS: https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18603648

 

[BlizzardX]

I think they all perform about the same for Steam streaming.

If you can afford it you should get the 1070.

On Star Citizen, something i do know a lot about.

In its current state its performance completely bound by the servers, sometimes that is ok 50+ FPS, most of the time its not good 25+ FPS...

That should change with a new netcode coming online sometime this year.

For GPU performance, i'm running it maxed out at 1440P with visual enhancements hacks, when the server is good to me i get over 60FPS with those settings on the rig you see in my signature.
The GPU is very similar to a GTX 1060 or RX 480 in performance.

The only other advice i can give you is don't bother with the 3GB 1060, it will simply run it badly at 1080P, 4GB is only just enough, 6GB is better but the more Vram you have the better it will be, its very Vram heavy because of the vastness of it all.
And 16GB of system memory, 8 is not enough to run it well.

Thanks for the reply, I know how bad SC is as I've got a lot of money in the game but the 270x is just not cutting it at the moment even with the poor netcode.

I know people recommend the 1060/RX480 when at 1080p but visuals only get better as time goes on and a modern game at 1080p with 'ultra' quality visuals will likely bring a top quality card to its knees in a few years time.

Basically, I'm itching to get something right now but I have only a small amount of money from the joint account each fortnight which I can use where I want. If I get the 1060/480 I can purchase it right now, if I get the 1070 then I will have to wait!

 

[humbug]

Thanks for the reply, I know how bad SC is as I've got a lot of money in the game but the 270x is just not cutting it at the moment even with the poor netcode.

I know people recommend the 1060/RX480 when at 1080p but visuals only get better as time goes on and a modern game at 1080p with 'ultra' quality visuals will likely bring a top quality card to its knees in a few years time.

Basically, I'm itching to get something right now but I have only a small amount of money from the joint account each fortnight which I can use where I want. If I get the 1060/480 I can purchase it right now, if I get the 1070 then I will have to wait!

Once star Citizen comes closer to completion the visuals will increase, the thing is i'm actually running much higher LOD, Texture res, shading res, shadows ecte.... through Cryengine CVar hacks, the sort of quality its likely to be launched with, other than probably new, better, updated textures.. which is still to say stunning.

CiG are able to achieve that visual fidelity because they have an army of very talented people working on it.
The final fidelity will look as good or better than their ship ads, all of which is rendered in engine, and a couple of years ago now.

For example..

What they will not do is make it too demanding in terms of rendering anyway, because if they do it will put too much demand of resources like memory, they need to preserve as much as possible of that so they can fit it all into an obtainable GPU's resources.

So i think the rendering power of the 1060 / RX 480 will be enough to drive 60+ FPS @ 1080P, other than that i would want as much Vram as possible.

 

[triss]

Thanks for the reply, I know how bad SC is as I've got a lot of money in the game but the 270x is just not cutting it at the moment even with the poor netcode.

I know people recommend the 1060/RX480 when at 1080p but visuals only get better as time goes on and a modern game at 1080p with 'ultra' quality visuals will likely bring a top quality card to its knees in a few years time.

Basically, I'm itching to get something right now but I have only a small amount of money from the joint account each fortnight which I can use where I want. If I get the 1060/480 I can purchase it right now, if I get the 1070 then I will have to wait!

As a fellow kiwi i feel your pain over prices here

Personally I'd say keep saving and get a gtx 1070 and depending on how long that takes we might also know more about Vega. I do expect more 1070's to drop to the $699 price and hopefully lower here

 

[Seanspeed]

Streaming 1080p/60fps over wifi is going to be difficult no matter the GPU.

Check into powerline adapters if you haven't already.

 

[BlizzardX]

Streaming 1080p/60fps over wifi is going to be difficult no matter the GPU.

Check into powerline adapters if you haven't already.

Its a fully wired in 1GBe Ethernet, running through a layer 3 48 port HP switch, I wouldn't even dare to run wireless with this!

 

[Neutral]

1070 if ur nearly there mate!!

 

[h4rm0ny]

I would recommend either getting the 480 or the 1070. And I would actively avoid getting the 3GB 1060 because whilst 4GB will be fine for a long time, I think there will be a very sharp performance drop off below that because developers will design for 4GB and upwards as a given.

Look at Doom on Vulkan benchmarks to see the impact of this and for a taste of things to come. The 470 beat out the 380X on this despite being weaker in every other case, simply because Doom on Vulkan expects 4GB of RAM base.

The 6GB 1060 is okay but I'd honestly say either go all in or don't, not half-arse it. So 480 or 1070 for me.

 

[Brazo]

Yes don't get a half arsed 1060 6gb the fact that it beats out the 480 in the vast majority of benchmarks should be ignored.

 

[humbug]

Yes don't get a half arsed 1060 6gb the fact that it beats out the 480 in the vast majority of benchmarks should be ignored.

I think what he means is the lack of support for DX12 and Vulkan compared with the RX 480.

In terms of longevity that matters.

 

[Sargatanas2511]

I think what he means is the lack of support for DX12 and Vulkan compared with the RX 480.

In terms of longevity that matters.

I agree, the 7970 is still plodding along decently, can't say the same for the nVidia 5 series or even most of the 7 series.

 

[humbug]

I agree, the 7970 is still plodding along decently, can't say the same for the nVidia 5 series or even most of the 7 series.

The 900 series doesn't look like it has much more of a good use future.

They don't have DX12 or Vulkan support beyond the most basic level, a lot of promises of DX12 feature levels for them that have never materialised and never will.

Mean while.... AMD's 4 year old GCN 1.1 GPU's have more support than Nvidia's latest and greatest.
knocking new GPU's out just for the sake of it...?

Its why i don't want a 1070, i'll wait a bit to see Vega.

 

[h4rm0ny]

Yes don't get a half arsed 1060 6gb the fact that it beats out the 480 in the vast majority of benchmarks should be ignored.

If you're going to spend more, go all the way and get a 1070 as the 1060 isn't much better than the 480 in current and past games and actually loses out in some cases with more future-looking games that make greater use of DX12. 480 is a great card at a great price and will age better. If you're spending extra, spend enough extra that you get a meaningful difference, not one that gets you a small boost that will diminish rapidly with time.

 

[Freddie1980]

The only other advice i can give you is don't bother with the 3GB 1060, it will simply run it badly at 1080P, 4GB is only just enough, 6GB is better but the more Vram you have the better it will be, its very Vram heavy because of the vastness of it all.
And 16GB of system memory, 8 is not enough to run it well.

The other thing to bear in mind with the 3Gb 1060 is Nvidia nerfed the specs, some of CUDA cores have been cut and a full streaming multiprocessor (SM) has been disabled.

 

[Rroff]

I agree, the 7970 is still plodding along decently, can't say the same for the nVidia 5 series or even most of the 7 series.

7 series isn't actually as bad as some sites/benchmarks make out - I can only imagine many tech sites keep some ropey old Kepler cards around or limit the boost clocks or something - most user benchmarks with gameplay sections still show them holding up well enough (though I certainly wouldn't recommend them over the alternatives these days).

 

[Aretak]

7 series isn't actually as bad as some sites/benchmarks make out - I can only imagine many tech sites keep some ropey old Kepler cards around or limit the boost clocks or something - most user benchmarks with gameplay sections still show them holding up well enough (though I certainly wouldn't recommend them over the alternatives these days).

Can't really agree with that, having ditched a 780 earlier in the year. One that was a good overclocker too, going well past 1200MHz once flashed with the Skyn3t BIOS to remove its shackles (although the Elpida memory was complete trash, as always). The experience in many newer titles was just awful, despite the fact that in most older games it could keep up with a 970. Just Cause 3 in particular was one that drove me up the wall, coming nowhere near a locked 60fps at 1080p even with a bunch of settings turned down/off, whereas a 970 is more than enough for it maxed out. It just seems to hate Kepler. VRAM limitations were a constant thorn in newer games too. 3GB isn't enough any more, even at 1080p. Even just stepping up to 4GB improves things massively, as so many newer games sit in that 3-4GB range now at 1080p.

They're not terrible by any means, especially if you're playing mainly older stuff, but the power consumption and heat combined with the massively unpredictable performance in new games made me absolutely delighted to be rid of it. The frustration of running every benchmark around and seeing it match (sometimes beat even) a 970 and then firing up a game and the performance just not being there was immense. It's the only card I've ever had that I really came to hate.

 

[~>Dg<~]

The 900 series doesn't look like it has much more of a good use future.

They don't have DX12 or Vulkan support beyond the most basic level, a lot of promises of DX12 feature levels for them that have never materialised and never will.

Mean while.... AMD's 4 year old GCN 1.1 GPU's have more support than Nvidia's latest and greatest.
knocking new GPU's out just for the sake of it...?

Its why i don't want a 1070, i'll wait a bit to see Vega.

but what if dx12 is another dx10 ?

there is nothing really of merit on dx12.

also rememeber games need to sell ! so with the 970 gtx being one of the biggest cards ever sold sales wise it will get support for a good while yet so will the 980.

 

[danlightbulb]

also rememeber games need to sell ! so with the 970 gtx being one of the biggest cards ever sold sales wise it will get support for a good while yet so will the 980.

Fair point this. In the steam hardware survey the 970 has a 5% market share and the old 750ti comes 4th!. The 1070 features but the RX480 is nowhere in sight.

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/videocard/