GTX 1060 Vs RX 480 - head to head showdown

akarypid · 19 Jul 2016 at 19:18

akarypid said:
Been through a few reviews and main takeaways:

* 1060 wins for DX11 by a little bit (generally up to 10%)
* 480 wins for DX12/Vulkan by a lot (except RotTR)

So for me, 480 seems better value and is more balanced. For a little bit less money you get a little bit more RAM. For a little bit less DX11 performance you get significantly more DX12/Vulkan performance.

Only thing I like the 1060 for: I loved that EVGA low-profile short version. With the low power of the 1060 I can see it being a huge hit for small form factors.

With this post, I've joined the club of people quoting themselves

but it's only to give context to the below:

Based on the above, there's only 1 good reason for choosing a 1060 and that is: it's a stop-gap card and I will upgrade again in less than a year to Vega/1080ti.

People which can afford to do this probably won't care about a £50 difference anyway, and can enjoy their current DX11 games a bit better. By the time DX12 becomes a problem for them (too many games using it) they will have switched to a new card (and not care about the 1060 resale value plummeting).

However, the vast majority of buyers in this price range are price-conscious and upgrade on a longer cycle (2 years min). For them the 1060 makes no sense at all. Around mid-2017 they will be stuck with a card that performs badly in the DX12/Vulkan games AND has lost its resale value (who in their right mind will buy a used 1060 when DX12/Vulkan are the majority of games).

GTX 1060 is just way overpriced for what it offers. RX 480 is the way to go.

Jumper118 · 19 Jul 2016 at 19:20

with no sli support the rx480 wins all the way

Gregster · 19 Jul 2016 at 19:27

Jumper118 said:
with no sli support the rx480 wins all the way

So anyone considering a 1060 shouldn't because it doesn't support SLI?

sqwerty · 19 Jul 2016 at 19:28

Mtom said:
TPU only used 2 DX12 titles Hitman and ROTTR

Make that one DX12 game test (quoting TPU in reference to Hitman): "The game's DirectX 12 implementation, however, is too riddled with bugs to be integrated into our test bench for now."

TheMorningStar · 19 Jul 2016 at 19:31

Going through the reviews it looks like the 480 is the best option for DX12 with the exception of Tomb Raider, I'm guessing this is the same with Vulcan.

Nvidia are still holding DX11 well.

I'll be interested to see how they pop up in the Time Spy benchmark charts as from what I'm seeing that benchmark isn't realistically showing DX12 performance in its current incarnation and this would confirm that, to my mind.

It will also be interesting to compare overclocked partner boards for both the 1060 and 480 in a few days. I'm wondering if AMD can take that with them doing more work per clock.

It's nice to see that AMD held their own well at this price point/market segment.

Jumper118 · 19 Jul 2016 at 19:44

Gregster said:
So anyone considering a 1060 shouldn't because it doesn't support SLI?

they should seriously consider it. you cant just go out and buy another one later and get double the speed. you have to sell it then buy a 1080 that is probably slower than sli 1060 would be, which is maybe why they did it.

Gregster · 19 Jul 2016 at 19:58

Jumper118 said:
they should seriously consider it. you cant just go out and buy another one later and get double the speed. you have to sell it then buy a 1080 that is probably slower than sli 1060 would be, which is maybe why they did it.

Not sure how many people would consider SLI or Crossfire and buying a 1060 or 480. Not something I would recommend for anyone with the current state of both.

TheRealDeal · 19 Jul 2016 at 20:03

Gregster said:
Not sure how many people would consider SLI or Crossfire and buying a 1060 or 480. Not something I would recommend for anyone with the current state of both.

In this group it used to be used as a cheap upgrade down the line. Who's to say the state of CF/Sli won't be much better by then. So instead of forking out for a new card in a year buy a second hand or new RX480 for much cheapness. I have never done it but it's a cheap way of getting a boost for those who may want one.

Gregster · 19 Jul 2016 at 20:06

TheRealDeal said:
In this group it used to be used as a cheap upgrade down the line. Who's to say the state of CF/Sli won't be much better by then. So instead of forking out for a new card in a year buy a second hand or new RX480 for much cheapness. I have never done it but it's a cheap way of getting a boost for those who may want one.

Well you kind of prove my point in the fact that you have never done it. Not sure the extra power, heat, microstutter and supported games would have me rushing to use mGPU again.

TheRealDeal · 19 Jul 2016 at 20:09

Gregster said:
Well you kind of prove my point in the fact that you have never done it. Not sure the extra power, heat, microstutter and supported games would have me rushing to use mGPU again.

That's mainly why i would not do it. Dx12/Vulcan might just save it though as it appears to work well when the Devs add it. In the best case Scenario adding in another RX480 would give you gtx1080 performance when working properly. For some this is worth the money. Gtx1060 owners don't have the option which is stupid in itself. Nvidia should let there buyers decide.

Gregster · 19 Jul 2016 at 20:11

TheRealDeal said:
That's mainly why i would not do it. Dx12/Vulcan might just save it though as it appears to work well when the Devs add it. In the best case Scenario adding in another RX480 would give you gtx1080 performance when working properly. For some this is worth the money. Gtx1060 owners don't have the option which is stupid in itself. Nvidia should let there buyers decide.

Vulkan doesn't currently support SLI or Crossfire I believe.

akarypid · 19 Jul 2016 at 20:16

Gregster said:
Vulkan doesn't currently support SLI or Crossfire I believe.

It doesn't have to: It's called multi-adapter / multi-gpu and leaves it up to devs to use it. Can even mix cards from different vendors.

TheRealDeal · 19 Jul 2016 at 20:20

akarypid said:
It doesn't have to: It's called multi-adapter / multi-gpu and leaves it up to devs to use it. Can even mix cards from different vendors.

Which is funny as if employed 2 gtx1060's would work together but you would not buy them as some games would rely on sli.

akarypid · 19 Jul 2016 at 20:20

Regarding the whole SLI/Crossfire thing: Both DX12 and Vulkan let developers use multiple GPUs. This is all from their common Mantle heritage and AMD's strategy to take the middle-man (drivers) out of the equation.

The AMD strategy going forward is that game engines should do this on their own. DX12 calls using multiple GPUs from the SAME vendor "linked multi-adapter" whereas the case where you mix totally different cards is "explicit multi-adapter".

Many console engines already do this. It is the reason AMD was keen on showing the two 480s stacked up against the 1080 and all that...

P.S. Which is why I mentioned above, 1060 can't do SLI but for DX12/Vulkan games that's not important: what is important is that the 1060 is crap compared to the 480 in those games. So a year from now, anyone picking it over 480 will regret it.

Darujhistan · 19 Jul 2016 at 20:25

I think irrespective of the issues with mGPU's, NV have taken that option away from people with the 1060, whereas as far as I'm aware you can x-fire 480s.

That's a negative with the 1060 as opposed to the 480, can't spin it any other way.

h4rm0ny · 19 Jul 2016 at 20:28

akarypid said:
To be clear: the 1060 can't do SLI. This is only a problem for DX11 / OpenGL titles.

DX12 explicit multi-adapter as well as linked multi-adapter do NOT require SLI or CrossFire so games that support it will be able to use multiple 1060 cards (or even a combination of 1060 + 480 for explicit multi-adapter).

Ah, okay. That changes things a little then. For me it shifts the 480 from a hard-win to a better for me.

Do we know that mGPU on Nvidia wont be disallowed on the 1060 though, just to be sure. My reason for doubt is because the 1060 hardware is capable of SLi (I presume as the 1070/80 both are) so it must be a business decision on Nvidia's part to say that their card can't be twinned with another. So what would make it different when it came to other methods of mGPU? Genuine question.

akarypid · 19 Jul 2016 at 20:38

h4rm0ny said:
Ah, okay. That changes things a little then. For me it shifts the 480 from a hard-win to a better for me.

Do we know that mGPU on Nvidia wont be disallowed on the 1060 though, just to be sure. My reason for doubt is because the 1060 hardware is capable of SLi (I presume as the 1070/80 both are) so it must be a business decision on Nvidia's part to say that their card can't be twinned with another. So what would make it different when it came to other methods of mGPU? Genuine question.

I think there is no way NVidia won't allow mGPU on 1060 for DX12/Vulkan (EDIT: in fact for DX12 I think they'd get in trouble with Microsoft if they attempted to do so; for Vulkan I doubt Khronos group would mind if NVidia gimped their Vulkan implementation to restrict it). You just won't be able to enjoy SLI speeds for your older DX11/OpenGL titles.

Having said that, I highly recommend the 480 over the 1060, but an AIB one (not reference).

480 is almost as fast as 1060 in DX11 and I expect AIB cards to eliminate that difference.

Furthermore 480 has a significant advantage over 1060 in DX12/Vulkan, so if you think multi-GPU for 1060 in a year from now (when there are many more DX12/Vulkan titles) is a good idea, then it will be even better with two 480s instead.

Finally, if you keep the card for at least a year, the 480 resale value will be higher than the 1060 (as people buying used at the time will be looking at many more DX12/Vulkan games).

The only reason I responded to this was to clarify that SLI/CrossFire and mGPU are totally different things and the 1060 is restricted for SLI only (not mGPU). Just trying to be informative.

Seanspeed · 19 Jul 2016 at 20:41

Meaker said:
The 1060 seems to clock very well but the performance does not scale all that well with the frequency.

Is it running at a higher boost than the quoted figure? A lot of Nvidia cards have done that lately.

Anyways, seems like the 1060 is clearly the faster card and definitely backs up the claim of 980-level performance.

If you only want to play DX12 games, the 480 might be a better performer, but I dont know many who will actually be doing that.

Price-wise, it seems the 1060 costs just a smidgen more, but I'm already seeing 3rd party 1060's for less than the 3rd party 480's, so that seems to be the way to go if you ask me.

Still not impressed with either, though. At least not with current pricing. £220 for 970 performance and £240-250 for 980 performance after a node jump is just plain sad. I suppose Brexit is to blame for a lot of that, but still. I was really hoping for 980/390X performance for £200. That seemed to me the *minimum* of what what have constituted a decent advancement.

h4rm0ny · 19 Jul 2016 at 20:55

akarypid said:
The only reason I responded to this was to clarify that SLI/CrossFire and mGPU are totally different things and the 1060 is restricted for SLI only (not mGPU). Just trying to be informative.

You were. I hadn't realized that the prohibition was solely against SLi, not mGPU in general. That said, like you, I still think the 480 is the better buy.

Mauller · 19 Jul 2016 at 21:00

Seanspeed said:
Still not impressed with either, though. At least not with current pricing. £220 for 970 performance and £240-250 for 980 performance after a node jump is just plain sad. I suppose Brexit is to blame for a lot of that, but still. I was really hoping for 980/390X performance for £200. That seemed to me the *minimum* of what what have constituted a decent advancement.

I wouldn't blame Brexit, The prices in Europe are no better if not worse than ours. It appears that there is far less stock of the 1060 compared to the Rx480 for launch, even with the AIB models thrown in.

I think they had to launch with AIB models just to have enough stock.