RX480 vs GTX1060

[Poneros]

What gives the Devil the advantage, In your view? When factoring in current performance, warranty RMA etc. For me, EVGA trounces Power colour at least in that regard.

Noise, overclockability, build quality, and the superior DX 12 & Vulkan performance of AMD manage to put it up over the top (and hey, 8gb instead of 6! + Crossfire + Freesync), so that even though I'd value EVGA's warranty/cs highly, the card itself is mediocre, but good enough for a 1060. And while the 1060 is a bit better atm for DX11 I know full well that it won't look this good past the first year. So, the PowerColor on pure performance (and I mean that in every metric) value has to take the top spot, while the EVGA 1060 has a good overall balance. The Zotac is also there because the card is decent too but mostly because the +2 years of warranty is a lot of value for me. Not because I'd necessarily use the card for that long, but because someone else will (likely a relative), and that's worth it having.

So to me, Devil 480 is a solid 9 if not a bit higher, EVGA is maybe a 8.5, and the Zotac about 8.3.

 

[southernorth]

Noise, overclockability, build quality, and the superior DX 12 & Vulkan performance of AMD manage to put it up over the top (and hey, 8gb instead of 6! + Crossfire + Freesync), so that even though I'd value EVGA's warranty/cs highly, the card itself is mediocre, but good enough for a 1060. And while the 1060 is a bit better atm for DX11 I know full well that it won't look this good past the first year. So, the PowerColor on pure performance (and I mean that in every metric) value has to take the top spot, while the EVGA 1060 has a good overall balance. The Zotac is also there because the card is decent too but mostly because the +2 years of warranty is a lot of value for me. Not because I'd necessarily use the card for that long, but because someone else will (likely a relative), and that's worth it having.

So to me, Devil 480 is a solid 9 if not a bit higher, EVGA is maybe a 8.5, and the Zotac about 8.3.

The +2 year warranty means nothing if you have to send your card to Hong Kong for it to be fixed, giving you 4 weeks with no card. I also see a lot of people precidcting future domination for the rx 480, due to driver updates and dx12/vulcan. Why is only AMD able to take advantage of these new technologies? Why can't Nvidia and if they did then surely AMD would be in serious trouble.

 

[Poneros]

The +2 year warranty means nothing if you have to send your card to Hong Kong for it to be fixed, giving you 4 weeks with no card. I also see a lot of people precidcting future domination for the rx 480, due to driver updates and dx12/vulcan. Why is only AMD able to take advantage of these new technologies? Why can't Nvidia and if they did then surely AMD would be in serious trouble.

It absolutely does, it's just gonna take a bit longer to get it back. We're still in the EU and consumer rights actually matter here. Not ideal, yeah, but that's why I rate the EVGA higher even though you'd have to pay extra for +2 years.

The reason that AMD cards do better in DX12 & Vulkan are due to inherent, fundamental architectural decisions on their part, as well as Nvidia's. After all, the latter do better in DX11, it's not by accident or because they're so far above AMD, it's because they chose to focus on certain things and those things lead to much better performance in that scenario. So at best that gap will stay the same, but it will never narrow (for both DX11 / DX12 & Vulkan scenarios). And there's many other good reasons (business-wise) that that won't happen but suffice it to say as far as Polaris vs Pascal @ DX12 & Vulkan, AMD is gonna remain a winner.

As for driver updates, that's still speculation. If we go by past history, it will go the way of AMD, but history doesn't necessarily dictate the future.

 

[yoyo59]

a sapphire nitro can be had for £180 if you look around so id go 480 this time round

 

[MattyD242]

I also see a lot of people precidcting future domination for the rx 480, due to driver updates and dx12/vulcan. Why is only AMD able to take advantage of these new technologies? Why can't Nvidia and if they did then surely AMD would be in serious trouble.

AMD chips have shared a common basic architecture for the last few generations, so their driver updates still give you some benefit even if you have a previous-gen card. The gains tail off over time (diminishing returns etc) but it means their cards tend to keep up with new titles for longer.

Nvidia prefers to be more specific and makes drivers designed to run certain games very well on their current-gen hardware, either because they are popular or are the ones used by benchmark sites. But they also release new cards often, and transfer their attention to improving the performance of the newest cards. This means Nvidia cards 'top out' really soon into their life, so the perception is that they age badly.

Just to give an anecdotal example, my previous card was a GTX 670 FTW and they dropped support for it only a year after release when the Maxwell-based cards came out.

 

[Seanspeed]

Just to give an anecdotal example, my previous card was a GTX 670 FTW and they dropped support for it only a year after release when the Maxwell-based cards came out.

1) GTX670 came out TWO years before Maxwell. Maybe you got your GTX670 in 2013(like I did), but do realize it was initially released in 2012.

2) Nvidia didn't 'drop' support for it as much as the driver optimizations for GK104 being highly mature already. Nvidia tend to come out the gates with more mature drivers, or at least did at the time.

Like I said earlier, driver improvements aren't magic. You cant just pound away at a keyboard and see improvements constantly and linearly forever. New architectures will naturally not only have more room for improvement in drivers, but will also have specific architectural improvements that can be taken advantage to push performance further given more optimization time.

 

[siriq111]

1) GTX670 came out TWO years before Maxwell. Maybe you got your GTX670 in 2013(like I did), but do realize it was initially released in 2012.

2) Nvidia didn't 'drop' support for it as much as the driver optimizations for GK104 being highly mature already. Nvidia tend to come out the gates with more mature drivers, or at least did at the time.

Like I said earlier, driver improvements aren't magic. You cant just pound away at a keyboard and see improvements constantly and linearly forever. New architectures will naturally not only have more room for improvement in drivers, but will also have specific architectural improvements that can be taken advantage to push performance further given more optimization time.

I would not buy 1060 at all. In 1.7 years special optimizations will be dropped , only general as it has happened to maxwell. RX 480 is getting better and better already in many titles . Not to mention the 3GB version which is already putting that card into a not wanted child position.

P.S.: not to mention the nvidia driver problems in this year. Sky-high already. My best advise is, do not update until is working , because i don't want to spend more and more time to fix the issues caused by nvidia drivers. Just kinda had enough from it.

 

[fastboy]

yes because amd have had no drivers problems

 

[siriq111]

yes because amd have had no drivers problems

I didn't say amd don't have but you are not the one who's spending 7 hours for 1 ring to fix the nvidia driver issue/s. In my case before 48 hours full fixing time . I can give you many cases , or even could be more but i stopped to deal with nvidia crapware driver problems. Taking to much time out of my life.

Funny thing is, everything is the same. OS , rig etc. Only thing as normally has been changed , the driver it self. Looks like if i wanna do this seriously , nvidia can make me rich. To be honest , not worth it. Causing me more headache then goods.

I brought back to life several rigs without any living signs in or to windows at all. No fresh install or repair has been involved. After the great and simple nvidia driver install.

 

[southernorth]

I didn't say amd don't have but you are not the one who's spending 7 hours for 1 ring to fix the nvidia driver issue/s. In my case before 48 hours full fixing time . I can give you many cases , or even could be more but i stopped to deal with nvidia crapware driver problems. Taking to much time out of my life.

Funny thing is, everything is the same. OS , rig etc. Only thing as normally has been changed , the driver it self. Looks like if i wanna do this seriously , nvidia can make me rich. To be honest , not worth it. Causing me more headache then goods.

I brought back to life several rigs without any living signs in or to windows at all. No fresh install or repair has been involved. After the great and simple nvidia driver install.

Your issue appears to be isolated tbh. At the moment the 1060 is a very clear winner in overall game performance. The RX 480 can only win from potential future improvements and in certain current DX12/Vulcan enabled games.

It loses in:

Power usage
Thermals (AMD cards run hotter)
Vendor quality (no EVGA etc)

Furthermore, I've read various reports of the most popular 480, the Sapphire Nitro having coil whine, high temperatures and loud fans.

I do hope the RX 480 does greatly improve, as this might actually give nvidia some competition and reduce prices as a result.

 

[fastboy]

I had a jack Russell when I was a kid,that dog took a chunk out of my neck for no other reason than it was naughty..dont ever ever ever have a jack Russell...they are all bad...every jack Russell will do this.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Power usage

Yes,my GTX960 was lower power than a R9 380 but now I wish I had not bothered.

Plus,seriously, I have a mini-ITX system so if you really can't afford to run a RX480(which is really not that much higher power consumption than a GTX1060),why don't you buy a GTX750TI??

I have run cards like the 8800GTS 512MB and HD5850 1GB(I overclocked mine by nearly 30%) running fine off 400W/450W Shuttle PSUs.

Thermals (AMD cards run hotter)

Not always - since it is more down to power dissipated over die area. A Fury for example is cooler running than say a R9 290 partly as it is a 600MM2 die against a 438MM2 one,and load power was no different.

Plus my mate had a 9800GT in a ammo box SFF system running at 90C under load for like two years.

It still works in 2016 in another rig.

I had plenty of Nvidia and AMD/ATI cards run hot - people forget how many cards had single slot coolers like the 7900GS and X1900GT. Run those in a SFF system,then you will see what hot is.

Vendor quality (no EVGA etc)

Gigabyte make AMD cards too - in 12 years of owning graphics card,I had two go. Both were Nvidia. One inside warranty,the other outside and probably it was the bumps issue which did it for the first one.

In terms of all my mates in the last 10 years,I think one destroyed their 9600GSO by volt modding it,one mate had issues with an MSI HD6870 out of warranty(but another mate tried it and it is fine so must be the magnetic ball bearing he found stuck in it) and I think the only card recently I saw an issue with is a MSI HD7850 1GB two years ago which was well within its warranty,plus the one last year I had.

Furthermore, I've read various reports of the most popular 480, the Sapphire Nitro having coil whine, high temperatures and loud fans.

Mate has one,and has not reported any problems with his.

He did have the XFX 7800XT of fail - that was a hot running card,but it still works and was apparently a card made of bits and pieces which one or two retailers sold here cheap(only a few 100 made and no wonder). Told him to avoid it.

I do hope the RX 480 does greatly improve, as this might actually give nvidia some competition and reduce prices as a result.

Apparently from what Gibbo is saying they sold more RX480 cards in the GTX1060 launch week than GTX1060 cards(and more GTX1070 and GTX1080 cards too).

If anything AMD barely keeping up with demand is probably what is going to cost them,since its hard to actually buy an AIB RX480 cards now unless you want to play the waiting game.

Edit!!

Remember,another person I know has the Nitro card and he upgraded from his GTX580. He also seemed reasonably happy with his.

Can't comment on any of the other ones sadly.

 

[southernorth]

I'm only comparing the rx 480 and gtx 1060 for the things I've mentioned. In this respect, the 1060 wins. There is no point using examples of by-gone cards.

Also, I would imagine that the rx 480 sold so well because it came out first! If the 1060 came out first, at pre-brexit prices I think it would have sold very well as well.

It's not really a fair comparison for sales tbh, especially as the 480 and 1060 now cost the same. I wonder what sales are now, with these increased prices but revelations about performance disparities? The figures were from before proper availability of the 1060s iirc.

 

[Blackjack Davy]

Apparently from what Gibbo is saying they sold more RX480 cards in the GTX1060 launch week than GTX1060 cards(and more GTX1070 and GTX1080 cards too).

If anything AMD barely keeping up with demand is probably what is going to cost them,since its hard to actually buy an AIB RX480 cards now unless you want to play the waiting game.

Gibbo said its their best selling card at the moment and on track to be their best selling card of all time.

Furthermore, I've read various reports of the most popular 480, the Sapphire Nitro having coil whine, high temperatures and loud fans.

Nope, I've got one and none of those things.

 

[southernorth]

Gibbo said its their best selling card at the moment and on track to be their best selling card of all time.



Nope, I've got one and none of those things.

That's great. I'm not saying that everyone has coil whine, but that I've heard people have, whereas I haven't heard such issues with 1060's.

Anyway all of this, from both sides, is anecdotal and so not very useful in the scheme of things.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I'm only comparing the rx 480 and gtx 1060 for the things I've mentioned. In this respect, the 1060 wins. There is no point using examples of by-gone cards.

Also, I would imagine that the rx 480 sold so well because it came out first! If the 1060 came out first, at pre-brexit prices I think it would have sold very well as well.

It's not really a fair comparison for sales tbh, especially as the 480 and 1060 now cost the same. I wonder what sales are now, with these increased prices but revelations about performance disparities?

No its not relevant to you so you can make it look bigger than it is. I use SFF systems and have been doing so for 10 years. The power consumption and "temperature" panicking is hilarious. Valve ran a Geforce Titan and a Core i7 4770 off a group regulated Silverstone SFF 450W PSU fine - you don't seem to get I have never really needed more than a 450W unit running cards like an 8800GTS 512MB and HD5850 1GB when overclocked and running a power hungry high VID Q6600.

FFS,my system with a Xeon E3 1230 V2 and an HD7850,GTX660 or GTX960 is lucky to see 200W at the wall gaming. FFS,even any of these higher end GTX1060 cards and RX480 cards probably would be under 300W at the wall. Even an R9 380 would probably not tax my PSU.

You do also realise some RX480 cards like the Sapphire RX480 Red Devil consume about the same as a GTX1060 right in certain modes?? Even if you add 50W here just for the sake of it - really??

Plus the temperature thing is even more hilarity - SFF systems run hotter than many of the people with full desktop systems running cooler cards.

Series like the Nvidia 9000 series were rated to 100C+ and they lasted fine. Look at those mining R9 290 cards - running on the ****e stock cooler 24/7 under full load. They still lasted fine. Plus you have cards like the Fury series which ran cool since it was massive chip - you are making a generalisation that AMD cards run hot. If you think some of the Fury or RX480 cards run hot,you have not seen hot running cards.

People worry too much.

Nope, I've got one and none of those things.

Yeah,the two people I know who have them are fine too.

I think there was some noise the first batch(30 or so early production ones which Sapphire sent out to OcUK) might have had a few lemons. I can't confirm that OFC - maybe Gibbo can confirm that??

 

[southernorth]

No its not relevant to you so you can make it look bigger than it is. I use SFF systems and have been doing so for 10 years. The power consumption and "temperature" panicking is hilarious. Valve ran a Geforce Titan and a Core i7 4770 off a group regulated Silverstone SFF 450W PSU fine - you don't seem to get I have never really needed more than a 450W unit running cards like an 8800GTS 512MB and HD5850 1GB when overclocked and running a power hungry high VID Q6600.

FFS,my system with a Xeon E3 1230 V2 and an HD7850,GTX660 or GTX960 is lucky to see 200W at the wall gaming. FFS,even any of these higher end GTX1060 cards and RX480 cards probably would be under 300W at the wall. Even an R9 380 would probably not tax my PSU.

You do also realise some RX480 cards like the Sapphire RX480 Red Devil consume about the same as a GTX1060 right in certain modes?? Even if you add 50W here just for the sake of it - really??

Plus the temperature thing is even more hilarity - SFF systems run hotter than many of the people with full desktop systems running cooler cards.

Series like the Nvidia 9000 series were rated to 100C+ and they lasted fine. Look at those mining R9 290 cards - running on the ****e stock cooler 24/7 under full load. They still lasted fine.

People worry too much.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1060-pascal,review-33613-6.html

How is a difference of ~46 watts nothing at all? Like literally what are you talking about. Why would you knowingly want to pay higher energy bills?

And it is incredibly relevant comparing the aforementioned factors between these two cards specifically. We're in a thread called "RX480 vs GTX1060" using other cards in comparisons makes little sense. People want to know which of these 2 cards wins, not which AMD card from 5 years ago wins, somehow in comparison to another new card.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1060-pascal,review-33613-6.html

How is a difference of ~46 watts nothing at all? Like literally what are you talking about. Why would you knowingly want to pay higher energy bills?

And it is incredibly relevant comparing the aforementioned factors between these two cards specifically. We're in a thread called "RX480 vs GTX1060" using other cards in comparisons makes little sense. People want to know which of these 2 cards wins, not which AMD card from 5 years ago wins, somehow in comparison to another new card.

You mean like the few quid a year that makes literally no difference - or have you fine tuned every part in your rig to make sure its the most efficient part in its class?? Made sure you use your PC sparingly??

Why don't you buy the latest XBox - it consumes under 80W under load. That would probably be less than my CPU and motherboard.

Plus I assume you are using a tablet to browse the forum - 2W is much less power than the 40W to 60W your desktop is probably consuming at the wall??

Plus I would actually like a card which runs DX12/Vulkan reasonably well.

My GTX960 for all the power saving in the world is falling more and more behind a R9 380. So it means I will be probably replacing it quicker,hence spending more anyway since it lasted less than a R9 380.

My GTX660 consumed less power than an HD7870 and still lost over time(but not as badly).

Edit!!

If you really want to save even more power,why don't you buy a laptop??

The whole system will consume under 100W at the wall.

Or better still a GTX750TI or RX460??

Drop some settings - higher settings cost more power you know??

 

[southernorth]

You mean like the few quid a year that makes literally no difference - or have you fine tuned every part in your rig to make sure its the most efficient part in its class?? Made sure you use your PC sparingly??

Why don't you buy the latest XBox - it consumes under 80W under load. That would probably be less than my CPU and motherboard.

Plus I assume you are using a tablet to browse the forum - 2W is much less power than the 40W to 60W your desktop is probably consuming at the wall??

Plus I would actually like a card which runs DX12/Vulkan reasonably well.

My GTX960 for all the power saving in the world is falling more and more behind a R9 380. So it means I will be probably replacing it quicker,hence spending more anyway since it lasted less than a R9 380.

I really don't see your logic at all to be honest. This is going nowhere. Your arguments are getting less and less sensible and to be honest aren't adding anything to this discussion of the RX 480 v GTX 1060. Power consumption figures are facts, you can't really argue with the benefits of lower power consumption, yet you seem to be doing so. Odd.

Anyway, we very clearly have different ideas of what is usefull in determining which card is best. Lets leave it there.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I really don't see your logic at all to be honest. This is going nowhere. Your arguments are getting less and less sensible and to be honest aren't adding anything to this discussion of the RX 480 v GTX 1060. Power consumption figures are facts, you can't really argue with the benefits of lower power consumption, yet you seem to be doing so. Odd.

Anyway, we very clearly have different ideas of what is usefull in determining which card is best. Lets leave it there.

No, you don't see any logic since you are not adding anything at all apart from making generalisations and even with power consumption you apparently seem funnily obssessed about it,yet come across as a champaign socialist running a desktop system consuming a few 100w at the wall,and using it to argue with me on the internet.

If you are not running a bus powered card,a low power motherboard and CPU,a low power monitor,then I really think you don't care about power consumption.

I really hope you are using a tablet when web browing since you seem obsessed with saving power. Or is that nice big screen worth the extra 30W to 60W at idle??

Plus I love how you were trying to twist the RX480 cards like the Nitro as having issues,and AMD cards running hot.

I love how you also twisted the AMD RX480 card sales too - during the GTX1060 launch week,the RX480 sold more cards at a similar price which is the TOTAL OPPOSITE of what I expected. That has nothing to do with exchange rates.

Maybe by proxy Nvidia will sell more GTX1060 6GB cards NOW,since you can't even get enough RX480 AIB cards since they are all on pre-order. Its either the AIB partners failing in production or AMD still massively overselling RX480 cards - WHO KNOWS?? A mystery.

Yet my GTX960 for all its saving the planet still is falling behind the R9 380.

Where is all these async,and DX12 updates promised by Nvidia?? Oh wait the GTX1060 is released - is that the update?

You worry about saving the planet and the few quid a year you won't actually notice. I will worry more about a card which I can use for longer.

But I suppose you will jump onto the GTX2060 by then right?? I would rather not spend £250 on a midrange card every 18 months. That is how long the GTX960 lasted as a current card before it was replaced - a mere 18 months before the GTX1060 was released. So early 2018 for the Volta based GTX2060. Going to be interesting to see how that goes. Hopefully,not how the GTX960 is going now.

The GTX660,GTX660TI,GTX760 and GTX960 all have tended to fare worse than the AMD equivalents. I had two of them - I should know. So now apparently that is going to be totally reversed.

Yes,I will make sure I check the meter when gaming.