After the launch of NVIDIA’s top-of-the-line GeForce GTX 1080 and GTX 1070, gamers with deep pockets jumped at the opportunity to buy these new, powerful cards. But at $700 for a 1070 and over $1100 for a 1080 in Australia, a lot of PC enthusiasts simply didn’t have the spare cash or disposable income to drop on a new GeForce card. That’s why so many people were — and still are — keen on AMD’s equally new Radeon RX 480, which is barely over $300.
To counter that, NVIDIA has a third card to release in 2016, designed to battle that RX 480 on both price and performance. It’ll be $US250, and it’s faster than last generation’s top-end GTX 980: meet the GeForce GTX 1060.
The GeForce GTX 1060 is by far the most affordable of NVIDIA’s 10-series GTX graphics cards. At US$250, it’s still more expensive than the US$199 AMD Radeon RX 480, but it’s a lot cheaper than the GeForce GTX 1070’s $US379 and GTX 1080’s $US599 price points. Especially considering the fact that we’ve been getting slugged some serious Australia Tax on these cards, too, a cheaper model is a godsend and almost a necessity to compete in the part of the market that most gamers actually spend money in.
The new GTX 1060 uses a new, cut-down processing core compared to the GTX 1070 and 1080; its GP106 processor has 1280 CUDA cores, uses 6GB of GDDR5 memory running at 8GHz — rather than the faster 10GHz GDDR5X on the 1070 and 1080 — and a boost clock of 1.7GHz that can, according to NVIDIA, easily be sent north of 2GHz with a bit of overclocking. Power comes in via a single 6-pin connector and the card itself uses just 120 Watts.
NVIDIA says the new card is a full 15 per cent faster and over 75 per cent more efficient than “the closest competitive product” at stock speeds, referring to the RX 480 — which NVIDIA pegged at 185 Watts power usage, but which also uses only one six-pin power connector. The company will start selling the Founder’s Edition version of the card from July 19 for $US299, and third-party partner boards should appear in Australia soon after. We’ll keep you posted.
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Comments
20 responses to “Finally, A New NVIDIA GeForce Graphics Card You Can Afford”
*Depending* on the Australian RRP, these could actually be brilliant value for money. 980 performance at (US) less than half the launch RRP of that card is nothing to sneeze at.
Yeah, which is likely to be in the $550 ballpark for the 6GB version and vs. the 480 at sub $450 doesn’t sound that great. Given the RX480 performs very closely to the 980 as well (not counting GameWorks titles).
Very interested to see benchmarks.
Edit: words
While I don’t deny the 10xx series has moved up in price across the board, the 480 is a brilliant card but is not always close to 980 performance dependent on game.
However I’m with you, interested to see the benchmarks for this.
Looking at Passmark scores, the RX480 sits at rank 16 currently, whereas the GTX 980 sits at rank 6. Based on pure performance score, the RX480 is only 79% as powerful as a GTX980.
If you talk about price to performance, you are better off getting a GTX 970 over a RX480, or even a GTX 750Ti (if you can find one).
PCCase Gear has the GTX 970 for $480, the RX480 is going for $380. At a $100AUD difference, and 10% performance increase over the RX480, the GTX 970 is still a better bargain.
Passmark: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Radeon+RX+480&id=3533
PCCase Gear: https://www.pccasegear.com/category/193_1692/graphics-cards/geforce-gtx-970
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/RX_480/26.html
Passmark? It hasn’t been relevant in years. I can’t remember the last time it was used in a benchmark suite. Referencing something like 3DMark would have been more relevant.
http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/amd-radeon-r9-rx-480-8gb-review,26.html
Less than 3% increase to a 980 at 60% extra cost.
That’s 1 person’s rig using a RX480, in a perfect environment. Most people don’t have perfect systems. Usually, upgrading one or two components at a time. Passmark, on the other hand, is the aggregated average performance of multiple disparate system setups (at the time of this writing, currently 88).
Moreover, that link prices the RX 480 at $199USD (for one, not sure what the other is priced at). Going by nowinstock.net (thanks @cesario), the currently cheapest you can get an RX480 is $250USD. You can pick up a GTX970 for about $30USD more (same site). Meaning their Price to Performance ratio is flawed. Passmark, on the other hand, aggregate the price of the GPU from multiple sources and rank the RX480 below the GTX970 in terms of price to performance.
Keep in mind that the RX480 is only ranked 8.9 by TechPowerup
Whereas the GTX 970 is ranked 9.5 to 9.9 depending on the after market model you get.
Oh man. Passmark again. You’re still basing your argument on the premise that PassMark is the best source. The pinnacle of all things benchmarkable.
It’s just one synthetic benchmark. An average one at that.
On the other hand; techpowerup has used real games (16, DX11 and DX12) and have averaged the results. Even if you take out the value perspective (which, given, they have done poorly) the 480 still outperforms the 970, and is 10% slower than the 980 (1080p) on the same hardware.
Is that not the point of benchmarking? To remove variables and bottlenecks so cards can be compared head to head?
TBH I don’t like techpowerup, but they’re one of a few sites that averages out benchmarks into a nice graph for comparison. I reference numerous sources before making my decisions.
I believe in this instance, we will have to agree to disagree.
Personally, I wanted the RX480 to be the cream of the crop (I used to run a full AMD system). However, from what I have seen, there are better options. My opinion.
AMD have burnt me (figuratively and literally, their cards can run hot as a desert) too much in the past and I am VERY loath to trust them or to trust benchmarks that use only single system setups.
That being said, here are other reviews:
GTX 970 is ranked ever so slightly better: http://www.game-debate.com/gpu/index.php?gid=3489&gid2=2438&compare=radeon-rx-480-4gb-vs-geforce-gtx-970-4gb
RX480 is ranked ever so slightly better: http://mygaming.co.za/news/hardware/97688-radeon-rx-480-versus-geforce-gtx-970-which-should-you-buy.html
I.E. we can both get evidence that help our arguments to weigh in either direction.
In the end…this is all just an internet argument for me as I will be getting a GTX1070 later this year anyway 😛
Aussie $$ and tax is terrible, buy US, I saved $300AUD on my first GTX1070 with full international warranty
Can you provide a link to where you acquired your card from?
nowinstock.net
Pings loads of retailers to find stock and prices, be aware that IIRC only EVGA supports international warranty and the others you will have to contact the retailer / reseller to see if they cover international warranty / RMA
*edit*
would you rather pay $900 for a GTX1080SC or $900 for a reference GTX1070?
Aussie $$ blows hard and the cost of a stock GTX1070 here is premium GTX1080 over seas prices, im all for supporting Aussie retailers but with such a price difference its just stupid
Thanks for the tips! 😀
Hasn’t it been confirmed to be about $429 AUD? Think that’s for founder’s edition but not sure.
@Zetrox2k ? (Hope that’s your kotaku handle) https://twitter.com/Zetrox2k/status/751040958691627013?s=09
yup AU$429 available 19th July… got a ton of info on my site, also recorded the announcement. http://tinyurl.com/GTX1060
yup well at least mwave have reported that as MSRP
If so that’s pretty good since the $299 Founders Edition comes to $400 AUD with today’s exchange rate.
Wondering how overclockable these are. While the RX480 is good I was disappointed in how fast it blew over that 150TDP and the fact it was capping out at 100-130mhz overclock (likely most do less), which is the same limit on previous cards.
If this 1060 can overclock 350mhz like some of the higher end ones then it will be able to match 980Ti performance, for $250 that is pretty good.
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Where are you buying your RX 480? Current prices place it between $320 and $480 depending on aftermarket stock. This would meant that the RX 480 would be out of your price range, as well…