ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1060 Graphics Card Review

Introduction NVIDIA's Pascal architecture is already a resounding success as consumers desperately try to get hold of the latest and greatest solutions in graphics technology. So far, AMD has focused on mass market appeal and the Polaris 10 architecture was created to revolutionise the capabilities of affordable graphics cards. More specifically, the RX 480 posed a real challenge for current mid-range NVIDIA products and outputted superb performance statistics, especially when deploying modern APIs like Vulkan and DirectX 12. Of course, NVIDIA responded to this release in a rapid fashion and unleashed the GTX 1060 with an attractive price point. While it's not as affordable as the RX 480, the DirectX 11 gains are clear to see and custom editions sporting a hefty factory overclock remain an enticing proposition. The ASUS STRIX GAMING series is known for its immense build quality and virtually silent operation. This stunning combination gained the admiration of many consumers and professional reviewers while inspecting the models higher up in NVIDIA's ranking order. Thankfully, ASUS haven't made any major concessions during the ASUS STRIX GAMING 1060 OC's development and ensured the end-user receives a premium product worthy of this branding. Technically, the graphics card features a 1645MHz base clock, 1873MHz boost and the memory operates at a speed of 8208MHz. Please note, the quoted specifications revolve around the OC profile and retail samples automatically ship with a slightly slower Gaming BIOS. Despite this, you can enable the higher performance mode using ASUS' overclocking software suite. When you take into account ASUS' imperious reputation and ability to provide astonishing boosts over the reference design, I'm expecting their custom version of the GTX 1060 to perform brilliantly and pose a headache for the RX 480. Whether this applies to DirectX 12 or Vulkan remains to be seen, but the results should make for an interesting comparison. Hopefully, the analysis will finally answer the question of which GPU is the current price to performance master. Specifications Packing and Accessories The ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1060 OC is bundled in a visually appealing box which contains a wide range of colours and evokes a sense of excitement. Not only that, information is displayed regarding the unit's DirectX 12 functionality alongside a host of other Pascal features. The opposite side outlines details on the product's innovative cooling solution, stunning AURA RGB lighting system and much more. As you might expect, the presentation is remarkable due to the concise descriptions and gorgeous macro photographs. In terms of accessories, the graphics card comes with a user's guide, Republic of Gamers velcro ties, driver disk and World of Warships promotion. While it's not pictured, the 1-year XSplit license is a huge plus and adds to the product's value proposition if you're into streaming services. A Closer Look From a visual standpoint, the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1060 OC is almost identical to the company's GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 barring one slight alteration. Unlike the more expensive models, the graphics card only supports RGB lighting through the front cut-outs and the ROG logo cannot cycle through bold, vivid colours in an attractive manner. This is really disappointing because the logo's illumination proved to be a standout feature and created a distinctive appearance. I'm not entirely sure why this decision was made since the cost involved of retaining RGB lighting on the backplate has to be fairly minimal. In my opinion, it's an unwise move because the range no longer has synergy and those settling for the GTX 1060 cannot enjoy ASUS' aesthetic design to its full potential. Putting this negative aspect aside, the graphics card has an elegant appearance and the neutral styling should easily slot into a wide range of builds with contrasting colour schemes. Also, the subtle markings and dynamic edges make the GPU stand out from the competition. Even though the graphics card is based on one of NVIDIA's lower-tier Pascal options, you wouldn't be able to tell from the robust construction. More specifically, the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1060 OC has a hefty weight and just about conforms to a 2-slot design. There's also an included backplate which prevents unwanted droop and improves the product's aesthetic appeal. I'm particularly fond of the understated STRIX branding and unusual lines which surround the backplate in a gorgeous pattern. On a more technical note, the graphics card utilises 6+1 phases with Super Allow Power II components which improve efficiency, reduce power loss and achieve thermal levels around 50% cooler than the previous design. Not only that, the GPU is manufactured using a fully automated production process which revolves around stringent quality control and flux-free production. Removing the human element could eliminate mistakes and reduce the probability of manufacturing defects from occurring. ASUS' DirectCU III cooling solution contains six nickel-plated heat pipes which interconnect to two large aluminium heatsinks. These heatsinks feature a dense fin array to maximise heat dissipation. As expected, the mounting point makes direct contact with the core and there's also a thermal pad on the left side to expel heat away from the MOSFETs. Additionally, the patented triple Wing-Blade fans deliver excellent airflow and according to ASUS, are three times quieter than the reference design. Judging by my previous experience with the Wind-Blade fans, the noise to performance ratio should be exceptional. The graphics card has two 4-pin PWM fan headers which allow you to connect chassis fans and directly cool the GPU. Since GPU thermal loads are usually higher than a modern CPU, the system can take advantage of your case's cooling hardware in a more proficient manner. While it's not something I'd personally use on a daily basis, it's a handy addition and great for testing purposes. Instead of using the stock 6-pin PCI-E connector, ASUS have deployed an 8-pin to leverage extra power when overclocking. Hopefully, this should ensure the boost clock remains perfectly stable and doesn't deviate too much when running at an extreme frequency. Saying that, voltage restrictions imposed by NVIDIA proves to be a limiting factor. Connectivity-wise, the graphics card houses a dual-link DVI-D, two HDMI 2.0b, and two DisplayPort 1.4. This arrangement is suitable for VR usage scenarios to easily connect a HUD and external display at the same time. Here we can see the graphics card's mesmerising colours when powered on. Of course, you can choose your favourite solid colour or select between a wide range of transitional effects. It's even possible to change the lighting based on temperatures or sync it to music. Unfortunately, pictures struggle to do the colours justice and the vibrancy of each shade really is a sight to behold. Testing & Methodology Here is the test system we used for all graphics card reviews and game performance analysis: Hardware Motherboard - Gigabyte X99-Gaming G1 WiFi LGA 2011-3 Motherboard Processor - Intel Core i7 5820K at Stock 3.3GHz RAM - 16GB (4 X 4GB) Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4 2400MHz CPU Cooler - Thermaltake Water 3.0 with Gelid GC-Extreme Power Supply - BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 11 1200W Main Storage Drive - Crucial M550 512GB Chassis - Lian Li T80 Test Bench Displays - AOC U2868PQU 4K Operating System - Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit Additional Hardware "Killawatt” style electricity usage meter wall plug Precision Gold N05CC Decibel meter Drivers The latest drivers are always used at the time of testing, but please note reviews undergo a scheduling process. This means a new driver could be released on the day of publication. However, this is unavoidable and disclosing the driver versions used is the most transparent way of informing the reader about current performance levels. Games Throughout the testing procedure, we always use demanding presets to stress graphics cards to their absolute limits. However, in the interest of fairness, any technology which favours either AMD or NVIDIA is disabled. More specifically, this refers to PhysX, Hairworks and more. Additionally, we also disable all forms of AA to gauge performance levels which aren't impacted by complex AA. Theoretically, we could have employed FXAA because it only has a minor impact on the frame-rate, but many users strongly dislike the hazy image this causes. Apart from the details mentioned above, all settings remain at the maximum values. On another note, we previously used Grand Theft Auto V in the testing process and it's a popular title. However, there's been some strange anomalies in the minimum frame-rate which mean I'm not confident in the benchmark's accuracy. Since I've taken the helm as graphics card reviewer, I wanted to put fairness at the heart of each article and ensure there's a good balance between DirectX 11 and DirectX 12 games. This allows us to properly analyse each graphics card as focussing on sponsored titles from a particular vendor will always result in an inaccurate picture. Unfortunately, popular monitoring software like FRAPS cannot display the frame-rate in real time and poses a problem when observing performance numbers. Thankfully, it's still possible to use FRAPS's Min/Avg/Max function which we've found offers the most reliable monitoring compared to other methods. If you have any suggestions to aid the benchmarking process, please let us know so we can constantly improve the procedure. Selecting strenuous presets especially at higher resolutions can cause hitching and other performance problems on graphics cards with lower amounts of video memory. For example, Rise of the Tomb Raider's Very High textures really requires 6GB of RAM to maintain a smooth frame-rate. In theory, we could run the benchmarks at the High setting but this defeats the purpose of high-end graphics cards which are designed to cope with the absolute best graphics on the market. Furthermore, the notion of enthusiast cards sporting less than 6GB memory will become less of an issue in the future. Of course, whenever we're tackling more affordable GPUs, the settings will be altered accordingly. To reiterate, all settings are set to their maximum values apart from AA and vendor exclusive technologies. Sometimes, selecting the maximum preset doesn't combine all the best settings, so we double check these and manually confirm the highest graphical preset has been enabled. The only one important aspect to mention revolves around Exclusive FullScreen in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Judging by the thorough testing, the frame-rate is much better when using this particular mode. Software Ashes of the Singularity (DirectX 12) Doom (Vulkan) Far Cry Primal (DirectX 11) Just Cause 3 (DirectX 11) Hitman (DirectX 12) Rise of the Tomb Raider (DirectX 12) 3DMark Unigine Valley Unigine Heaven CPU-ID HWMonitor TechPowerUp GPU-Z Luxmark Synthetic Benchmarks During our testing, we use a range of readily available synthetic benchmarking tools which are free to download from the respective websites. We do this so the readers can download and compared to our results. Download links are contained within the "Software" subheading. Noise Everyone has their own reasonable noise level when it comes to comes to components in a computer. Some can handle all fans at 100% load to keep temperatures down, some want a completely silent computer. To properly gauge the noise output of a graphics card, we position a Precision Gold N05CC Decibel meter from two metres away and take an average reading. Power Consumption With electricity becoming increasingly expensive across most parts of the world the need for computer components to become power efficient has never been more relevant. Graphics cards are often the most power-hungry components of a desktop system so having an efficient graphics card is very important to keeping power bills under control. Power is often correlated to heat and so lower power consumption means a graphics card is likely to run slightly cooler and put out less heat into your system meaning your other components will run cooler with improved longevity. AMD and NVIDIA have both made power consumption an integral part of the way graphics cards dynamically overclock so the need for graphics card vendors to use efficient VRM and PCB designs is becoming important to maximise performance. We take power readings after 5 minutes of two different load scenarios: desktop idle and Unigine Heaven load. Temperatures The cooling solution which graphics card vendors choose to implement is one of the main differences that consumers have to contend with when choosing a graphics cards. Apart from their acoustic properties, the thermal properties of graphics card coolers are extremely important. Lower temperatures are always better and with AMD and NVIDIA opting to use dynamic overclocking algorithms that take temperature into account it is important that graphics card vendors use high-performance cooling solutions in order to maximise performance. The era of graphics cards reaching dangerous temperatures are now in the past but the importance of lower temperatures still remains. Lower temperatures mean better stability, longer component longevity and lower fan speeds .We take temperature readings after 5 minutes of two different load scenarios: desktop idle and Unigine Heaven load. We always record actual temperatures and make any adjustments for changes in the thermal testing environment. 3D Mark In 3DMark Fire Strike, the graphics card obtains excellent scores and outperforms the Sapphire Nitro+ RX 480 OC by an impressive margin. Once the resolution is increased to 1440p, the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1060 OC fares rather well and is within close proximity to the Club3D R9 Nano. Also, it's a major improvement over the GTX 980. During 4K testing, the graphics card maintained its strong showing and continues to outclass the GTX 980. Compute Performance Sadly, the GPU's compete performance leaves a lot to be desired and is well short of the Sapphire Nitro+ RX 480 OC. Interestingly, it's unable to defeat the Sapphire Nitro R9 390 and lingers behind the GTX 980. Ashes of the Singularity As expected, the graphics card isn't quite able to dethrone the Sapphire Nitro+ RX 480 when benchmarking Ashes of the Singularity. Despite this, the average frame-rate is ridiculously close and could easily present a different ranking order with additional testing. Here we can see the graphics card just edges its nearest competitor and upholds a solid frame-rate considering the demanding preset. This time, the Sapphire Nitro+ RX 480 pulls ahead but there's very little to choose between numerous options in this performance category. Doom The ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1060 OC provides a perfectly fluid frame-rate when playing Doom on a 1920x1080 panel but it's overshadowed by the severe deficit to the Sapphire Nitro+ RX 480 OC. Evidently, the RX 480 benefits from employing the Vulkan API while NVIDIA gains remain less substantial. Once again, the graphics card cannot come close to the Sapphire Nitro+ RX 480 OC and even falls behind two custom RX 470s. On a more positive note, the frame-rate is stable enough with only a few minor dips below 60 and should be ample for most people's requirements. As you might expect, the graphics card isn't suitable for 4K gaming unless you make some hefty concessions in the options menu. Nevertheless, the data is useful to show how each product performs at different resolutions. Far Cry Primal In Far Cry Primal, the graphics card performs brilliantly and isn't too far away from matching AMD's flagship graphics solution. This is an impressive feat given the affordable price point. Throughout 2560x1440 testing, the frame-rate is relatively smooth and you should be able to maintain 60 with the High preset. Notice how the gap to the Sapphire Nitro+ RX 480 diminishes somewhat. The graphics card outputs identical data to its closest rival and it's clear that both products cannot contend with the Ultra preset while pushing so many pixels. Hitman When tackling the Hitman benchmark, the graphics card just defeated the Sapphire Nitro+ RX 470 OC. As you can see, it's not able to compete with Sapphire's highly-acclaimed RX 480 model and it seems the DirectX 12 performance is lacking. Once the resolution is increased to 1440p, the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1060 OC has enough horsepower to hover around the 50 frames-per-second mark. Although, there are frequent drops which make the Ultra preset a challenge to run. The ranking order doesn't dramatically change during 4K benchmarking and the graphics card cannot catch up with the Sapphire Nitro+ RX 480 OC. Just Cause 3 Rather surprisingly for a GameWorks title, the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1060 OC cannot surpass its nearest rival. However, the average frame-rate doesn't tell the entire story as the minimum figure is much lower on the Sapphire Nitro+ RX 480 OC. To clarify these results, I re-ran the benchmark and experienced similar numbers. While the Sapphire Nitro+ RX 480 OC posts a higher average, the experience is more jarring. Thankfully, the situation improves when running the benchmarks on a 1440p monitor and the data is reflective of what I'd expect. Once again, the Sapphire Nitro+ RX 480 OC offers fantastic performance and maintains its lead over the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1060 OC. Despite not being intended for 4K games, the graphics card can achieve a decent 30 frames-per-second experience on the Ultra preset. Rise of the Tomb Raider In Rise of the Tomb Raider, the GPU is in a different league to the Sapphire Nitro+ RX 480 OC and even manages to defeat the XFX R9 Fury X. After setting the resolution to 1440p, the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1060 OC doesn't falter and outputs a slightly better average frame-rate than the GTX 980. Interestingly, the minimum frame-rate is much better than the GTX 980 and this will become apparent when viewing both benchmarking runs. Unfortunately, the graphics card struggles with the strenuous demands of 4K gaming but this is to be expected. Overclocking and Overclocked Performance Given the dynamic nature of boost clocks on modern graphics cards, I decided to implement a new process displaying the average clock speeds before and after manually overclocking. This allows the end-user to see the real-world performance as the specification posted on a website or packaging isn't reflective of what you'll experience. Furthermore, any sporadic dips in the boost clock can be investigated because it will make a large impact on the smoothness and overall performance. As you can see by the screenshot below, the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1060 OC's boost clock reaches an average of 2050MHz under load while the memory operates at a speed of 2052MHz. This is attained with a voltage of 1.0430 and 46% fan speed. Unlike some of the other Pascal chips I've encountered, the core overclocking headroom was surprisingly high and the final stable boost clock figure hit a maximum figure of 1942MHz. Not only that, the memory increased to 8646MHz which is another pretty good showing. Of course, the power target and voltage were configured to their maximum values to push the GPU to the absolute limit. Once overclocked, the average boost clock managed to exceed 2100MHz and the memory maintained a 2161MHz figure. This was completed with a voltage of 1.0218 and 59.5C average temperature. Please note, even though the voltage reading is less, the maximum amount has been applied to see how far the graphics card can be pushed. Here is the screenshot comparing the default OC profile and manual overclock: Doom Applying the overclock increased the average frame-rate by 6 when playing Doom. This was enough to bring the product above the Sapphire Nitro+ RX 470 OC. Far Cry Primal In Far Cry Primal, the overclock has a minor impact on performance and makes the graphics card within touching distance of the XFX R9 Fury X. Hitman Here we can see the overclocked GPU is able to defeat the Sapphire Nitro R9 390 and isn't far off matching the R9 Nano. Noise, Power Consumption and Temperatures Noise During idle usage scenarios, the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1060's 0dB fan mode comes into force and ensures the system noise levels remain minimal. This creates a stellar user experience and allows the end-user to enjoy casual games, web browsing and other basic tasks in the quietest possible fashion, providing other components emit little noise. Under stress, the graphics card is extremely quiet and greatly benefits from the wonderful cooling apparatus. Rather surprisingly, it's over 2 decibels louder than the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1070 OC but this is probably down to a margin of error or the CPU cooler fans running at a higher RPM. Power Consumption As expected, the system power consumption is remarkably low thanks to the graphics card's modest TDP. Even when paired with an X99 system, the power demands remain well under 250-watts. Temperatures The graphics card's cooling hardware is extraordinary and doesn't encounter any problems even when tackling the Valley application. The 62C average is marvellous and significantly cooler than the majority of graphics cards used throughout the testing procedure. Final Thoughts Price At the time of writing, the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1060 OC is available from Overclockers UK for £299.99 including delivery. This is one of the most expensive versions of the GTX 1060 although the price has dropped by £20 during the past week or so. Other premium models sporting a high factory overclock cost slightly less but the pricing difference isn't as substantial as seen on ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1070 OC and ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1080 OC. Of course, the reference design RX 480 cards can be acquired for around £239.99. Saying that, I'd recommend paying slightly extra for units with a custom cooler as the blower cooler struggles to maintain a stable boost clock. Once you begin looking at the custom RX 480s, it's clear that the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1060 OC costs around £40-£50 more. Whether this constitutes good value, depends on your budget. Although, £40-£50 can make a lot of difference in the lower pricing categories. Overview The timing of this review is a little unfortunate because the GTX 1060 3GB has just been released and acts as a direct competitor to the RX 480. Despite this, the GTX 1060 cards featuring a 6GB frame-buffer and slightly higher CUDA core count offer similar performance to AMD's flagship Polaris 10 graphics solution and shouldn't be compared to other products. Interestingly, the GTX 1070 is in a different league and provides a huge frame-rate boost which makes premium GTX 1060 models costing around the £300 mark seem expensive. If you're lucky enough, it's possible to obtain the GTX 1070 for £375 and many users will feel it's worth the added investment. Evidently, those with a tight budget might not be able to stretch beyond £250 and this is where the RX 480 excels. As you can see throughout the benchmarking process, the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1060 OC didn't enjoy a huge lead over the Sapphire Nitro+ RX 480 OC and fell behind when using the Vulkan and DirectX 12 APIs. To be clear, the performance is still worthy of praise but don't expect a huge improvement compared to a highly acclaimed RX 480. The only substantial advantage occurred when running Rise of the Tomb Raider on a 1080p monitor but the huge gap quickly subsided once the resolution was increased to 2560x1440. For all the graphics card's overclocked specification, it's not got the required horsepower to classify the RX 480 as an inferior product. This means, if you're not overly fussed with using an AMD graphics card, then the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1060 OC might not be the most suitable option. However, it's a solid performer and a decent entry point into 1440P gaming. Aesthetically speaking, the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1060 OC is marvellous and I'm really fond of the neutral, elegant styling. Instead of fixating on a polarising fusion of colours, ASUS opted for a matte black shroud and added customizable lighting through a number of cut-outs. These allow the light to flow through in an attractive manner and whichever colour you select, contrasts with the black finish extremely well. Unfortunately, the ROG logo on the backplate doesn't have any kind of lighting support which detracts from the overall appearance. This is a crying shame because the illuminated ROG logo was one of the better aspects of ASUS' GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 STRIX cards. Overclocking any Pascal GPU involves realistic expectations and it's exceedingly challenging to reach a hefty boost clock beyond those set by AIB partners, especially on extreme models. Rather surprisingly, the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1060 OC had excellent overclocking headroom and the average boost clock surpassed 2100MHz. This is the first time I've experienced a perfectly stable clock speed above 2100MHz as it's usually just a sudden spike which reaches this figure. Also, the memory overclocked pretty well which combines with the boost clock to improve performance by a few frames. ASUS' DirectCU III cooling hardware is exemplary and upholds a superb noise to performance ratio. In a similar vein to the ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1070 and ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1080, the graphics card is remarkably quiet when stressed and rarely exceeds 62C. This creates a stunning user-experience and I'm pleased to see the cooling apparatus hasn't been scaled back on the GTX 1060 model. Pros Brilliant cooling solution Extremely quiet Fantastic overclocking headroom Gorgeous RGB lighting Great performance up to 2560x1440 Low power consumption Neutral aesthetic Staggering build quality Three-year warranty Cons Expensive for a GTX 1060 Falls behind RX 480 in DirectX 12 and Vulkan No RGB lighting on the backplate "The ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1060 OC is ridiculously quiet, has loads of overclocking potential and performs brilliantly. Not only that, the product is built to an impeccable standard and offers a good alternative to AMD's price to performance master, the RX 480." ASUS STRIX GAMING GTX 1060 OC Graphics Card Review Thank you ASUS for providing us with this review sample.