1060 3Gb vs 1050 Ti For Low Res Gaming

[DeadlyTitan]

Which one should i go ?

i play at 1440 x 900 @ 60hz or maybe at 1600 x 1200 @ 60hz (Ultra Wide) (its a triple monitor setup for work and gaming).

my system specs -

• 13 2120
• Brand new good 450w 80+ Bronze PSU
• 12 GB Ram ( 4 + 8 GB)
• 525 GB SSD
• 2x 1600x1200 Ultra Wide Minitors
• 1x 1440x900 Monitor

games i play would be -

• Skyrim legendary edition (Really Heavily modded)
• Divinity 2
• Divinity Dragon Commander
• Batman (City, Origins, Asylum)
• Starcraft 2
• The Amazing Spiderman (1, 2)
• The Sims 4
• Dragon age (Origins, 2, inquisition)
• Killing Floor
• Rage
• Spacehulk Deathwing
• Planetside 2
• Dreadnought
• warframe
• Bioshock Infinite
• Metro Redux
• Crysis 3
• Thief
• Shadow Of Mordor
• The Witcher 3

As you can see, nothing really new other than 1 or 2 games, and i also do not plan on buying any new games until i am done with the ones i already have, and personally i really sink a lot of hrs into skyrim. My previous card is an r7 250 1GB DDR5, so u can imagine i really have not played skyrim with any of the Graphical mods until now. I think i have waited enough already to play a 6 year old game with cool hi res graphical mods on, which i always wanted and i have finally decided to upgrade my rig slowly starting with the GPU, will upgrade the rest when the coffee lake hits the stores.

However I am a little worried about the 1060's 3GB VRAM

, mostly cause of the heavily modded games i play(hint hint skyrim) and games like Shadow Of Mordor, Witcher 3.

i know that 1060 absolutely demolishes 1050 ti, but yea i am really worried about that 3 GB VRam not being sufficient.

i wish i could go for the 1060 6GB. but that is not an option cause it costs an additional $100 over the 3GB variant and the RX 480/580 are grossly overpriced.

i wont be changing my monitors so, that'll be the res i'll be playing at (either 1440 x 900 @ 60hz or 1600 x 1200 @ 60hz Ultra Wide) and i like to play at max settings

(No AA though). i'll be happy as long as i can get anything above 30 FPS. 30 is the bare min i consider. so Strict 60 FPS is not mandatory, although it'll be nice to have that.

PS. it would probably take 3 years for me to upgrade the GPU again, so i want this thing to last at least until then.

Edit - Updated monitor res and fixed typos.

 

[Crono]

This one is tough because your requirements make them pretty even competition, as far as value goes. The 1060 is a faster card, but it's priced proportionately higher. You'd probably be okay with either because of that resolution and refresh rate, and not even requiring 60 FPS; 30 FPS is doable for pretty much everything, even with maxed out settings, without AA.

I'd just go with the 1050 Ti, save some money even getting a good overclocked version with better cooling. The extra 1GB may come in handy for games like Skyrim, where modded or using higher resolution textures can eat up VRAM.

 

[Guru]

The 1060 3GB is easily up to 70% faster, the 1060 6GB sometimes even doubles the 1050ti performance.

So yeah, even though the 3GB are a bit of an issue, it's still way faster than the 1050ti and will give you better performance in 100% of the games.

 

[Crono]

The 1060 3GB is easily up to 70% faster, the 1060 6GB sometimes even doubles the 1050ti performance.

So yeah, even though the 3GB are a bit of an issue, it's still way faster than the 1050ti and will give you better performance in 100% of the games.

Do you have benchmarks for 70% faster? If it really us that much faster I'd say go for 1060.

 

[Guru]

Do you have benchmarks for 70% faster? If it really us that much faster I'd say go for 1060.

Yeah, even doubling the lead in some games at certain settings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqSV2cE4TT8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYuVoEEnmPQ

 

[mohit9206]

Best thing about 1050Ti is that its unaffected by mining craze. And for the price its unbeatable. 4gb vram is good for it as well. 1050ti is card i would choose.

 

[Crono]

Yeah, even doubling the lead in some games at certain settings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqSV2cE4TT8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYuVoEEnmPQ

First video is questionable (see comments), second one seems more in line with benchmarks from reputable review sites, though they don't specify what models they are using. In general, I don't like benches from random YouTube channels, especially when they don't specify what their testing methodology is.

In any case, the 1060 is faster, just not 70-100% faster. Up to ~50% is more accurate, depending on what card versions, settings, games, etc, or around 55-60% for the 6GB version of the 1060.

http://www.pcgamer.com/gtx-1050-ti-review/

https://www.thinkcomputers.org/zotac-geforce-gtx-1050-ti-oc-edition-graphics-card-review/4/

The i3-2120 would likely bottleneck a 1060 at that resolution, anyway, though if the OP eventually moves to Coffee Lake a 1060 would fare better... but still be overkill at that resolution and 60Hz max. It just seems better to save a little money, power, and heat (though not a huge difference), and go with the 1050 Ti. In most other situations the 1060 would be the better choice.

 

[Campy]

Difficult choice. If it were me I'd try to make room in the budget for a 1060 6GB, they're about 50-60$ more on newegg. For going with such a significant cpu upgrade it would make more sense for the system as a whole imo, but then again I've never been on a very tight budget so I don't like to compromise.

Perhaps you could try the 3GB version and see if the VRAM gets filled, and return/swap for a different card if it does? I suspect it may be good enough but I'm not an expert on modded skyrim nor do I know what the next 3 years hold in terms of VRAM needs.

 

[Jaskalas]

The 1060's level of performance is the obvious choice for max settings at 1080p.
However... 3GB of VRAM is a potential issue.

Is AMD out of the question? Ugh... just checked prices after asking that. It's absolutely terrible that we jumped above $200 for a good budget GPU.

 

[jcwagers]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNhvmP8yNE4

 

[Jaskalas]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNhvmP8yNE4

Is it really just a single game, at an absurd setting, that uses more than 3GB of VRAM at 1080p?
Interesting... figured there were some other scenarios, but maybe they weren't at 1080p.

Granted... the real question is not if that was true in 2016... but will it be true in 2020?
I expect upcoming console ports to ask for more than 3GB. Granted, one can always turn the textures down.

Regardless, you presented a strong case for the GTX 1060 3GB, for anyone not spending $300.

 

[ZGR]

Get the 1050 ti OP. You are in DIRE need of a new monitor, and a new computer build entirely it sounds like. I would start saving.

That i3 is going to to cause nothing but problems. It will bottleneck a GTX 1060 without a shadow of a doubt.

 

[jcwagers]

Is it really just a single game, at an absurd setting, that uses more than 3GB of VRAM at 1080p?
Interesting... figured there were some other scenarios, but maybe they weren't at 1080p.

Granted... the real question is not if that was true in 2016... but will it be true in 2020?
I expect upcoming console ports to ask for more than 3GB. Granted, one can always turn the textures down.

Regardless, you presented a strong case for the GTX 1060 3GB, for anyone not spending $300.

The Tech Deals guy has lots of videos on all sorts of things like that. He's definitely worth subscribing to and he does livestreams on Twitch pretty often as well if you want to follow. I've always found that he gives pretty solid advice and he backs it up with good evidence. Check him out!

 

[Crono]

The Tech Deals guy has lots of videos on all sorts of things like that. He's definitely worth subscribing to and he does livestreams on Twitch pretty often as well if you want to follow. I've always found that he gives pretty solid advice and he backs it up with good evidence. Check him out!

Yeah, he's great. No-nonsense (not that there's anything wrong with nonsense but there's plenty of other channels for tech schtick and jump cuts) videos packed with practical information. I don't even know what his name is after seeing a few dozen videos - that's how straight and to the point he is.

 

[Campy]

That i3 is going to to cause nothing but problems. It will bottleneck a GTX 1060 without a shadow of a doubt.

I don't disagree that it's a bad CPU, but a faster dual core than what he has would be fine with a 1060 for a budget build. It's only when you go to the high end graphics cards that the cpu really starts to become a bottleneck, from the tests I've seen. With OP's low requirements of 30-60 fps I don't really foresee any issue. He seems to be looking at a Coffee Lake upgrade soon too, in which case he'll be set for a good while(though personally I may look to Ryzen if I were on a tight budget).

 

[DeadlyTitan]

I do have an entire system upgrade in process, going for the i5 8400, just waiting for the inexpensive non overclocking motherboards to appear since z370 is going to be such a waste for me as i do not overclock. my monitors are however an another story, they all 3 (2x 1600 x 1200 @ 60hz ultra widescreen Monitors and a 1440 x 900 Monitor) are high quality IPS displays and i would like to keep them till my next upgrade which will be in 3 ~ 4 years or when we have high res and high refresh rate IPS panels available.

 

[ZGR]

I do have an entire system upgrade in process, going for the i5 8400, just waiting for the inexpensive non overclocking motherboards to appear since z370 is going to be such a waste for me as i do not overclock. my monitors are however an another story, they all 3 (2x 1600 x 1200 @ 60hz ultra widescreen Monitors and a 1440 x 900 Monitor) are high quality IPS displays and i would like to keep them till my next upgrade which will be in 3 ~ 4 years or when we have high res and high refresh rate IPS panels available.

Glad to hear! Not sure on your country, but if you see any factory refurbished 4k monitors for cheap go for it! I got my freesync 4k60 for $300 new and my gsync 4k60 for $350 refurbished. If you play old games even a gtx 1060 will run 4k very well.

Hate to hear you have to run such a low res for so long thats all. Good luck!

 

[Campy]

in 3 ~ 4 years or when we have high res and high refresh rate IPS panels available.

2560x1440 165Hz IPS panels have been around for quite some time, just sayin'

 

[Guru]

I do have an entire system upgrade in process, going for the i5 8400, just waiting for the inexpensive non overclocking motherboards to appear since z370 is going to be such a waste for me as i do not overclock. my monitors are however an another story, they all 3 (2x 1600 x 1200 @ 60hz ultra widescreen Monitors and a 1440 x 900 Monitor) are high quality IPS displays and i would like to keep them till my next upgrade which will be in 3 ~ 4 years or when we have high res and high refresh rate IPS panels available.

The cheapest I5 8400 is about $195 from using a quick search for its prices, while Ryzen 5 1600 is $210, which is $15 higher, but its unlocked which means you can overclock it without having to pay extra for that option to Intel, even if you don't OC now, you might want to do so in the future, say a year or two from now and squeeze a bit more performance out of it.

Also Ryzen motherboards are way cheaper, especially the B350 series which allows for overclocking and yet it can be found for as cheap as $50.

Sure the I5 8400 is a bit faster in games, especially older titles, but all of the new titles are coming out optimized for Ryzen as well from the start and we are seeing Ryzen performance being better and better, while the r5 1600 crushes the i5 8400 in workload, office and content creation, easily beating it by anywhere from 10% to 25%.

And again you can easily OC the r5 1600 to 3.9GHz stable on all cores with a B350 mobo which allows the R5 1600 to level or beat the i5 8400 in games as well.

You also get a much lower power consumption with the 1600 even when overclocked, I've seen OC'ed 1600 to 4GHz consume less power than your standard 8400.

 

[LordVaderMTFBWU]

For the games in your list at those resolutions, I would say get a 1050ti and take someone out for lunch with the money saved. But, then I look at heavily modded Skyrim and wonder if that is a sound advice.

 

[DeadlyTitan]

2560x1440 165Hz IPS panels have been around for quite some time, just sayin'

Not where i live bud, i cant even get a hold on any of them.

Glad to hear! Not sure on your country, but if you see any factory refurbished 4k monitors for cheap go for it! I got my freesync 4k60 for $300 new and my gsync 4k60 for $350 refurbished. If you play old games even a gtx 1060 will run 4k very well.

Hate to hear you have to run such a low res for so long thats all. Good luck!

That is just a dream price for me, i dont exactly live in a country where i can find cheap/easy electronics .

To put this into the perceptive the 1050 ti is $220 where i live and the 1060 3 GB is $320 while the 1060 6 GB is hovering around $400+

i hate the prices in this country and the unavailability of gadgets,which is why i usually stick to what i have for as long as possible.

Coming to the point, i have been doing some intense research lately & finally came to a conclusion ...

Am going with the GTX 1060 6GB, but i wont be upgrading to Coffee Lake, instead i'll be dropping a cheap used i7 3770 (non K), i found this to be the most cost efficient way to upgrade the rig. With that i7 and the kinda games i play at my res, i can easily last for 3+ years,

The reason for this decision being,

• Its the cheapest and most cost effective route. Saves me a ton of money, which can be used on other things like paying bills ?
• That i7 is on par with Ryzen 5 1600 (at stock speeds) in games.
• That thing still has 4 cores 8 threads, which is a drastic improvement to what i had frankly speaking, and can hold on its own in case future games need multi threaded performance.
• That is the highest CPU my motherboard can support.
• I found a good deal on the CPU in the used market.
• I have a H61 board, so K chip is pretty much useless to me anyway.
• I can easily achieve 60 FPS with max settings in the games i play at my screen res with this setup.

Frankly i was looking at the ryzen 5 1600 from a few weeks, i did liked that CPU and i was considering to upgrade to Am4 platform, but in its current state its too finicky for me with their constant bios updates and tweaks and requirement of faster ram and stuff, stuff which i'll never have to deal with Intel like hey want more ram ? just buy the cheapest 8 GB stick i can find and pop it in and vola it works, cant guarantee that with Ryzen in its current state. Its too much for a guy who just want to mod and play some games in his free time.

 

[DeadlyTitan]

For the games in your list at those resolutions, I would say get a 1050ti and take someone out for lunch with the money saved. But, then I look at heavily modded Skyrim and wonder if that is a sound advice.

Lol take who out exactly ? probably my dog

besides a modded skyrim on win 7 x64 easily uses more than 4 GB Vram and requires a really beefy GPU, especially when you are planning to use ENB's and Texture mods and all that other eye candy mods. Does not particularly need to be 4k, 2k texture mods, but when you use a lot of texture mods, even 1k then yea its going to eat up your Vram and need a beefy GPU to run all that stuff. 6 Gb is the best bet as far as modded skyrim goes.

 

[ZGR]

Good plan OP. You sound set on a GTX 1060 6GB. I would definitely not call the 3770 as fast as an R5 1600 stock for stock though, especially if the 3770 has slow RAM!

 

[DeadlyTitan]

Well maybe not equal but on par, there might be some 10% difference at max. They both have very similar IPC.

 

[Headfoot]

Absolutely worth getting the 6GB over 3GB. It's not like you're gonna stay on 1440x900 for all of time and that extra 3gb will come in very handy once you upgrade