[Eurogamer] GTX 1060: 3 GB vs 6 GB

[poofyhairguy]

Its like calling the HD 7850 1GB or GTX 650 Ti Boost 1GB "trash" when they were introduced.

I had a 1GB 7850 and it was trash. It turned me off of AMD for a few years the experience was so bad.

 

[Keysplayr]

I had a 1GB 7850 and it was trash. It turned me off of AMD for a few years the experience was so bad.

Thats funny. The 7 series from AMD was all the rage. Maybe you had a defective card.

 

[antihelten]

You completely miss the point.

No I understood your point perfectly, I just don't think it holds up, since I believe the premise of your point is flawed.

The issue is that in Directx 12 that ability for Nvidia to basically fix the mistakes of developers is gone.

I haven't seen any evidence that DX12 will somehow make it impossible for AMD or Nvidia to perform memory usage optimization at a driver level, so no idea where that idea comes from.

We already have seen where in both Hitman and Tomb Raider that the VRAM usage at 1080p can go over 3GB in Directx 12 mode. If that is the sign of things to come then soon maybe even 4GB of VRAM won't be enough.

I don't know that we have actually seen VRAM issues in Hitman (and not just the normal DX12 deficit Nvidia often suffers from relative to AMD).

Tomb Raider VRAM issue is murky at best. it's only a single scene out of three, it's only seen by Eurogamer, not by ABT, and even then the 1060 3GB still manages ~50 FPS.

Really there is currently zero indication that 3GB of the 1060 won't be enough, unless you can't accept anything below 60 FPS, but if that's the case you should be buying a 1070 at minimum anyway, since even the 6GB 1060 dips below 60 FPS all of the time. It's certainly possible that there will be issues in the future, but normally when people talk about VRAM issues, they are not referring to a card that dips down to 50 FPS in my experience.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Thats funny. The 7 series from AMD was all the rage. Maybe you had a defective card.

Quite possible, it was just one data point even if it sucked to be that data point. I realized that and started buying AMD cards again after a green streak.

I haven't seen any evidence that DX12 will somehow make it impossible for AMD or Nvidia to perform memory usage optimization at a driver level, so no idea where that idea comes from.

Uh, the whole point of Directx 12 is to be a low-level API that puts the developer in the driver seat. Eurogamer even address that in the article along with this:

I don't know that we have actually seen VRAM issues in Hitman

You didn't read the article I take it. Direct quote (bolding done by me):

In all of the benches here, there is no evidence to suggest that the 3GB framebuffer causes issues - except in one title, Hitman. Here, the performance drop-off on GTX 1060 3GB is significant - and we strongly suspect that DX12, where the developer takes over memory management duties, sees the card hit its VRAM limit. Notably, this does not happen on the AMD cards with four gigs of memory/

They tell us clear as day that Directx 12 Hitman causes VRAM issues, and that developers are in charge of memory management.

Tomb Raider VRAM issue is murky at best. it's only a single scene out of three, it's only seen by Eurogamer, not by ABT, and even then the 1060 3GB still manages ~50 FPS.

Averages don't tell the story on a card like this, if you get spikes of low frame rates due to VRAM in intense scenes it doesn't make you feel any better that the average is high because the game runs at 80 fps (on your 60hz screen) in a basic landscape scene. Plus we have had evidence that Tomb Raider in Directx 12 mode is a VRAM hog for a while now:

The common wisdom has been that if you have a card with more VRAM, you need more RAM. We've never ascribed to that belief, as we never, ever saw that play out in the real world of our game benchmarking. But the results we show above truly astounded us: video cards with less VRAM (in this case 4GB) actually forced the game to allocate far more system RAM to the game engine. Our guess is that because Rise of the Tomb Raider was originally coded for the PS4 and Xbox One, it expects 8GB of dynamic system RAM, and when ported over to the PC, developers had to find a way to access that much RAM if required. Now, we're not saying that this affected performance in any measurable way, but it's possible that the sky-high minimums of the 390X under DX12 may not have been a fluke. It in fact requires the least system RAM. And here's an interesting fact we realized after looking at the data a second time: all five systems require 14GB of total memory when using DX12. Coincidene? We think not!

http://techbuyersguru.com/first-look-dx12-performance-rise-tomb-raider?page=1

The test wasn't at 1080p though so it's hard to tell if that is what we are seeing here with the 3GB 1060. A good review with minimums listed would go a long way.

Really there is currently zero indication that 3GB of the 1060 won't be enough, unless you can't accept anything below 60 FPS, but if that's the case you should be buying a 1070 at minimum anyway, since even the 6GB 1060 dips below 60 FPS all of the time. It's certainly possible that there will be issues in the future, but normally when people talk about VRAM issues, they are not referring to a card that dips down to 50 FPS in my experience.

VRAM is simply about turning up the texture settings. Sure with Hairworks or Godrays on high you can kill a 6GB 1060, but it would also kill a 980 or a 480 or any card from that class. The issue is that in the same class of cards (ie below the 1070) this 3GB model might not be able to use the same quality of textures as the other cards in this class. We saw something like that last generation where the 390 could run Mirror's Edge with Hyper textures (at playable framerates) while the 970 couldn't.

Plus quite frankly I hate the implied concept (not by you but in general) of "well that is a budget card anyway, those peons should have to accept they have to turn the settings down. If they didn't want to turn down settings they should buy a high-end Nvidia card every two years like I do." In my opinion small differences matter at this price level, because by definition people have (or are willing to spend) fewer resources and so they need to get more for their money to maximize the experience.

In that light the 3GB 1060 is a clear clear winner for a "budget gamer" who gets games at Steam sales and doesn't touch AAA games until a year or more after their release. For those people by the time they have more Directx 12 only games than not the 1060 will be a dinosaur. But the 470 might be a better choice for someone who wants to buy and play new AAA games as they come out, as they will maximize the Directx 12 titles that are being increasingly released. At this level your use case matters, but when you buy a 1070 or a 1080 or Titan or whatever you are basically paying extra to not have to consider the use case.

 

[fuccboi]

Nvidia's 3GB > 4GB AMD?

 

[poofyhairguy]

Nvidia's 3GB > 4GB AMD?

ARG! They show minimums but they run everything at 1440p and they don't have any Directx 12 games. That was so close to being the definitive answer to the big question. So close.

Honestly the biggest take away we didn't know before that video is the 3GB model hates Batman Arkham Knight for some reason:

 

[Bacon1]

Doesn't handle Mankind Divided well either:

Slower in Doom Vulkan as well compared to OpenGL vs 6gb:

But if you want to see how the memory will come into play... look at Mirror's Edge:

Any card without the VRAM drops like a rock

 

[DaveSimmons]

It's too bad they are testing at 1440p.

I'd hope we can all agree that the 1060 3 GB is not a good card for 1440p though it looks like it will run some games like Doom at that resolution.

 

[MadOver]

The problem of these 3Gb is that already some games if you dont have at least 4Gb they dont even let you turn on some game options.
3Gb nowadays is a joke.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Here is a better review with minimums:

http://www.techspot.com/amp/review/1237-msi-geforce-gtx-1060-3gb/page2.html

Turns out the 3GB model doesn't do too bad in Directx12 Tomb Raider, so good news for it there:

Makes me think maybe the VRAM thing isn't the issue I thought it might be. Then we move to Mirror's Edge and holy crap:

The 6GB model is playable while the 3GB model slums it with a 380. And that is a game that likes Nvidia cards (notice the 970 even with the 390x, 3.5 GB is enough).

Also notice it loses more performance than the 970 does when Directx 12 mode is turned on in War Hammer:

It also completely falls apart in Vulkan:

Also falls behind the 970 in that game too.

There is no dual fan $200 3GB 1060 so the cheapest one with a decent cooler is $210-220. I have seen clearance 970s go for $200 and less sometimes recently, so I think for people wanting to play yesteryears's games (aka the 3GB 1060 forte) they get a better deal with a cheap 970. That is unless the VRAM black hole theory on the 970 is legit.

 

[DaveSimmons]

>> Makes me think maybe the VRAM thing isn't the issue I thought it might be. Then we move to Mirror's Edge and holy crap:

Setting: (Hyper Quality)

That sounds like it's dialed up to 11, and isn't so kind to the 480 8GB either.

But once again, I don't argue that if you can afford to spend $250+ then the 1060 6GB is a better choice than the 3GB. It's just that if you can't, the 3GB seems fine at 1080p except for some "Crysis at Ultra" / "Doom3 at Ultra" card-killer settings that improve quality a tiny bit for a huge performance hit. That's not the same as it being "trash."

 

[Concillian]

I don't even think the HD 7870 had as many threads/posts dedicated to it.

It didn't nor did the 7850, but it was a vastly different landscape. The competing nVidia card of the same generation (GTX 660) wasn't launched until the 7850 / 7870 had been out for about 6 months.

You can't even compare how things have changed, because there was literally no choice in this segment for someone wanting a 28nm card. The 7850 and 7870 were really competing against heavily discounted GTX 5 series cards that were WAY WAY worse in power consumption. Coupled with how well the 7850 OC'ed (mine was faster than the previous gen king of the hill -- GTX580 at max OC on air.) the decision was pretty obvious.

It's a completely different bag of chips. The OCed middle range cards don't come close to the previous gen fastest cards, and both AMD and nVidia actually have cards available. This range of the market has always been the most talked about in the forum. HD4850, GTS8800, etc.. all the way back to unlocking 9500 pro to 9700 pro, or overclocking a Geforce 4 Ti 4200... this is where the VALUE exists for the gamer with a budget. Someone who can afford a $500 card can just throw money at their computer to get performance There isn't much to talk about with the 1080 or new Titan card. They're faster than anything else and cost a lot more than anything else, end of discussion.

The exciting part of the market is the midrange, where what trade-offs are made are really important for your specific intended use, as different trade-offs result in different performance discrepancies.

 

[Leyawiin]

Nvidia's 3GB > 4GB AMD?

So basically one can assume that it will handily beat an RX 470 in almost any scenario since its neck and neck with the 480 in many of these. Especially since its doing so @1440p. Do it in the 1080p resolution its intended for and its almost a sure thing. The RX 470 "is" the competitor for it from a cost perspective (well, at least in the US).

 

[boozzer]

Because not everyone has an unlimited budget like I do. I could sneer at everyone not buying a 1080 but that doesn't help them.

I disagree 100% that it's somehow evil to say "if you can afford it, get the 6 GB but the 3 GB will work with these limitations: ....".

People buy a 750ti, 950, 1050 (once available) when the card suits their needs and their budget. The 1060 3GB is $50-100 less than the 6 GB at a cost of <10% speed difference now and an unknown % in the future.

reading your post, and then checking the prices.

yea, they are evil alright.

Cheapest GTX 1060 3GB is at 217 Euro
Cheapest RX 470 4GB HIS dual Fan at 199 Euro

 

[Concillian]

In that light the 3GB 1060 is a clear clear winner for a "budget gamer" who gets games at Steam sales and doesn't touch AAA games until a year or more after their release. For those people by the time they have more Directx 12 only games than not the 1060 will be a dinosaur. But the 470 might be a better choice for someone who wants to buy and play new AAA games as they come out, as they will maximize the Directx 12 titles that are being increasingly released. At this level your use case matters, but when you buy a 1070 or a 1080 or Titan or whatever you are basically paying extra to not have to consider the use case.

I would argue that the usable window is not as different. Maybe the 1060 3GB has a little more runway, but not a whole lot.

I think a better argument is that this kind of 'sale' gamer is likely less influenced by the texture quality, which is the primary visual quality feature affected by VRAM.

 

[poofyhairguy]

>> Makes me think maybe the VRAM thing isn't the issue I thought it might be. Then we move to Mirror's Edge and holy crap:

Setting: (Hyper Quality)

That sounds like it's dialed up to 11, and isn't so kind to the 480 8GB either.

Fair enough. From the review:

You could point to Mirror's Edge Catalyst and suggest that this is how future games will look, and you might even be right. I personally feel this is an extreme example and it will still be some time before it becomes the norm.
For those wondering, turning Mirror's Edge Catalyst down to the ultra-quality preset saw the 3GB GTX 1060 perform within 10% of the 6GB model. Not only that, but I can't really tell the difference in visual quality between ultra and hyper, making the latter pointless in my opinion.

 

[Concillian]

Averages don't tell the story on a card like this, if you get spikes of low frame rates due to VRAM in intense scenes it doesn't make you feel any better that the average is high because the game runs at 80 fps (on your 60hz screen) in a basic landscape scene. Plus we have had evidence that Tomb Raider in Directx 12 mode is a VRAM hog for a while now:

I agree with this. Also, in my own experience, texture hitching does not always show up as a hit to FPS. It depends on the application. I have had many cases where I had extremely noticeable texture hitching literally unplayable with hundreds of milliseconds of hitching and my min FPS shows up as 40+ via an in-game benchmark. I don't really trust numbers when this is what is being tested. You have to watch with your own eyes.

 

[2is]

1152 CUDA cores running at 1.7 GHz isn't going to let you max settings in the next 2-4 years either.

I'd be more worried about the VRAM. Even with an old 680 2GB card that I have laying around that I use in random builds here and there, I am more limited by it's 2GB vram then I am by the power of the GPU. I was using a pair of these cards in SLI in my main system up until 9 months ago. If I had the 4GB variants, there's a good chance I'd still be running them today.

 

[frozentundra123456]

>> Makes me think maybe the VRAM thing isn't the issue I thought it might be. Then we move to Mirror's Edge and holy crap:

Setting: (Hyper Quality)

That sounds like it's dialed up to 11, and isn't so kind to the 480 8GB either.

But once again, I don't argue that if you can afford to spend $250+ then the 1060 6GB is a better choice than the 3GB. It's just that if you can't, the 3GB seems fine at 1080p except for some "Crysis at Ultra" / "Doom3 at Ultra" card-killer settings that improve quality a tiny bit for a huge performance hit. That's not the same as it being "trash."

Exactly. Thread after thread in these forums analyzes price to performance down to the last penny and frame per second when it fits the poster's agenda. But now, suddenly, the 1060 3gb card is being called trash and a crime to sell or approve of even slightly, simply because it is not as fast as its 6gb model, and price is being totally ignored. Duh people, the 6gb model is at least 25% more expensive than the 3gb model, and in some cases, a lot more that that. As I showed in my earlier post, and even in nearly all the more recently presented data, the 6gb model is not even close to 25% faster. And in the only game which seems to show clear tanking due to vram issues, Mirror's edge at 1440, *both* the 480 4gb, and the 1060 3gb are unplayable (even the 1060 6gb is barely playable), and in fact even though they are both unplayable, the 1060 3gb actually performs better than the 4gb 480. So I guess by that metric, any 4gb card is "trash" as well.

 

[Arachnotronic]

Exactly. Thread after thread in these forums analyzes price to performance down to the last penny and frame per second when it fits the poster's agenda.

Yep...

But now, suddenly, the 1060 3gb card is being called trash and a crime to sell or approve of even slightly, simply because it is not as fast as its 6gb model, and price is being totally ignored. Duh people, the 6gb model is at least 25% more expensive than the 3gb model, and in some cases, a lot more that that.

Good point! Personally, I'm happy that there is now a viable NVIDIA GPU option at $199.

As I showed in my earlier post, and even in nearly all the more recently presented data, the 6gb model is not even close to 25% faster. And in the only game which seems to show clear tanking due to vram issues, Mirror's edge at 1440, *both* the 480 4gb, and the 1060 3gb are unplayable (even the 1060 6gb is barely playable), and in fact even though they are both unplayable, the 1060 3gb actually performs better than the 4gb 480. So I guess by that metric, any 4gb card is "trash" as well.

Nailed it.

 

[antihelten]

Uh, the whole point of Directx 12 is to be a low-level API that puts the developer in the driver seat. Eurogamer even address that in the article along with this:

You didn't read the article I take it. Direct quote (bolding done by me):

They tell us clear as day that Directx 12 Hitman causes VRAM issues, and that developers are in charge of memory management.

The fact that DX12 is a low level API doesnt mean that it somehow becomes impossible for AMD or Nvidia to do driver based optimizations, this is of course also evidenced by all of the improvements we have seen in DX12/Vulkan from new drivers.

Hitman is ~12% slower at 1080P on the 3GB 1060 compared to the 6GB 1060, and when you move up to 1440P the gap only grows to ~15%. This is nowhere near the 30% slower we saw in scene 2 of the Tomb Raider benchmark, and quite frankly quite close to how much slower we would expect the 3GB 1060 to be simply based on shader performance (the 1060 3GB has 10% fewer shaders).

So yes I did read the article, but I also looked at the actual numbers instead of just blindly accepting Eurogamers conclusions.

Averages don't tell the story on a card like this, if you get spikes of low frame rates due to VRAM in intense scenes it doesn't make you feel any better that the average is high because the game runs at 80 fps (on your 60hz screen) in a basic landscape scene.

You are absolutely right that averages don't tell the whole story and the 1060 3GB obviously has spikes down below it's 51.2 FPS average, but apart from the initial scene change these spikes are actually very mild (only about 10% lower than the average) and the time frame curve is almost perfectly smooth, so it doesnt really look like spikes is an issue here.

Plus we have had evidence that Tomb Raider in Directx 12 mode is a VRAM hog for a while now:

http://techbuyersguru.com/first-look-dx12-performance-rise-tomb-raider?page=1

The test wasn't at 1080p though so it's hard to tell if that is what we are seeing here with the 3GB 1060. A good review with minimums listed would go a long way.

Tech Buyer's Guru makes the classic mistake of confusing allocated VRAM with actual VRAM usage. You really can't use VRAM measurements like this for much.

On another amusing point this link also happens to invalidate your previous claim of Nvidia not being able to do driver based VRAM optimizations on DX12:

"But look more closely: the R9 290 doesn't use all of its RAM, while all the Nvidia cards are pegged at their maximum, except, interestingly, the GTX 970, which dropped to 3.8GB in the DX12 run. We bet this is Nvidia's driver working hard to reallocate (or more likely remove) data from the slow 0.5GB of VRAM portion of that card's 4GB of memory"

VRAM is simply about turning up the texture settings. Sure with Hairworks or Godrays on high you can kill a 6GB 1060, but it would also kill a 980 or a 480 or any card from that class. The issue is that in the same class of cards (ie below the 1070) this 3GB model might not be able to use the same quality of textures as the other cards in this class. We saw something like that last generation where the 390 could run Mirror's Edge with Hyper textures (at playable framerates) while the 970 couldn't.

Yes texture settings is the main problem with VRAM limits, whilst other settings tend to hit other parts of the GPU. The question then becomes what kind of settings will games offer in the future and even more importantly how big of an impact do they have on IQ. The image quality improvement from very high textures in Tomb Raider is marginal at best, and in Mirror's Edge with Hyper textures it's all but invisible.

Now agree that the 1060 3GB not being capable of running at the same settings as the 470 4GB is a problem, but this issue goes both ways. There are quite likely going to be games where the 1060 3GB cant run the same texture quality as the 470 4GB, and there are going to be other games where it's the 470 4GB that has to use lower settings.

Plus quite frankly I hate the implied concept (not by you but in general) of "well that is a budget card anyway, those peons should have to accept they have to turn the settings down. If they didn't want to turn down settings they should buy a high-end Nvidia card every two years like I do." In my opinion small differences matter at this price level, because by definition people have (or are willing to spend) fewer resources and so they need to get more for their money to maximize the experience.

In that light the 3GB 1060 is a clear clear winner for a "budget gamer" who gets games at Steam sales and doesn't touch AAA games until a year or more after their release. For those people by the time they have more Directx 12 only games than not the 1060 will be a dinosaur. But the 470 might be a better choice for someone who wants to buy and play new AAA games as they come out, as they will maximize the Directx 12 titles that are being increasingly released. At this level your use case matters, but when you buy a 1070 or a 1080 or Titan or whatever you are basically paying extra to not have to consider the use case.

I wouldn't really say the 1060 3GB is a clear winner in anything, I just don't think it's the turd others make it out to be either. The same goes for the 470 4GB imho.

And yes the 470 4GB may very well end up being the better GPU on aggregate, but at this point I just don't think there is anywhere near enough evidence yet to conclusively say so one way or the other.

Doesn't handle Mankind Divided well either:

Slower in Doom Vulkan as well compared to OpenGL vs 6gb:

But if you want to see how the memory will come into play... look at Mirror's Edge:

Any card without the VRAM drops like a rock

It seems to do just fine in Mankind divided as far as I can tell (8% slower than the 1060 6GB, which is certainly within expectations). DOOM Vulkan is also just fine on the 1060 3GB, it's 4.2% slower than the 1060 6GB with OpenGL and 6.5% slower with Vulkan, which is a completely negligible difference.

Mirror's edge on the other hand is definitely an issue for the 1060 3GB, but the 470 4GB would almost certainly do even worse here seeing as the 480 4GB performs worse than the 1060 3GB.

It's also worth noting that the 1060 3GB did better than the 480 4GB in Tomb Raider in this review.

So we now have 1 review (eurogamer) indicating that the 1060 3GB has VRAM issues in Tomb Raider compared to the RX 470, and 3 reviews (ABT, Techspot and hardwareunboxed) indicating that this is not the case.

Makes me think maybe the VRAM thing isn't the issue I thought it might be. Then we move to Mirror's Edge and holy crap:

The 6GB model is playable while the 3GB model slums it with a 380. And that is a game that likes Nvidia cards (notice the 970 even with the 390x, 3.5 GB is enough).

True, but the 470 4GB would most likely also be down at the same level in performance (quite likely even worse based on Hardwareunboxed numbers).

Also notice it loses more performance than the 970 does when Directx 12 mode is turned on in War Hammer:

It also completely falls apart in Vulkan:

Also falls behind the 970 in that game too.

Comparing performance loses in DX12 and Vulkan is silly, when no one in their right mind is going to be using those APIs anyway as long as they are slower than DX11/OpenGL.

There is no dual fan $200 3GB 1060 so the cheapest one with a decent cooler is $210-220. I have seen clearance 970s go for $200 and less sometimes recently, so I think for people wanting to play yesteryears's games (aka the 3GB 1060 forte) they get a better deal with a cheap 970. That is unless the VRAM black hole theory on the 970 is legit.

If you can get a 970 at roughly the same price as the 1060 3GB, then I agree that it might be a viable alternative, I would however be a bit worried about the level of driver support we're going to see for the 970 in the future.

 

[Dribble]

460 3G looks like the 6G version only you have to dial down the odd memory intensive setting a notch. Hardly the end of the world being as when playing the game you'll probably barely notice the difference. Sure 6G is nicer but it costs more - you pays your money and you takes your choice.

The way people talk here it's like you can't play at all without 6GB, yet my son has my old GTX 570 with a mere 1.2Gb memory in his machine and it still works just fine with every game he throws at it? Sure he's running on lower settings and the game doesn't look as good but it's a long way from an ugly slide show.

 

[Headfoot]

But now, suddenly, the 1060 3gb card is being called trash and a crime to sell or approve of even slightly, simply because it is not as fast as its 6gb model, and price is being totally ignored. Duh people, the 6gb model is at least 25% more expensive than the 3gb model, and in some cases, a lot more that that. As I showed in my earlier post, and even in nearly all the more recently presented data, the 6gb model is not even close to 25% faster. And in the only game which seems to show clear tanking due to vram issues, Mirror's edge at 1440, *both* the 480 4gb, and the 1060 3gb are unplayable (even the 1060 6gb is barely playable), and in fact even though they are both unplayable, the 1060 3gb actually performs better than the 4gb 480. So I guess by that metric, any 4gb card is "trash" as well.

You know as well as I do that's not at all the argument the people you are criticizing are making. Misrepresenting the argument is pretty weak. It's pretty clear from a brief 2 minute skim of any thread on the 1060 3GB that people who don't recommend it do so because they believe: 1) 3gb is barely enough in 2016 and wont be enough very soon, 2) 1060 3GB is a misleading name

Notably absent is anyone saying its bad because its slow. So no, that's a strawman.

 

[frozentundra123456]

You know as well as I do that's not at all the argument the people you are criticizing are making. Misrepresenting the argument is pretty weak. It's pretty clear from a brief 2 minute skim of any thread on the 1060 3GB that people who don't recommend it do so because they believe: 1) 3gb is barely enough in 2016 and wont be enough very soon, 2) 1060 3GB is a misleading name

Notably absent is anyone saying its bad because its slow. So no, that's a strawman.

Guess we havent been reading the same forum. At least one poster has called the 3gb "trash" (more than once I believe), and another said anyone who recommends it is basically destroying the forums. And really, I am not even recommending the card. I am just trying to get people to look at the objective data, instead of irrationally making a decision based on personal feelings or whatever criteria some posters in this forum use.

Edit: Even if one accepts your argument that people are not calling the card slow (which I dont accept because there are plenty of posters comparing performance with the 6gb model without mentioning that the 6gb is 25% more expensive, which is in effect calling the card slow), then the argument must be "well, it will be 'slow' in the future", which is impossible to know.

 

[antihelten]

1060 3GB is a misleading name

Is it really all that misleading though? I would imagine that people seeing a 1060 GPU that is $50 cheaper than the original 1060 would expect something slightly slower, but overall very similar to the original 1060, and this is exactly what the 1060 3GB delivers (roughly 5% slower on average). The only exception to this is when it's VRAM limited, but the lack of VRAM is right there in the name so that can hardly be considered misleading.