For 1080p60: Nvidia 1060/70 or rx480?

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JimKiler

JimKiler

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Oct 10, 2002
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unseenmorbidity said:
This. Also note that dropping a couple settings, which have very little impact on the graphical fidelity of the game, will drastically increase performance.


I personally use a rx 480 4gb card on a 1440p monitor, and no issues playing games at a high fps, 60+ avg.

Here is a good video that summarizes what I am talking about,


The 480 4gb card is a good choice. This would a superb 1080p 60hz gpu, and you can usually catch them on sale for about $150. Sometimes they are even bundled with games.
Click to expand...

thanks for linking to that video, interesting.
 
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Mopetar

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Jan 31, 2011
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Since the R5 reviews have come out, the AT one provides some relevant information since it has a rather good mix of comparing an i5 7600 against an R5 1600X using both the GTX 1060 and RX 480 for both. The game selection is somewhat limited, but it's an okay mix of newer and older.

Civ VI (1060)
R5 1600X: 63.64
i5 7600: 48.21

Civ VI (480)
R5 1600X: 69.14
i5 7600: 50.01

Shadow of Mordor (1060)
R5 1600X: 88.59
i5 7600: 93.32

Shadow of Mordor (480)
R5 1600X: 85.55
i5 7600: 92.15

RotTR (1060)
R5 1600X: 86.48
i5 7500*: 89.76

RotTR (480)
R5 1600X: 80.63
i5 7600*: 81.50

Rocket League (1060)
R5 1600X: 64.15
i5 7600: 105.60

Rocket League (480)
R5 1600X: 182.59
i5 7600: 181.93

GTA V (1060)
R5 1600X: 71.16
i5 7600: 73.20

GTA V(480)
R5 1600X: 57.23
i5 7600: 58.94

To summarize, the 1060 wins 3/5 games and the 480 wins 2/5. The i5 7600 wins 3/5 games and the R5 1600X wins 2/5. There are some weird results, such as RotTR not having the 7600 in the charts for the GTX 1060 (I used the 7500 score instead) and even stranger the i5 7400 with the RX 480 has an average FPS of 91.11 which is technically the best for that game, but seems like such an outlier on the chart that I'm not going to count it since it has to be an aberration or a type when building the chart. Another oddity is the GTX 1060 score with the R5 1600X in Rocket League which is just abysmal, but this could just be a weird driver quirk that can get fixed pretty easily, but even the performance isn't that good on the i5 7600, so I just think NVidia doesn't care much about older games or optimizing drivers for them.

The RX 1600X generally hangs with the i5 7600 typically lagging no more than a few frames behind when it loses. However, in Civ VI it trounces the i5 pretty heavily, which probably shows future performance in games that are thread heavy and use a lot of CPU.

The 1060 and 480 are also similarly close in most cases, usually within a few frames of each other for whichever processor is best. The 1060 gets destroyed in Rocket League, but I think that just comes down to AMD bothering to optimize their drivers for the game and NVidia not caring. It doesn't matter in your case anyhow since both are going to pull acceptable frame rates. The opposite happens in GTA V where the 1060 has a sizable lead over the 480.

I'd be more inclined to go with the R5 1600X (or perhaps the 1600 if it can OC to similar levels) as its going to be more future proof. Also if you have a second monitor and have netflix or something else running in a browser while gaming, the 1600X will handle that more gracefully than the 7600 will. Another thing to consider is that the review lists the 99th percentile FPS as well and even when the 7600 has better overall FPS, the 1600X typically has better results here. I'd give the 1060 an edge on the GPU side, at least for the games tested. If the 580 comes out soon and maintains the same price as the 480, this might change and give the AMD card a small edge on the whole.
 
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Raduque

Raduque

Lifer
Aug 22, 2004
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Mopetar, thank you for that post. Lots of good info there.

On a side note, the R5 1600 is in-stock at Newegg, surprised it lasted this one. Figured it would sell out instantly, haha.

Looks like the 1060 for just a couple bucks more than the 480 is the better buy.
 
Raduque

Raduque

Lifer
Aug 22, 2004
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IEC

IEC

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Jun 10, 2004
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Raduque said:
Yes, saw that info. I'll wait for the launch of the new GPUs to see what the price does. Should I get a 8gb model for futureproofness?
Click to expand...

A couple of schools of thought on that one:
Get the 4GB model, pocket the difference towards a new midrange card in 12-18 months. Live with turning 1-2 settings down.
Get the 8GB model, go longer between upgrades. Chances are the GPU will be too slow before you hit the limits of memory. But that's $30-40 less you have for your next upgrade.

I don't think there's a wrong choice there if you are okay with compromises.

I've been getting by with my 4GB Fury Nitro @ 4K60 and I typically play games with a mixture of ultra/high settings. This usually requires some experimentation (or optimization guides for a particular game which some helpful users put out from time to time) with the goal of maximizing FPS while minimizing any differences in image quality. At 1080p you're much less likely to run into issues, but while that may be true today, it isn't necessarily true tomorrow.
 
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Raduque

Raduque

Lifer
Aug 22, 2004
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My 970M has 3gb and I seem to be able to run max texture settings in everything I play so I guess I can get by with the 4gb 480 model.
 
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beginner99

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Raduque said:
Within the context of the discussion in this thread, the 1070 is not really worth ~$150 more than a 1060 6gb or 4808gb, correct?
Click to expand...

Exactly. Better to invest that money into a CPU and motherboard which you nowadays can keep 5+ years anyway. Meaning buy a good CPU and motherboard now, buy the cheapest RX 480 / GTX 1060 6 GB you can find (note the 3 GB versions is slower avoid!) and then upgrade you GPU again in 2-3 years.

Since Nvidia drivers are having issues with CPUs with more than 4 cores my suggestion is to buy the Ryzen 5 1600 and RX 480. I would not wait for the RX580 as it will just be a rebrand that maybe ahs a tiny clock increase. Not worth the wait and money.
 
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beginner99

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Mopetar said:
I'd be more inclined to go with the R5 1600X (or perhaps the 1600 if it can OC to similar levels) as its going to be more future proof.
Click to expand...

This and the fact that these benches don't show real-world performance like BF1 multiplayer where the 2 extra cores over a 7600 will help tremendously.
 
Raduque

Raduque

Lifer
Aug 22, 2004
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I'm not waiting for the 580 to buy one, but to see the impact it has on the 480s price.
 
XiandreX

XiandreX

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Jan 14, 2011
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linkgoron said:
Both the 480 and 1060 will go below 60 fps in multiple games on that list. Also note that an average of ~60 fps means that you will probably go below that quite often.

A 1070 would provide a really smooth experience and a 480/1060 will occasionally dip. Is it a must? No, but it definitely isn't overkill.
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I was thinking. Why buy a card and have to turn down settings rather buy the 1070 and have more leg room.
 
GaiaHunter

GaiaHunter

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Jul 13, 2008
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XiandreX said:
This is exactly what I was thinking. Why buy a card and have to turn down settings rather buy the 1070 and have more leg room.
Click to expand...
It depends of the trade off.
4 less virtual threads or 2 less cores and 6 less virtual threads so you can run a few IQ settings that you won't spot while playing seems like a bad trade off.
 
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beginner99

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XiandreX said:
This is exactly what I was thinking. Why buy a card and have to turn down settings rather buy the 1070 and have more leg room.
Click to expand...

Because he is on a budget and the money is better spent on a better CPU because CPUs do last pretty long nowadays. Eg future-proofing is actually worth it. Much less so in the GPU department especially overpriced NV GPUs deprecate quickly. He can get 1070 performance for less than $150 in 2 years time. Plus 2-3 settings often have huge impact on FPS and near zero on actual image quality.
 
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lixlax

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Nov 6, 2014
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unseenmorbidity said:
This. Also note that dropping a couple settings, which have very little impact on the graphical fidelity of the game, will drastically increase performance.


I personally use a rx 480 4gb card on a 1440p monitor, and no issues playing games at a high fps, 60+ avg.

Here is a good video that summarizes what I am talking about,


The 480 4gb card is a good choice. This would a superb 1080p 60hz gpu, and you can usually catch them on sale for about $150. Sometimes they are even bundled with games.
Click to expand...
Just wanted to thank you for pointing that out. The settings really don't make much difference in image quality these days, but they do in fps. I have been using a 1440p 60HZ+ freesync monitor for little over a year now and have turned the quality down from max to high/medium in newer titles . Most of the time I'll need to take time switching between presets or screenshots to notice any difference in quality. Usually I have minimum fps in the 50s or 60s.
If all that wasn't true I'd be using something more powerful than the R9 380 4GB that I have now. I don't mind getting a hardly noticeable quality drop over much higher fps.
 
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tential

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May 13, 2008
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beginner99 said:
Because he is on a budget and the money is better spent on a better CPU because CPUs do last pretty long nowadays. Eg future-proofing is actually worth it. Much less so in the GPU department especially overpriced NV GPUs deprecate quickly. He can get 1070 performance for less than $150 in 2 years time. Plus 2-3 settings often have huge impact on FPS and near zero on actual image quality.
Click to expand...

Enthusiasts and reviewers have tainted the perception into thinking that settings used to review gpu performance is indicative of game play experienced by people when playing games under settings users normally use.

Turning on all ultra settings and a lot of aa is not how the vast majority of the market actually games....
 
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Mopetar

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2011
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XiandreX said:
This is exactly what I was thinking. Why buy a card and have to turn down settings rather buy the 1070 and have more leg room.
Click to expand...

Because you're paying $150+ more for a card than 99% of the time is going to be downclocking itself because if you have a 60 Hz monitor, anything above that is wasted. If this were a case where the poster had a 144 Hz G-sync monitor, then yes, a 1070 can make a compelling argument, but for 1080p60 gaming its overkill. And before someone drags out the same tired argument that you'll dip below 60 FPS occasionally so a 1060 isn't enough, guess what, you'll still do that even with a 1070 and in several cases even a 1080 isn't going to guarantee 60 FPS at all times for 1080p gaming.

tential said:
Turning on all ultra settings and a lot of aa is not how the vast majority of the market actually games....
Click to expand...
It also adds very little in terms of visual detail (Tom's Hardware has comparison shots for Watch Dogs 2), but has a highly disproportionate cost. A few of the sites that have tracked differences across settings have found that in some games going from Ultra to High will increase the frame rate up to 50% in some games.

I can understand why reviewers max out the settings though as that's essentially a floor for performance as a card can't run the game any worse than with everything maxed out, so it gives you reasonable expectations. Some site's do offer benchmarks at lower settings as well.
 
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Headfoot

Diamond Member
Feb 28, 2008
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dajeepster said:
I thought PCI slots were dead. at least it's not an agp slot.. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Old school PCI can actually be nice for digital audio workstation PCs, there are still a lot of outboard devices that use PCI which is old but are still perfectly functional pieces of gear
 
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