RX 480 vs GTX 1060 (same price)

blastingcap · Oct 1, 2016

Multimonitor is 6W for the GTX 1060 vs. 40W for the RX 480. https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1060/24.html Idle and gaming load figures also available at that link (5 vs 15W; 116 vs 163W). Let's say the average difference is a mere 20W over 5 hours per day in a combination of idle/3D gaming time (ignore multimonitor altogether for now). That's 0.1kWh x 365 = 36.5 kWh per year. At 20 cents per kWh, that's $7.30/year. Some jurisdictions have higher or lower rates, and it depends on what tier you are on, but I'm paying about 20 cents/kWh in CA under my current tiered rate.

So if you keep the RX 480 for 2 years vs. the GTX 1060 for 2 years, the RX 480 costs you $14.60 more in electrical costs. Since OP is assuming equal initial pricing, this effectively make the RX 480 $14.60 more expensive.

It's even worse if you're on multimonitor like I am because now idle power on the GTX 1060 goes from 5W to 6W idle, and AMD goes from 15W to 40W... that's just... wtf. I mean we KNOW AMD can fix this, Fury X draws 21W and Fury 11W. How the heck did 11 or 21W go to 40W? Somehow AMD went BACKWARDS in idle and multimonitor power draw with the RX480, compared to Fury. This is why I said it's shameful, we know AMD can do better but they just shrugged and gave us worse idle and multmonitor power efficiency than Fury anyway.

I already addressed FreeSync above by saying if it matters to you, it can be a dealmaker. The problem for most people is that they don't have FreeSync monitors. Many of us won't buy crappy $140 FreeSync monitors no matter what. We already have high-end IPS monitors that we don't want to or can't replace until necessary. The target market for the 1060/480 is for more cost-conscious gamers, after all, not like the guys who are fine paying $$$ for TITANs or something who can presumably afford to buy new monitors as well. Also, some people like my wife game on the TV.

GTX 1060 has more OC headroom than RX 480. I encourage skeptics to look at a wide range of reviews on this, including Tom's which has curves for their sample.

frozentundra123456 · Oct 1, 2016

blastingcap said:
Multimonitor is 6W for the GTX 1060 vs. 40W for the RX 480. https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1060/24.html Idle and gaming load figures also available at that link (5 vs 15W; 116 vs 163W). Let's say the average difference is a mere 20W over 5 hours per day in a combination of idle/3D gaming time (ignore multimonitor altogether for now). That's 0.1kWh x 365 = 36.5 kWh per year. At 20 cents per kWh, that's $7.30/year. Some jurisdictions have higher or lower rates, and it depends on what tier you are on, but I'm paying about 20 cents/kWh in CA under my current tiered rate.

So if you keep the RX 480 for 2 years vs. the GTX 1060 for 2 years, the RX 480 costs you $14.60 more in electrical costs. Since OP is assuming equal initial pricing, this effectively make the RX 480 $14.60 more expensive.

It's even worse if you're on multimonitor like I am because now idle power on the GTX 1060 goes from 5W to 6W idle, and AMD goes from 15W to 40W... that's just... wtf. I mean we KNOW AMD can fix this, Fury X draws 21W and Fury 11W. How the heck did 11 or 21W go to 40W? Somehow AMD went BACKWARDS in idle and multimonitor power draw with the RX480, compared to Fury. This is why I said it's shameful, we know AMD can do better but they just shrugged and gave us worse idle and multmonitor power efficiency than Fury anyway.

I already addressed FreeSync above by saying if it matters to you, it can be a dealmaker. The problem for most people is that they don't have FreeSync monitors. Many of us won't buy crappy $140 FreeSync monitors no matter what. We already have high-end IPS monitors that we don't want to or can't replace until necessary. The target market for the 1060/480 is for more cost-conscious gamers, after all, not like the guys who are fine paying $$$ for TITANs or something who can presumably afford to buy new monitors as well. Also, some people like my wife game on the TV.

GTX 1060 has more OC headroom than RX 480. I encourage skeptics to look at a wide range of reviews on this, including Tom's which has curves for their sample.

Yea, amazing how a few posters repeatedly slip in blurbs for freesync monitors in a discussion of these video cards. Like someone is who is going to try to make a decision based on a few dollars price difference between two cards is going to go out and buy a new monitor. But really what it comes down to, the only way to recommend a 480 over a similarly priced 1060 is to bring up free sync or some speculative future performance gains of the 480 vs 1060. In the current environment, the only one we can really be certain about, the 1060 wins on performance, power consumption, and overclocking headroom.

Bacon1 · Oct 1, 2016

blastingcap said:
Multimonitor is 6W for the GTX 1060 vs. 40W for the RX 480. .

Thats only two monitors. My post shows single, dual, and triple. For triple monitors the 1060 clocks up just like the 480 does in dual, and thus uses a lot more power.

Fury is more power efficient than 480 because it doesn't have high memory clocks that consume power, while the 480 has to keep the memory clocks high for the extra monitors.

So no, its almost no different like I said in my post in your case, where you have three monitors.

frozentundra123456 said:
Yea, amazing how a few posters repeatedly slip in blurbs for freesync monitors in a discussion of these video cards. Like someone is who is going to try to make a decision based on a few dollars price difference between two cards is going to go out and buy a new monitor. But really what it comes down to, the only way to recommend a 480 over a similarly priced 1060 is to bring up free sync or some speculative future performance gains of the 480 vs 1060. In the current environment, the only one we can really be certain about, the 1060 wins on performance, power consumption, and overclocking headroom.

There are probably just as many people starting PC gaming now with no monitor as those upgrading to a mid range card. So Freesync makes a massive difference. Nvidia would be smart to start supporting it ASAP as it would drive a ton of sales their way. I'd probably have a 1070 over my Fury Nitro if they supported my 34" 3440x1440 Freesync monitor, but they don't, so they lost a sale.

master_shake_ · Oct 2, 2016

you could literally walk around and pick up $7.30 in a year.

it's 2 cents a day.

if you saved that kind of money each year, at the end you could go out and buy yourself a nice family sized box of cheerios.

maddie · Oct 2, 2016

The interesting part about the freesync advantage is that seeing the OP wants the card for 3+ years, he can get a good cheap freesync monitor when the framerates start to drop in future new titles. The alternative is spending a lot more on a gsync one that blows way past the miniscule power savings cost.

Such a no brainer, that one wonders at some posters here.

Unreal123 · Oct 2, 2016

blastingcap · Oct 2, 2016

master_shake_ said:
you could literally walk around and pick up $7.30 in a year.

it's 2 cents a day.

if you saved that kind of money each year, at the end you could go out and buy yourself a nice family sized box of cheerios.

OP is asking about RX 480 vs GTX 1060, which is better if they are the same price and if holding for 3 years. OK the problem is, the RX 480 costs ~$20 more (3 years of power bills). If you got the RX 480 then you'd be paying an extra $20 for LESS performance than the GTX 1060.

Furthermore, guys pretending like $20 doesn't matter should be consistent. $20 is 8.3% of the cost of an RX 480 card. To be consistent, treat an 8.3% price difference the same way as an 8.3% loss in performance. I don't think you guys would say an 8.3% loss in performance is meaningless, so don't treat a $20 loss as meaningless, either.

Even if you go by USA prices, after accounting for electricity the RX 480 basically costs the same as the GTX 1060 but isn't as fast, especially comparing OC vs OC. So with the RX 480, you pay more and get less.

The best midrange option imho is neither the RX 480 or GTX 1060. Imho, Polaris and Pascal are both not the greatest architectures, so there's no point in overinvesting in those architectures. As a stopgap, I'd get the RX 470 instead. RX 470 prices are falling, with occasional sales and rebates you can get them for $180 now. Save the $50-70 you save and use that $50-70 + the resale value of the RX 470 to get a better card about 18-24 months.

(The RX 480 4GB is theoretically another option for those who want to buy for only a 2 year or shorter hold time, but those cost a lot more--almost as much as the RX 480 8GB, and I hear that they are lower-binned/lower quality chips, hence the lower stock clocks compared to 8GB versions. Also, the GTX 1050 Ti might change things, but we don't have confirmed data on that yet.)

Bacon1 · Oct 2, 2016

Unreal123 said:
To much double standard posting ,which is a shame.

AMD is only faster currently in 2 games Doom and Hitman ,which is the only reason some based posting you are seeing in this forum.

In majority of DX12 games, GTX 1060 is faster.
You can include other factors, like Power consumption, Fasy sync, miles better VR support, better overclocking, less DX11 overhead, better cooling, and shadow play.
VR benchmarks

The GTX 1060 6GB once again bests the RX 480 as it has done in every game in the past, but this time it is a bit of a hollow victory, as the GPU Render Times are so close (1060 - 6.547ms / 480 - 6.646ms) that these are virtually the same. No Reprojection or Dropped Frames to speak of.

What is interesting about the comparison of the two graphed GPU Render Times is that how much smoother the RX 480 is in terms of the "smooth" workload, whereas the GTX 1060 has a much more choppy output. You could see that on the previous page as well when looking at the Fury X and comparing it to the GTX 1070. This makes absolutely no difference in performance, but it surely points to something being done in different ways when it comes to how the GPUs are rendering.

From [H] VR review

Those games are also all early access and most hadn't had a single performance patch before [H] tested them. The games on Unity ran great on both, those on Unreal Engine ran like crap on AMD. Big shocker there.

Kyle is trying his best to make AMD look bad in VR, thats why the leaderboard exists and why he made sure to add Project Cars into it to completely skew the results in favor of Nvidia.

Also look at Deus Ex Mankind Divided i3 vs i7 testing. The 1060 chokes on an i3 and needs a fast i7 to keep good fps. How many people spend the money for a 6700k and only get a 1060/480?

The 480 is also faster on the more beefy 6950x which shows it does have more overall power, or maybe that they forgot to update their i7 6700k results and used the i3 ones instead (my guess as both dx11 and dx12 match identically).

Overclocking is similar on both performance gain wise. Sure you get crazy clocks with Pascal, but thats the point. P4 didn't win over C2D even with massively higher clocks, completely different architectures.

1060 has less DX11 overhead? Polaris fixed a lot of those issues.

Its 22% faster in COD BO III

5% slower in FO4 which is a pretty heavy Gameworks title.

15% faster in Hitman (GE)

7% faster in Just Cause 3 (Gameworks)

6% faster in Witcher 3 (Gameworks)

https://www.computerbase.de/2016-08...diagramm-call-of-duty-black-ops-iii-1920-1080

Its also 26% faster in DOOM Vulkan matching the 1070.

AMD has Plays.Tv for the same functionality as Shadowplay, and there is a new OBS Studio AMF plugin now as well. And just like Freesync, you can choose instead of using the Nvidia ecosystem option.

Anyway you can get a XFX 470, Gigabyte G1 or Powercolor Red Devil 4gb for $180:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150776&cm_re=470-_-14-150-776-_-Product
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125896&cm_re=470-_-14-125-896-_-Product
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131696&cm_re=470-_-14-131-696-_-Product

Powercolor Red Devil 480 8gb for $230:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131697&cm_re=480-_-14-131-697-_-Product

Or Gigabyte Windforce 1060 6gb for $250:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125901&cm_re=1060-_-14-125-901-_-Product

So you can save $20-70 up front by going AMD. Personally I'd just go with a 470 and rebuy sooner.

severus · Oct 2, 2016

Something I don't understand, with either card, is why do people say 3gb/4gb is not enough at 1920x1080. I have an old Powercolor HD7970 that I picked up in late 2012 and it still chugs along just fine on my BenQ XL2411Z. As someone who plays relatively few games, (CS:GO, Guild Wars 2, GTA V, and when it's released BF1) is there any point in me getting the larger card? I'm not going to "upgrade" my monitor to 4k since I just bought this one last month and find it more than suitable for my needs. I can get an MSI 3gb GTX1060 from Jet.com for $170 right now and I'm fairly certain it'll blaze through anything I'm going to play for the next 2-3 years.

GaiaHunter · Oct 2, 2016

severus said:
Something I don't understand, with either card, is why do people say 3gb/4gb is not enough at 1920x1080. I have an old Powercolor HD7970 that I picked up in late 2012 and it still chugs along just fine on my BenQ XL2411Z. As someone who plays relatively few games, (CS:GO, Guild Wars 2, GTA V, and when it's released BF1) is there any point in me getting the larger card? I'm not going to "upgrade" my monitor to 4k since I just bought this one last month and find it more than suitable for my needs. I can get an MSI 3gb GTX1060 from Jet.com for $170 right now and I'm fairly certain it'll blaze through anything I'm going to play for the next 2-3 years.

Currently you will see no difference.
But as time goes on, story has shown than in these cases of cards that are powerful enough (not low entry cards where extra ram is crippled by pathetic bandwidth or lack of other resources) paying slightly more will give you a better experience in the long run.

Additionally, now that we can measure more than just average and minimum frame rates, we also see that you generally get a more consistent experience even if averages are very similar.

Now if the price difference is massive it is your option.
If you can't afford it, you can't period.
If you can't wait to save the extra money because your current experience is lacking/frustrating or maybe your old card just died, go and buy the cheaper card, they are certainly fast enough now.
But if you can make the jump, in a couple of years you will probably be happy you made that choice.

History is filled with examples like the Ti4200 128MB that was a better buy than the Ti4200 64GB, during the Geforce 8 time line you had tons of examples of cards with more memory being better a year/2 years down the line, etc.

Keysplayr · Oct 2, 2016

The better buy is obviously the 1060.

Bacon1 · Oct 2, 2016

GaiaHunter said:
Currently you will see no difference.

It's already falling off short in games now.

https://www.computerbase.de/2016-09/grafikkarten-speicher-vram-test/2/

4GB is the minimum I'd buy, heck even Nvidia is releasing a weaker 1050 with 4GB.

zinfamous · Oct 2, 2016

Keysplayr said:
The better buy is obviously the 1060.

Obviously. That's why this same argument goes on for hundreds of posts in dozens of threads.

happy medium · Oct 2, 2016

zinfamous said:
Obviously. That's why this same argument goes on for hundreds of posts in dozens of threads.

Yea , the same 5 people keep arguing the 480 is somehow better, Over and over and over again with 5 different account names.

Gorbugal · Oct 2, 2016

happy medium said:
Yea , the same 5 people keep arguing the 480 is somehow better, Over and over and over again with 5 different account names.

Please screech "facts" in caps again, that should put this to bed.

IllogicalGlory · Oct 2, 2016

happy medium said:
Yea , the same 5 people keep arguing the 480 is somehow better, Over and over and over again with 5 different account names.

Pot, meet kettle.

guachi · Oct 2, 2016

Just went through Newegg prices. Average price for a 1060 is $280 with a 3.6% boost over reference clock and the 480 average price is $270 with a 2.9% boost over reference clock.

Every 480 but one also includes $20 off Battlefield 1 Deluxe Edition, which will have a value somewhere between $0-20 to you. Personally, I'd value it at $0. If it were $20 off the base edition I'd probably value it higher. YMMV.

However, there is currently a ridiculous deal of $230 for a PowerColor Red Devil clocked at 1290 MHz (1.9% OC and not the higher 1330 clocked version for $265). The cheapest 1060 is $255 and it's a Gigabyte Windforce clocked at 1556 MHz (3.3% OC) There are also mini versions at the same price clocked at 1506 MHz.

So you can get a card that's 5% slower for 10% less and might find value in the Battlefield 1 promotion (though I don't).

And while you're at it buy a nice 1080 Freesync monitor (so many to choose from compared to the overpriced Gsync monitors!) and you can enjoy gaming for longer with the 480 as you'll still have playable framerates as newer games push your FPS into the 40s. (Or get a 1440 monitor as the 480 can achieve 40+ in basically every game out there at highest or high settings).

Also, the extra 2GB may come in handy eventually. Or it might not. But it's not like you're paying a lot extra for it as the card is already $25 cheaper than the cheapest 1060.

severus · Oct 3, 2016

GaiaHunter said:
Currently you will see no difference.
But as time goes on, story has shown than in these cases of cards that are powerful enough (not low entry cards where extra ram is crippled by pathetic bandwidth or lack of other resources) paying slightly more will give you a better experience in the long run.

Additionally, now that we can measure more than just average and minimum frame rates, we also see that you generally get a more consistent experience even if averages are very similar.

Now if the price difference is massive it is your option.
If you can't afford it, you can't period.
If you can't wait to save the extra money because your current experience is lacking/frustrating or maybe your old card just died, go and buy the cheaper card, they are certainly fast enough now.
But if you can make the jump, in a couple of years you will probably be happy you made that choice.

History is filled with examples like the Ti4200 128MB that was a better buy than the Ti4200 64GB, during the Geforce 8 time line you had tons of examples of cards with more memory being better a year/2 years down the line, etc.

I understand that more, in theory, is better. I am one of those that had the Ti4200 64MB, the 9800 Pro 128MB, the x1950 pro 256MB, then the 8800GT 512MB. I never felt like I didn't have enough ram at the time, because I've never been much of a "gamer." The only new game I played with those cards was Battlefield. If you notice, the cards somewhat coincide with the releases of BF1942, 2, 2142 & Bad Company 2. Even though I bought better cards to play the newest Battlefield games, I found myself constantly playing CS 1.6 & Guild Wars 1, both of which required far less power than Battlefield. After the 8800GT I went to an HD4870, then a GTX 260 216 and just before this HD7970 a GTX 470. While a 6-8gb card will definitely be more future proof, I think that for someone like myself, that only plays one of the latest titles and sticks to older games the lower ram count cards are "enough." I'm not advocating the lower ram count card for everyone, but for the casual gamer looking to get some more horsepower I think the 3gb version of the GTX1060 & 4gb version of the RX480 are good enough.

96Firebird · Oct 3, 2016

guachi said:
And while you're at it buy a nice 1080 Freesync monitor (so many to choose from compared to the overpriced Gsync monitors!) and you can enjoy gaming for longer with the 480 as you'll still have playable framerates as newer games push your FPS into the 40s. (Or get a 1440 monitor as the 480 can achieve 40+ in basically every game out there at highest or high settings).

Also, since OP didn't ask about a new monitor or anything, buy a VR headset. 1060 does better at that, so there is your answer.

tg2708 · Oct 3, 2016

Even though I have a 480 (trying to get rid of it) the 1060 is better choice if OP whats maximum performance out of it for current games and or want to catch up on some older great games. The 480 might age better in terms of future performance (just a guess) but when you take the full package of both cards the 1060 is quite a bit better for now. Better performance at a much lower wattage is highly desirable to some. The 480 uses as much wattage as a 1070 but performance is no where close. AMD will most likely win where longevity is of a concern but if you want better performance now, nvidia is the clear choice. We can't use current examples of the dx12 games and say the 480 will be superior in the long because all I read is people complaining about horrid performance of games that uses it. In other words before we try to grab each vendors throat, lets just play the waiting game and then judge. But the fact of now is the 1060 is the better card because the dx12 era has just began so performance is not where it should be for either vendor.

maddie · Oct 3, 2016

OP:
I like both companies, but this is a product that I would like to keep it for at least 3 years.

Is there a reading comprehension fail in some of these posts, or like in most modern arguments, the poster disingenuously picks parts of a statement and creates an argument based solely on that, to support their agenda.

redzo · Oct 3, 2016

390 looses against a much lower tier 480x in forza 3. This is fact.
If this trend continues, so go all our AMD longevity arguments.

GaiaHunter · Oct 3, 2016

severus said:
I understand that more, in theory, is better. I am one of those that had the Ti4200 64MB, the 9800 Pro 128MB, the x1950 pro 256MB, then the 8800GT 512MB. I never felt like I didn't have enough ram at the time, because I've never been much of a "gamer." The only new game I played with those cards was Battlefield. If you notice, the cards somewhat coincide with the releases of BF1942, 2, 2142 & Bad Company 2. Even though I bought better cards to play the newest Battlefield games, I found myself constantly playing CS 1.6 & Guild Wars 1, both of which required far less power than Battlefield. After the 8800GT I went to an HD4870, then a GTX 260 216 and just before this HD7970 a GTX 470. While a 6-8gb card will definitely be more future proof, I think that for someone like myself, that only plays one of the latest titles and sticks to older games the lower ram count cards are "enough." I'm not advocating the lower ram count card for everyone, but for the casual gamer looking to get some more horsepower I think the 3gb version of the GTX1060 & 4gb version of the RX480 are good enough.

First nice to see old GW1 players around. I spent a few years of my life in that game

Second you seem to upgrade every gen. Not only you are getting more horsepower you are pretty much also doubling the vram.

If you have a 480/1060 now and you going to upgrade to a 580/2060, probably you can save the money on the vram (unless you have specific needs like mods that will require the extra vram).

If on the other hand you only upgrade every other gen and/or when you get double the performance, that extra vram might be useful.

JustMe21 · Oct 3, 2016

I've owned both an RX480 and a 1060 and ran some benchmarks and unless you are looking at numbers, they pretty much run games about the same. In graphically intensive areas of games, the RX480 could hit 235W total system power, but the 1060 could get up to 200W as well. If you want your card to last, then overclocking is generally an option you don't bother with, so it is a moot point. Also, for additional power reduction usage, you don't max all the detail out, which also means higher FPS. Max details are good for solo playing, but not multiplayer. AMD power profiles can also be tweaked for increased performance at lower power setting.

Currently, AMD feels like it has more flexibility, such as if AI gets added in and offloaded to the GPU, while Nvidia doesn't seem to have quite that flexibility yet. One of the biggest downers of the 1060 was its lack of SLI, but then again the DX12 multi GPU capabilities may offset that when they are better implemented. But, I do like how the Nvidia appears to be utilizing a hidden tile based rendering system, which is probably why they have lower power consumption. One thing I've noticed about AMD is that they have far less WHQL driver releases than Nvidia.

In the end, both GPUs will last a few years and will be slow by that time, so choose which ever one gives you the best warranty. I would rather suggest you save up a while longer and see what Vega has to offer and go for either a GTX 1070 or Vega if you want okay performance after a few years.

In the end, I went with an RX 470, because I could get near RX 480 performance for a cheaper price. The RX480 and 1060 went into upgrades for other relatives.

Goatsecks · Oct 3, 2016

OP, I hope this thread has been a lesson to you: these forums are hopelessly bipartisan and completely dysfunctional with regards to advice.

The best advice I can give you is not to come to these forums looking for reasonable discourse. This forum is rather like a mental asylum, but one that is run by the lunatics.

RX 480 vs GTX 1060 (same price)

Diamond Member

Lifer

Diamond Member

Diamond Member

Diamond Member

Senior member

Diamond Member

Diamond Member

Senior member

Diamond Member

Elite Member

Diamond Member

No Lifer

Lifer

Member

Senior member

Senior member

Senior member

Diamond Member

Senior member

Diamond Member

Senior member

Diamond Member

Senior member

Senior member