Recs.
Updated
The MSI GeForce GTX 1060 6GB Gaming X is a mid-range graphics card with connections for DisplayPort, HDMI and DVI.
SpecsUpdate
Pros
Pro Great overclocking potential
The overclocking potential for further increasing the card's clock and memory speed is quite high, as the cooler performs well and there is plenty of headroom in terms of power. In this case, an increase of 165 MHz was applied to the GPU clock and a whopping 435 MHz on the memory (22%), without any major issues or artifacts. Further overclocking results in noticeable higher performance. For comparison: a standard Gaming X card manages to achieve a framerate of 87.8 FPS in Battlefield 3 with 1440p resolution, while the same card with this type of overclock can reach over 101 average frames per second.
Pro Quietest GTX 1060 when under a full load
The MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming X is extremely quiet, both in idle situations and under full load. The fans of the cooler don't spin at all in idle situations (below 60 degrees Celsius), which means the card is literally silent most of the time. Even under full load, noise production of the Gaming X is very minimal. The card produces 28 decibels (A) measured at a 100-centimeter distance, which is the quietest GTX 1060 made yet. It is half as loud as the EVGA GTX 1060 Gaming SC, and the MSI GTX 1060 Dual Fan version. A reference GTX 1060 produces 34 dBA of noise under load, which is about 50% louder than this MSI GTX 1060 Gaming X card.
Pro Excellent design
The GTX 1060 Gaming X, like its GTX 1080 and 1070 counterparts is an excellent card as far as looks go. The black and red color scheme can easily fit a lot of builds for those users who are obsessed with their build looking as good as possible. It also has an array of RGB lights in the back which can be controlled by an app supplied by MSI.
Pro Extremely good performance
One of the most expensive yet great cards. Still outperforms rx580 in test ever so slightly. If you play on a 1080p, 144hz monitor, you'd have to turn down the graphics a tiny bit to get that many FPS but it still looks great and 144hz in first person shooter looks amazing.
Cons
Con 8-pin power connector required
The MSI Gaming X version of the GTX 1060 requires a single 8-pin power connector, while the reference GTX 1060 only requires a single 6-pin power connector. MSI has used a more powerful connector in order to create more overclocking headroom, but this might be an issue for gamers with a limited available 8-pin connectors on their power supply unit.
Recommendations
Comments
Flagged Pros + Cons
Con Starting to lose performance
Nearing the middle of 2017, some triple A titles are starting to get poor performance with GTX 1060 cards. An example being Watch Dogs 2, which barely achieves 30 FPS average.
Con Relatively noisy
Even if not by much, the GTX 1060 Gaming X is a bit noisier than most GTX 1060 cards.