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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. See More
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. See More
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. See More
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. See More
The cooler used in the Asus GTX 1060 Strix is the same that's used on the 1070 version and the 1080 Rog Strix. This means that the cooler is designed and built for much more powerful cards and that the cooling potential for the GTX 1060 Strix is excellent considering how it's the least powerful graphics card that uses this cooler. When idle the temperature stays at around 42 degrees Celsius and goes up to about 63 degrees Celsius when under heavy load. This is the lowest temperature that any GTX 1060 graphics card has achieved under heavy load. See More
The higher clock, boost and memory speeds of the ROG Strix OC Edition result in a higher performance compared to a reference 1060 card. For example, the ROG card achieves an average of 122 FPS in Doom, compared to 116 average frames per second for a reference 1060, tested in 1080p. The difference is more noticeable on a higher 1440p resolution, 78 vs 73 frames per second. Similar results can be seen in Rise of The Tomb Raider (1080p), where the ROG Strix card achieves 99 FPS, which is a tad higher than the reference GTX 1060's 93 average frames per second. See More
The fans of the Strix cooler will only start to spin if the GPU reaches a temperature higher than 60 degrees Celsius. This means that the card is completely silent in an idle situation. Even under full load, noise production of the ASUS ROG 1060 is very limited, with only 32 decibels (A) measured. See More
The exterior of the ASUS GeForce GTX 1060 ROG STRIX features some RGB lights and you can adjust the color of these lights via the included software package. This allows you to customize the look of the graphics card, which can be useful if your setup is built with a specific color scheme in mind. See More
The sound production is also fairly low with a Twin Frozr IV card. As seen here, the maximum sound production under load is around 39 decibels (A) from 100 cm distance and 60% fan speed. 39 decibels is considered to be fairly quiet, and annoying noises such as coil whine aren't present in this card either. It is the loudest GTX 1060 card, but it is still pretty quiet and shouldn't cause much disturbance. See More
The MSI GeForce 6GT OC has been slightly overlocked to a base clock of 1544 MHz, which is a 38 MHz over a reference GTX 1060. The boost clock of the graphics card has also been given a slight boost: 1759 MHz compared to the standard 1708 MHz. This is still lower than any other GTX 1060 card (other than the Founders Edition which is the reference design). See More
This MSI GTX 1060 uses a Twin Frozr IV cooler, identical to the coolers used on MSI's GAMING series of GPU's. These coolers perform excellently and offer significantly more cooling than any other GTX 1060 (except the Asus GTX 1060 Strix OC Edition which cools equally as well). It remains 15 degrees Celsius cooler than the Founders Edition, and 11 degrees cooler than the EVGA card. See More
Due to the slightly higher clock and boost speed of the EVGA ACX 2.0 model (both have received a 7% increase), there is a noticeable performance increase in games and benchmarks compared to most other GTX 1060 cards (with the exception of the Asus GTX 1060 Strix OC Edition). In Battlefield 4 for example, at 1080p and ultra settings, the EVGA SC manages to achieve an average framerate of 110.6, while a GTX 1060 with reference clock speeds achieves 107.6 average frames per second. Similar results can be seen in GTA V (1080p, maximum settings), where the EVGA SC version achieves an average framerate of 112.7 frames per second - 6,4 FPS higher than a reference GTX 1060. In terms of raw benchmark numbers, the Superclocked version scores 13062 GPU Points in 3D Mark Fire Strike, while a GTX 1060 with reference speeds manages to score 12736, a slight 2.55% increase. See More
Under heavy load, such as when playing resource-intensive games, the GPU gets rather hot mostly because of its compact size which does not allow for more than one fan. When this happens, the GPU suffers some frequency drops (1949-1962 MHz from 2012MHz) which in turn translates to real-world performance issues such as 5-10FPS drops when gaming. See More
The EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming ACX 2.0 is quite compact and features a cooler that only has a single fan. A reference GTX 1060 has a length of 9.8 inches (250 mm), while the EVGA ACX 2.0 reduces this to only 6.8 inches (173 mm). This makes the card ideal for use in smaller enclosures. See More
Although this ACX 2.0 model only has a single cooling fan, temperatures are decent. Any other custom GTX 1070 card will stay cooler, but the single fan works well enough to keep it from throttling much. With the standard EVGA fan configuration, the GPU heats up to 37° Celsius in idle and around 74 degrees Celsius under full load. For comparison: a reference GTX 1060 reaches temperatures of 78° under load. You might notice the slightly higher idle temperature of the GTX 1060 ACX 2.0 SC because EVGA has chosen to implement a semi-passive cooling solution, where the fan doesn't spin up at all in an idle environment. See More
When using the standard EVGA settings for the fan speeds, the card won't produce any noise in idle situations. Under full load, a noise of 38.4 dB(A) was measured. This isn't particularly loud and ensures a fairly quiet operation, although it is louder than any GTX 1060 card other than the MSI GTX 1060 Dual Fan version which measures 39dB(A). See More
If you want better cooling, fortunately, EVGA lets you modify the GPU without voiding the warranty. The process itself is fairly easy as well; all you have to do is remove the four screws that hold the backplate in place, exposing two flat 8mm heat pipes. This small modification considerably improves the cooling and subsequently the performance of this GPU. See More
The Zotac GeForce GTX 1060 Mini is the smallest GTX 1060 card on the market. While size is not a very important factor when choosing a graphics card, it's still something to consider. For special cases where the build needs to be super compact, the Zotac GTX 1060 Mini is a perfect fit. See More
The red, black and gold color scheme is not for everyone. If it had been just red and black it would have been much better and much easier to find a suitable motherboard, case and everything else to fit that color scheme. While not a deal breaker for most people who are only interested in performance, it can be a bit annoying for people who care about how their build looks. See More