When comparing ASUS GeForce GTX 1060 6GB ROG STRIX OC Edition vs MSI GeForce GTX 1060 6GT OC GDDR5 6GB Dual Fan OC, the Slant community recommends ASUS GeForce GTX 1060 6GB ROG STRIX OC Edition for most people. In the question“What are the best GTX 1060 cards?” ASUS GeForce GTX 1060 6GB ROG STRIX OC Edition is ranked 5th while MSI GeForce GTX 1060 6GT OC GDDR5 6GB Dual Fan OC is ranked 6th. The most important reason people chose ASUS GeForce GTX 1060 6GB ROG STRIX OC Edition is:
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.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Excellent cooling
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.
Pro Noticeable performance increases compared to reference GTX 1060
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.
Pro Very quiet operation
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.
Pro Features adjustable RGB lightning
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.
Pro Looks cool
Pro Fairly quiet even when stressed under a full load
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.
Pro Performs slightly better than a reference GTX 1060
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).
Pro Excellent cooling prevents the graphics card from throttling
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.
Pro Should fit in any chassis
At roughly 25cm in length, it's smaller than most GTX 1060 cards on the market so it should fit in any decent sized chassis without any problem.
Pro Good headroom for overclocking
The 4 power phases + 1 for memory and the 6-pin power connector give quite a good headroom for overclocking, especially for a GTX 1060 card.
Cons
Con Doesn't have RGB lighting on the back
The Asus Strix 1060 is does not have RGB lighting on the backplate which is strange considering that its RX480 counterpart has this feature.
Con Longer than a reference GTX 1060
The Asus GTX 1060 6GB ROG Strix OC Edition is a lot longer than a reference GTX 1060, with a length of 11.73 inches (298 mm) compared to the the usual 9.8 inch (250 mm). This may cause some compatibility issues in enclosures that don't have room for larger graphics cards.
Con Very expensive
Considering how most GTX 1060 cards are on the $250 range, the Asus GeForce GTX 1060 Strix is quite expensive.
Con Less DisplayPort connectors than a reference GTX 1060
The GTX 1060 6GT from MSI only features a single DisplayPort, HDMI-port and DVI-D connector. A reference GTX 1060 offers three DisplayPort connectors. This can be an issue for people who plan on using multiple DisplayPort monitors.