When comparing ASUS GeForce GTX 1060 6GB ROG STRIX OC Edition vs MSI GeForce GTX 1060 6GB Gaming X 6G, the Slant community recommends MSI GeForce GTX 1060 6GB Gaming X 6G for most people. In the question“What are the best GTX 1060 cards?” MSI GeForce GTX 1060 6GB Gaming X 6G is ranked 2nd while ASUS GeForce GTX 1060 6GB ROG STRIX OC Edition is ranked 5th. The most important reason people chose MSI GeForce GTX 1060 6GB Gaming X 6G is:
The MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming X has achieved a Firestrike score of 12010, one of the highest as far as GTX 1060 cards go. For that price, it's more powerful than some other, more expensive cards on the market.
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 Best performance for the price
The MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming X has achieved a Firestrike score of 12010, one of the highest as far as GTX 1060 cards go. For that price, it's more powerful than some other, more expensive cards on the market.
Pro Decent temperatures
The Gaming X 1060 card is able to keep the temperatures of the GPU quite cool, with a result of 38 degrees Celsius in idle and only 65 degrees C under full load.
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 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 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.