When comparing EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming SC ACX 2.0 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 EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming SC ACX 2.0 is ranked 7th. 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
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Performs better than most GTX 1060 cards
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.
Pro Compact, suitable for small enclosures
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.
Pro Decent temperatures
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.
Pro Fairly quiet operation
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).
Pro Can be modified easily to allow better cooling without voiding the warranty
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.
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 Some performance drops when the temperature of the GPU is increased
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.
Con Feels a bit cheap
The cover is made of cheap anthracite-gray plastic that makes the GPU seem cheap and feel low quality.
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.