AMD 480 vs Nvidia 1060

[JonathanH]

So I've been looking at a lot of videos and reviews for these cards. Both are very pleasing to me around that under $300 dollar price point. I just can't decide which to go with. I'm looking to play games at ultra at 1080p 60fps and don't plan on changing to higher res anytime soon. What do you guys think is the best card in the long run? 

[Shimejii]

1060, Better performance, and if you get the EVGA SC for 259 or so, its only 20$ more then the 8 gb 480. 

 

If Dx12 gets more use or vulcan, the 480 may catch up, but that wont be for years.

[JonathanH]

1 minute ago, Shimejii said:

1060, Better performance, and if you get the EVGA SC for 259 or so, its only 20$ more then the 8 gb 480. 

 

If Dx12 gets more use or vulcan, the 480 may catch up, but that wont be for years.

Yeah I was leaning towards the EVGA 1060 SC, but the thing is that thing has been out of stock for 2 weeks now. I've been waiting for it ever since... idk if I have the patience to wait any longer lol

[SlyTroopah]

2 minutes ago, Shimejii said:

1060, Better performance, and if you get the EVGA SC for 259 or so, its only 20$ more then the 8 gb 480. 

 

If Dx12 gets more use or vulcan, the 480 may catch up, but that wont be for years.

Shimejii pretty much sums it up, although years is a bit exaggerated since nobody actually knows when direct x 12 will really kick off.

[DisconnectedYT]

3 minutes ago, JonathanH said:

So I've been looking at a lot of videos and reviews for these cards. Both are very pleasing to me around that under $300 dollar price point. I just can't decide which to go with. I'm looking to play games at ultra at 1080p 60fps and don't plan on changing to higher res anytime soon. What do you guys think is the best card in the long run? 

1060 is good for now but not future proof.

RX480 can be CF'd or what you would call SLI.

2xRX480 = Almost a GTX1080

Also RX480 by its self it 15-5% slower then a GTX1060 so for a single card the GTX1060 is better

[Starelementpoke]

4 minutes ago, JonathanH said:

So I've been looking at a lot of videos and reviews for these cards. Both are very pleasing to me around that under $300 dollar price point. I just can't decide which to go with. I'm looking to play games at ultra at 1080p 60fps and don't plan on changing to higher res anytime soon. What do you guys think is the best card in the long run? 

Both of them are rather close, with the 1060 being ahead a bit. If we look at DX12 right now, 480 beats the 1060, so make of that as you will. Freesync is cheaper than Gsync... so again, make of it as you will.

[DocSwag]

Here's my stance:

 

If you plan on keeping your GPU for 2 years or less, go 1060. It beats the 480 in basically all dx11 games and since dx11 is what (almost) everything is on right now, the 1060 is a better choice.

 

If you plan on keeping your GPU for longer than two years, go 480. In most dx12 and Vulkan games it ties if not beats the 1060 while being cheaper. Since dx12 and Vulkan are the future, if you plan on keeping your GPU for a while the 480 will be the better choice. That's not to mention that over the long term AMD drivers tend to give a larger performance boost than Nvidia ones.

[MaxBunny]

11 minutes ago, JonathanH said:

What do you guys think is the best card in the long run? 

The 480 is better in the long run. The 1060 is better for modern games and Gameworks. So it really depends on the games you play. Remember that for unoptimized AAA titles that VRAM is usually the biggest factor anyway.

[Darkseth]

If you still use a Phenom II x4 965, you might want to upgrade soon to skylake, or wait for Zen.

 

The Phenom bottlenecks a RX 480 / GTX 1060 quite hard: 

 

 

But as it stands now:

- GTX 1060 is 13% faster overall.

- GTX 1060 consumes like 30-50 Watt less.

 

- RX 480 has 2gb more Vram, and a slightly faster Memory Interface (256bit vs 192 bit). This CAN be beneficial in 3-4 years. Right now: Nope. In my Opinion, it might even never benefit. The Settings you need, to really "need" more than 6gb Vram (aka, where 6 is too less, but 8 is enough) are Settings, where neither the RX 480 nor the GTX 1060 could produce playable fps. What does it matter, if game xy on setting super ultra consumes 7gb Vram, but will only have 20 fps? irrelevant.

 

- RX 480 might give you a cheap possibility to start with Freesync. There are Freesync IPS monitors for 140€+. GSync starts with 666€~. However, there is a possibility, that Nvidia will be forced to support Freesync too.

 

- DX 12 has a slight advantage to the RX 480. In 5 out of 7 Games, the RX 480 pulls ahead.

However: We still have "first drivers". There can be much optimization left to do, and Nvidia might catch up,

 

- Vulkan is only an Argument for those AMD Fanboys who jerk over that one bench.

Fact is: There is ONE single Vulkan Game out. Doom. One. single. Game. It's not possible to have any tendency here, since Nvidias Drivers are buggy when it comes to Vulkan (bad Frametimes, etc). They are working on a Fix.
Wait for more Games, and optimized Drivers, THEN we can have a Tendency.

(Btw. Gamers nexus reviewed Talos Principle on Vulkan. 1060 was 71% faster than the RX 480.)

 

TL,DR: SO yea... The 1060 is the better Card. It's overall Faster, and much more efficient.

But the RX 480 CAN Catch up, or even pull slightly ahead, depending how DX12 or Vulkan might develop. CAN. Not WILL. This is pure speculation right now, although there is a slight tendency.

Over the VEEEERY long run, the rx 480 might be a batter choice, like when you want to keep it 4 years.

 

But the next 2 years, i'd say... doesn't matter at all. Both Cards will always stay a few % in each other's range. Even in 3-4 years, you will need Tools to say which Card is running in the System. None of them will "run away".

 

Buy depending on Prices, Noise (Not a single 480 so far has been "silent" during Load.), or the Games you play most.

 

see here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Q4VT3AzIBXSfKZdsJF94qvlJ7Mb1VvJvLowX6dmHWVo/edit#gid=0

[JonathanH]

8 minutes ago, Darkseth said:

If you still use a Phenom II x4 965, you might want to upgrade soon to skylake, or wait for Zen.

 

The Phenom bottlenecks a RX 480 / GTX 1060 quite hard: 

 

 

But as it stands now:

- GTX 1060 is 13% faster overall.

- GTX 1060 consumes like 30-50 Watt less.

 

- RX 480 has 2gb more Vram, and a slightly faster Memory Interface (256bit vs 192 bit). This CAN be beneficial in 3-4 years. Right now: Nope. In my Opinion, it might even never benefit. The Settings you need, to really "need" more than 6gb Vram (aka, where 6 is too less, but 8 is enough) are Settings, where neither the RX 480 nor the GTX 1060 could produce playable fps. What does it matter, if game xy on setting super ultra consumes 7gb Vram, but will only have 20 fps? irrelevant.

 

- RX 480 might give you a cheap possibility to start with Freesync. There are Freesync IPS monitors for 140€+. GSync starts with 666€~. However, there is a possibility, that Nvidia will be forced to support Freesync too.

 

- DX 12 has a slight advantage to the RX 480. In 5 out of 7 Games, the RX 480 pulls ahead.

However: We still have "first drivers". There can be much optimization left to do, and Nvidia might catch up,

 

- Vulkan is only an Argument for those AMD Fanboys who jerk over that one bench.

Fact is: There is ONE single Vulkan Game out. Doom. One. single. Game. It's not possible to have any tendency here, since Nvidias Drivers are buggy when it comes to Vulkan (bad Frametimes, etc). They are working on a Fix.
Wait for more Games, and optimized Drivers, THEN we can have a Tendency.

(Btw. Gamers nexus reviewed Talos Principle on Vulkan. 1060 was 71% faster than the RX 480.)

 

TL,DR: SO yea... The 1060 is the better Card. It's overall Faster, and much more efficient.

But the RX 480 CAN Catch up, or even pull slightly ahead, depending how DX12 or Vulkan might develop. CAN. Not WILL. This is pure speculation right now, although there is a slight tendency.

Over the VEEEERY long run, the rx 480 might be a batter choice, like when you want to keep it 4 years.

 

But the next 2 years, i'd say... doesn't matter at all. Both Cards will always stay a few % in each other's range. Even in 3-4 years, you will need Tools to say which Card is running in the System. None of them will "run away".

 

Buy depending on Prices, Noise (Not a single 480 so far has been "silent" during Load.), or the Games you play most.

 

see here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Q4VT3AzIBXSfKZdsJF94qvlJ7Mb1VvJvLowX6dmHWVo/edit#gid=0

Oh i should prob upgrade my bio lol, I have an i5 now