RX 480 or GTX 1060?

[Unlimited Raisin]

I was just wondering if I should buy a 6GB 1060, a 4GB RX480, or an 8GB RX480. All the benchmarks I've seen show that the 1060 is a better card, but people are saying that new games will run better on the RX480. Also, I can get the 480 for cheaper. Which one should I buy?

[xAcid9]

How much cheaper is the 480 and which model?

[Unlimited Raisin]

4 minutes ago, xAcid9 said:

How much cheaper is the 480 and which model?

I can get a 4GB MSI Gaming X RX480 for 290$ CAD, whereas a Zotac Mini 6GB 1060 is 315$CAD. Neither of those prices include tax or shipping.

[Darkangel86]

1060 every single time. Not trying to be a fan boy, but nVidia updates their drives all the time (to support new games), and the support is generally way better than AMD's. Not to mention it's a more capable card in general.

 

Get a 1060, you will not regret it. Even if it's a bit more cash. But that's just my personal opinion.

[SirFlamenco]

480 FTW It's MUCH better for dx12, mantle and a few other new technologies that will likely help in the long term. 

[Mr.McMister]

It really depends on the games. On paper the the 480 is the more powerfull card and in games that implement Async Compute shaders benchmarks show up to 15% performance gains on the 1060. On the other hand if the game engine doesn't play to the 480's strengths the 1060 tends to win by 5% +/-.

[SirFlamenco]

5% vs 15%, how come is this even a choice?

[Mr.McMister]

1 minute ago, SirFlamenco said:

5% vs 15%, how come is this even a choice?

currently the list of games that have the 480 getting that 15% advantage is quite small while the 5% on the 1060 is for pretty much everything else,

[Darkangel86]

6 minutes ago, SirFlamenco said:

5% vs 15%, how come is this even a choice?

The issue I have with anything that's heavily geared towards DX12 and Async Compute etc is the current lack of support. By the time enough games take advantage of these technologies both cards will be obsolete. So buy the one that runs most of the CURRENT games at better FPS / textures / etc. That's the 1060 IMO.

[SirFlamenco]

2 minutes ago, Darkangel86 said:

The issue I have with anything that's heavily geared towards DX12 and Async Compute etc is the current lack of support. By the time enough games take advantage of these technologies both cards will be obsolete. So buy the one that runs most of the CURRENT games at a better FPS / textures / etc. That's the 1060 IMO.

Stop trying to mislead innocent people, 480 is the best choice for 1080p, 1440p and 4k. Why? Because at 1080p the card will be a little overkill and will last enough for those new technologies to come. For 1440p and... 4k, Amd are know to perform better than Nvidia at higher resolutions.

[Darkangel86]

1 minute ago, SirFlamenco said:

Stop trying to mislead innocent people, 480 is the best choice for 1080p, 1440p and 4k. Why? Because at 1080p the card will be a little overkill and will last enough for those new technologies to come. For 1440p and... 4k, Amd are know to perform better than Nvidia at higher resolutions.

I'm not sure what you mean by your comment. Not misleading anyone though. I work with graphics cards every day at my job, I write image and video analysis algorithms for a living, I go through all sorts of graphics cards all day long and the nVidia support is fantastic. Drivers tend to trump AMD's every single time. Moreover, CUDA is great and the support for it is huge.

 

Again, it's an opinion Take it or leave it.

[Mr.McMister]

To help out a little. The RX 480 currently beats the 1060 in these titles: Ashes of the Singularity, Doom, Hitman 2016, GoW ultimate, Total War: Warhammer, Battlefield 1 and there may be a few others I've missed.

 

It remains to be seen whether AMD chips being in the consoles will translate to ports that favor AMD on PC. As of now that largely doesn't appear to be the case, but for the most part we have only seen ports of engines from the last gen consoles which ran nvidia chips and few complete engine overhauls. So far Doom and Ashes are the only games I can think of that are on completely new engines as of this gen and frostbite as an engine with a major overhaul. In conclusion, 2 years and maybe we'll see the 480 beating the 1060 consistently in new titles, but for now 1060 wins in most cases

[Biggerboot]

Wouldn't bother with the 4gb 480 if you're considering it as a long term investment.  Get the 470 instead if you want to stay under the $200 (USD) range.

 

Between the 1060 6gb and 480 8gb, I think the choice comes down to:

- Which one performs better in the games you desire.  Don't just look at average performance.

- Which one is the better value in your country/area

- Which one's features scream out to you. (this one's honestly not that important to gamers)

 

I would choose the 1060 because it overclocks like crazy, energy efficient, and I think it's simply the better card to have today.  I think @Darkangel86 is correct, don't bank on future software advancements to justify your GPU purchase now.  With that being said, the RX 480 wouldn't be a bad choice either.  Just follow those three steps and I think you'll be fine.

[xAcid9]

55 minutes ago, Unlimited Raisin said:

I can get a 4GB MSI Gaming X RX480 for 290$ CAD, whereas a Zotac Mini 6GB 1060 is 315$CAD. Neither of those prices include tax or shipping.

How much for a 8GB 480 and Zotac Amp 1060 6GB?

34 minutes ago, SirFlamenco said:

Stop trying to mislead innocent people........

For 1440p and... 4k, Amd are know to perform better than Nvidia at higher resolutions.

480 with 32ROP will tank harder at 1440p and 4k compare to 1060 with 48ROP, older AMD card like 290s/390s perform better at 1440p/4K because of the superior raw bandwidth and bigger ROP(64).

[Darkangel86]

5 minutes ago, Biggerboot said:

Wouldn't bother with the 4gb 480 if you're considering it as a long term investment.  Get the 470 instead if you want to stay under the $200 range.

 

Between the 1060 6gb and 480 8gb, I think the choice comes down to:

- Which one performs better in the games you desire.  Don't just look at average performance.

- Which one is the better value in your country/area

- Which one's features scream out to you. (this one's honestly not that important to gamers)

 

I would choose the 1060 because it overclocks like crazy and I think it's simply the better card to have today.  I think @Darkangel86 is correct, don't bank on future software advancements to justify your GPU purchase now.  With that being said, the RX 480 wouldn't be a bad choice either.  Just follow those three steps and I think you'll be fine.

Yep, when you consider the overclocking capability, that 5% gap suddenly becomes irrelevant. Unfortunately AMD's recent releases count heavily on future-technology to beat out the competition. When it comes to computers and hardware, I always buy for now, not for the future.

 

I believe Linus made a video about how future-proofing induces diminishing returns.

Here it is: