Gtx 1060 VRAM??

[Guest]

Im trying to get a build to run triple A games at 1080 to 1440p at 60fps. Should i downgrade from a 1060 6gb to 3gb to save money, or will that detriment performance greatly? I am also open to any other graphics card suggestions that perform at that quality

[Billy_Mays]

More VRAM less micro stuttering and most lower end chips can do 1440p no problem 

[Megah3rtz]

No. Keep the 1060 6gb. 

 

The RX 580 8gb is one option to consider as it does perform rather well in 1440p. However it's sold out everywhere and will probably be for the next 1-2 months. 

[minibois]

If I were you, I would stick with the 6GB variant, as the 3GB variant also has a weaker chip on it.

Other than that the RX 580 might be interesting to look at as well, if you can actually get it in your region.

[Bananasplit_00]

the 6GB has the full chip were as the 3GB does not, it has less VRAM and less cores so its quite noticably weaker so get the 6GB or if you can a RX 480 / RX 580 unless they are all sold out

[ARikozuM]

Go for the 6GB. Stronger chip. 

[Princess Luna]

Still can't figure why isn't the 1060 6gb called GTX 1060ti

[ARikozuM]

3 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

Still can't figure why isn't the 1060 6gb called GTX 1060ti

1060 3GB should be called a 1050 Ti, if anything.

[Darkseth]

59 minutes ago, NovaMan01 said:

Im trying to get a build to run triple A games at 1080 to 1440p at 60fps. Should i downgrade from a 1060 6gb to 3gb to save money, or will that detriment performance greatly? I am also open to any other graphics card suggestions that perform at that quality

For many games, you won't experience more than the usual 10-12% performance decrease (3gb model has less shaders).

 

However: In Games, where more than 3gb are used (there are a bunch in 1080p already, if you turn Textures to ultra), the 3gb model will drop significantly.

 

My personal recommendation: Ignore the 3gb Cripple. Take the 6gb model, it will serve you MUCH more. Especially, if you can turn Textures to very sharp instead of dirty mud.

 

And as soon you hit 1440p, and higher settings, 3gb will bottleneck even harder.

 

Do NOT (!!!!) get the 3gb model, no matter what.

[Hawk9970]

I think u will need more than 3gb vram in 1440p to be honest, if u considering to only use it in 1080p u might be just fine with 1060 3gb but def not a futureproof as the new games comes out they require more Vram which kinda annoying, but if u want my advice go with 1070 gtx at least to not get annoyed by some games ( I myself have 1060gtx 6gb),like Witcher 3 or Assassin Creed:Syndicate it is super annoying to do some compromises when it comes to settings (to me at least) even though they are being played in 1080p (not even 1440p) so yea, I think that 1060gtx 3gb would be even much worse in that regard down the line so yea, idk, it is really up to your reference 

[GrayTech]

Keep in mind that the 6GB version of the GTX 1060 has more CUDA cores then the 3GB one! So the GTX 1060 6GB is a faster GPU which also has more memory compared to the GTX 1060 3GB.

[pyrojoe34]

Definitely stick with 6GB. My 4GB 980 runs out of VRAM all the time at 1080p and 1440p. Games have become much more RAM hungry in the last couple years than they used to be (which should surprise no one). A modern card with less than 4GB is not a good choice and 6+ is what I would recommend to aim for to get at least a little more life out of it in the coming years. Not only that but the 6GB version is also a faster card independent of the VRAM (more cores) so it's a better choice. IMO the 3GB 1060 card just shouldn't exist

[faziten]

With 3GB you will be hitting VRAM limit most of the times in 1440p with post 2013 games. Not every game, of course, but its a trend, and will be worse with time.

Industry seem to be targeting 4gb VRAM, but this is not to say having less will necessarily be worse, if that was the case then a 1050Ti should outperform 1060 3GB in games that actually need more than 3GB of VRAM and it's not happening. Sadly, this is highly dependent on the game.

Theory says games should pull from RAM the rest of what they need, since PCI e x16 has about 15GB/s speeds, they should stutter, but you never know how bad it will be until you play. Maybe the game texture streaming is terrific and you never notice. Maybe the game handles like shit this VRAM shortage and you start see popping, stutter and micro freezes. Who knows.  

 

There are many cases of games asking for too much doing too little about it like CoD Advanced Warfare. It will fill 8GB VRAM with ease but if you only give 2GB it behaves exactly the same... making us believe it "reserves" the VRAM even if it does not need to make USE of it. Other games like Doom or Mirrors edge, stutter like hell or refuse to let you set it past certain texture quality as a security measure. I remember Brian from techYesCity having serious texture downsampling while playing with 4GB VRAM GPUs agains 6 or 8GB VRAM gpus. This case is out of scale i know, but take it just as an example of what may happen. 

 

For future re-selling price and "proofing", just don't buy the 1060 3gb, it was not meant for 1440p. 580 8GB would be nice if we could actually find any at a reasonable price.