Overclocking The Asus Strix GTX 1060 6GB OC (STRIX-GTX1060-DC2O6G)

[Void Stryder]

The Equipment:

GPU: Asus Strix GTX 1060 6GB OC

RAM: ADATA Premier Series 8GB DDR4-2400

CPU: Intel Core i3-8100 3.6GHz

Software: Asus GPUTweak II

 

What's the point of overclocking a 1060?

The GTX 1060, although a great graphics card, will age, and in maybe 2 years, you won't be able to crank up the settings to max and run games 1080p@60fps, the purpose is to improve FPS in those games. I'll use Batman Arkham Knight as an example, the game is really badly optimized and I got about 40-50fps while gliding around Gotham and an average of 55fps in the built-in benchmark. That's not really butter smooth is it? And that's with NVidia GameWorks fog off! This kind of game is what motivated me to overclock my chip.

 

The Stock Clocks:

Spoiler

The GPU comes factory overclock, as you can see the boost clock is higher than what the GTX 1060 6GB-FE comes with so we already have a small boost, but we're not here about that at all. I won't waste time boring you with the details about this.

 

The Overclock & Fan Curve:

Spoiler

The overclock I've made here is pretty damn heavy (especially the memory clocks) and it does provide a noticeable performance boost. I've added a 100 to the voltage to make sure it's stable and have a relatively aggressive fan curve so it stays cool, even while playing games the highest temperature I got was about 70°C. If you're looking for a performance boost in newer games and happen to have a GTX 1060, overclocking it would be a good idea. 

 

Benchmarks:

 

3DMark FireStrike:

As my first test, I used the very well-known and widely used 3DMark FireStrike. Synthetic benchmarks don't provide any representation of actual games but it's a good way to test stability and see what kind of performance boost you might get. The results were as follows:

 

Stock Clocks:

Spoiler

The stock clocks gave a pretty decent result, nothing special but good for a gaming rig, could've been better if I had a better processor but they're fine.

 

Overclocked:

Spoiler

The overclock's performance in this test surprised me, my fps in the Graphics Test went from 57fps to nearly 69fps! This was a massive boost over the stock clocks! It immediately becomes clear that overclocking the 1060 is profitable.

 

The Verdict:

The GTX 1060 6GB is a solid card and the overclocking potential is very high. I would recommend everyone to recommend their 1060's to future-proof them because they won't always be able to max out most games at 1080p.

 

[Fasauceome]

3 minutes ago, Void Stryder said:

Batman Arkham Knight as an example, the game is really badly optimized and I got about 40-50fps while gliding around Gotham and an average of 55fps in the built-in benchmark.

Did you check usage? It's possible that your CPU was holding you back here. It is only an i3 after all.

[Void Stryder]

15 hours ago, fasauceome said:

Did you check usage? It's possible that your CPU was holding you back here. It is only an i3 after all.

CPU usage sits pretty high, it's generally the game being badly optimized and the fact that I run stuff in the background, coupled with the fact that I run the game on an HDD, although that shouldn't have an effect on fps.

 

[Fasauceome]

7 hours ago, Void Stryder said:

fact that I run the game on an HDD, although that shouldn't have an effect on fps

There are fringe cases where it does actually give stuttering

[Void Stryder]

Hmm, I'll try running it on my SSD later, see if it gives an improvement