GTX 1060 3GB or RX480 4GB

[nclr11111]

So i´m still buying components to the neighbours son as a christmas present.
Most things are decided (just waiting for Black Friday) but i´m having trouble deciding if i´m going to go green or red...

My initial thought was nvidia since 1060 seems to deliver more bang for buck and produce less heat due to lower TDP, but it might be somewhat crippled by the lesser amount of RAM (3GB vs 4GB)!?

The 480 on the other hand has more RAM and AMD GPU´s tend to deliver better performance over time with better drivers where nvidia usually is pretty static in performance. On the other hand the TDP is higher with more heat being produced and requires a bigger PSU.

Both the heat and higher TDP are probably a non issue since it will be mounted in a well ventilated chassi (Phanteks Eclipse P400S) and an EVGA GQ 650 as PSU no matter what GPU i choose. The price is more or less the same between the two which makes it even harder to decide.

Gaming will be FPS and MMORPG@1080P so no gaming at higher resolutions....

The rest of the components are:
Mobo: MSI Z77A-G45
CPU: i5 3570K @ +4GHz
Ram: 8-16GB DDR3 @1600Mhz (Not bought yet)
GPU: RX 480 or GTX 1060
SSD and HDD
CPU Cooler: PHANTEKS PH-TC14S
PSU: EVGA GQ 650w
Chassi: Phanteks Eclipse P400S
Monitor: ASUS VX248H

So i´m basically mostly interested in what your choice would be and why!?

 

[koko]

I am an ATI/AMD Fan, so basicly, just because I like ATI

I think they are basicly the same ?

 

[SHvFl]

1060 is better and you will not pass the 3gb on 1080 on most games. The question is do you believe the 1060 will keep up on dx12 games and how many games will be made in dx12 before you change the card.
My answer to that is who cares. Nvidia will figure something to keep up and by the time all games are dx12 the card will perform bad anw and will need replacing.

 

[BoraMurdar]

RX 480 will perform better, but with unnoticeable margin, and in irrelevant percent of games. I follow the GPU world for a long time and I never have seen two cards performing so similar in terms of power, noise, thermals. So objectively you can get whatever you find cheaper. Personally I would go with RX 480, just because GTX 1060 3GB is a crippled version in terms of memory and CUDA cores. RX 480 4GB is only crippled in memory part.

 

[Exterminator]

Price wise I prefer Nvidia as I think you get more bang for the buck.
I think you also get more power with Nvidia as one new Nvidia 1080 is equivalent to using 2 980's.
AMD drivers are readily available at any time and you do not have to install any bloatware for lack of a better term.
The heat issues really are a moot point in a well ventialted case.
I have always used Nvidia so I would personally opt for the 1060 but when you strip them all down I think don't think either one is better than the other.
Voted Nvidia because I have always used them and have never had any issues.

 

[XIII]

Here's what I got from a stickied reddit post on r/buildapc verbatim.

Is the 1060 cheaper? Get the 1060.
Is the 480 cheaper? Get the 480.
Like the 1060 aesthetics more? Get the 1060.
Like the 480 aesthetics more? Get the 480.

I've seen this question asked many times, and it comes down to brand preference and aesthetic preference. Performance are near identical. If you play any games that are known to have better dedicated drivers with a specific brand, get that one.

Myself, I've owned about 5 AMD cards and 3 Nvidia cards, and I've greatly preferred Nvidia.

 

[BoraMurdar]

On these specs

• Intel Core i7-6700K @ 4.50 GHz (Skylake)
• Asrock Z170 Z170 Extreme7+
• 32GB (4x8GB) DDR4-3000
• Samsung SSD 850 Pro 2TB
• Silverstone Strider Series ST1000-G Evolution
• AMD Crimson Edition 16.8.2 Hotfix
• Nvidia GeForce Game Ready Driver 372.54
• Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

These two cards will perform almost the same according to Techspot, from game to game, from Vulkan to OpenGL (keep in mind that RX 480 4GB performs the same like RX 480 8GB on 1080p resolution)

Spoiler: Benchmarks

Choosing between 1060 and RX 480 is no better than flipping a coin. Heads or tails

 

[PauloXBR]

I'm a fan of AMD, but seriously, if you ever intend to use 2 vga's the RX 480 supports Crosfirex, the 1060 does not support SLI. Otherwise take the cheaper one.
You don't consider taking the 6gb (GTX1060) or 8gb (RX 480) vram?

 

[XIII]

I'm a fan of AMD, but seriously, if you ever intend to use 2 vga's the RX 480 supports Crosfirex, the 1060 does not support SLI. Otherwise take the cheaper one.
You don't consider taking the 6gb (GTX1060) or 8gb (RX 480) vram?

For a 1080p @ 50/60Hz monitor, as mentioned by @BoraMurdar and others, it will perform the same regardless of the RAM difference.
Last time I used CFX (7870 XT Tahiti LE w/ Boost), it was so bad that I got better performance by removing 1 card entirely. Stronger single card will always be less hassle than relying on 2 individual parts to power your graphics.

 

[BoraMurdar]

You don't consider taking the 6gb (GTX1060) or 8gb (RX 480) vram?

He probably doesn't as card is needed for playing in no higher than 1080p resolution.

 

[nclr11111]

I'm a fan of AMD, but seriously, if you ever intend to use 2 vga's the RX 480 supports Crosfirex, the 1060 does not support SLI. Otherwise take the cheaper one.
You don't consider taking the 6gb (GTX1060) or 8gb (RX 480) vram?

Well, no! Not that i wouldn´t like one myself but the boys budget won´t allow an extra $80-100 for a 6 or 8GB version. And since gaming is only going to be in 1080 it seems a bit overkill!?

He probably doesn't as card is needed for playing in no higher than 1080p resolution.

Correct!

Thx all for your thoughts! I think i´ll do as i intended in the first place and take the one that´s cheapest on Black Friday!
Never owned a AMD GPU myself and have always been satisfied with nvidia but it seems to be stupid not to take them into consideration since i´m guessing AMD´s card is what´s going to be the cheapest on BF since they´re not selling all that good here in Sweden...

 

[TheJokerz]

I would go AMD all the way! I have only ever ran AMD GPU's and love them. I guess this is a little bias because I have never bought a Nvidia card before. Although I did have one in my laptop and never had any issues with it.

 

[Exterminator]

Considering that both are excellent GPU's and what they are going to used for I would go with the best priced one also.
The only difference you are really going to notice is in your wallet.

 

[Exterminator]

Bump:
This might help you decide
PSA: Nvidia Game Ready 375.86 drivers cause massive performance issues

 

[nclr11111]

Bump:
This might help you decide
PSA: Nvidia Game Ready 375.86 drivers cause massive performance issues

Hehe. Yeah, I saw that. A little bit M$ over the whole thing.... AMD also have an interesting track record of bad drivers if one look to the history. But the cheapest on BF is what it'll be!

 

[songoku316]

both cards are very similars in performance but RX480 have better directx12 and vulkan support and freesync is free Nvidia gsync monitors
are very expensive for that reason i prefer the RX480

 

[SHvFl]

Bump:
This might help you decide
PSA: Nvidia Game Ready 375.86 drivers cause massive performance issues

They will fix it in max 48h like they did a few releases back when they failed again.

 

[Malware Man]

I may be a bit biased.

I love my 1060 in my new laptop. It plays games I play wonderfully on high or ultra (the witcher 3, GTA 5, rise of the tomb raider, the sims 4, etc).

My previous laptop had a 970m in it which is considerably weaker and I was happy with that but the 1060 is perfect for my needs since I only play at 1080p.

Nvidia closed the gaps with the 10 series between desktop and laptop performance which is amazing. Laptop 1060 performs around 10% or less than the desktop card.

I don't know much on AMD. I've been using Intel and Nvidia hardware for most my computing life.

AMD processors are weak. Their GPUs are pretty powerful but nvidia beats them in performance. AMD may be a bit cheaper.

My friend just built a desktop with a 1060 in it and he is loving it.

Oh I should mention that my 1060 has 6gb of VRAM instead of 3gb.