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RX 480 8GB vs. GTX 1060 6GB - Battle of the Mid-Range Contenders!

2016-10-03
the time has come the time when I must finally benchmark the Ark's 488 gigabyte and gtx 1066 qi board partner cards head-to-head picking up where the previous msi RX 474 gig vs. msi gtx 1063 gear graphics card left off we now have the battle of the serious mid-range contenders for those of you paying attention you'll know the RX 488 gigabyte card features an MSRP of 240 dollars on the gtx 1066 GUI packs are slightly more pricey $250 MSRP sadly to the dismay of would-be buyers neither are readily available the suggested manufacturer prices both of the RX 418 gtx 1060 gaming ex models are priced at 290 u.s. at present and as aziz are paying around $450 ever site does offer cheaper gtx 1060 models such as the 6 GTO c4 260 but for the sake of this comparison we're trying to compare the cards as evenly matched as possible so with two very similarly priced gaming X cards on hand let's get to the benchmarks and see what's what kickstart in the benchmarks we're going to look at half a dozen low-level api titles using DirectX 12 and Vulcan first up we have total war Warhammer supporting DX 12 and here the 480 enjoyed a for FPS advantage over the 1060 making in videos offering 7% slower here hit man's a game is strongly favored AMD hardware near the DirectX 11 or DirectX 12 modes so low-level API support certainly isn't the winning factor here still the 480 was 5 FPS faster making the 10 69 percent slower ashes of the singularity is one of the best examples of a DirectX 12 game as it was built from the ground up to take advantage of this modern API interestingly both the 480 and 1060 delivered the same 48 FPS average here when using the extreme quality preset Deus Ex mankind divided has had DirectX 12 support patched in so take from that what you will it certainly isn't a native DirectX 12 title regardless the 480 s massive win in this title doesn't come from the DX 12 support as it also crushes the 1060 when using dx11 mankind divided is an AMD supported title and as such has been designed to suit the red team's Hardware nicely rise of the Tomb Raider is another game defeated patched in DirectX 12 support however this is an Nvidia supporter title and surprise surprise the green team comes out well on top here the 10 60 average 60 4 FPS to the 480 s 58 FPS making the 10 60 some 10% faster of the low-level API games tested Doom is the only one that genuinely favors AMD due to the use of the low-level API whereas the 10 60 performs much the same using OpenGL and Vulcan the 480 comes from nowhere with OpenGL to dominate using Vulcan that said it's worth keeping in mind that although the 1060 was 9 percent slower did average over 100 FPS of 1440p with the game virtually maxed out so that was very playable performance - ok so now it's time to check out the DirectX 11 titles which in 2016 still dominate the market the recently released Mirror's Edge catalyst is a perfect example of this here the 1060 was slightly faster providing 4 FPS more on average which was 9% performance advantage The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt sees the 1060 and 480 deliver the same 54 FPS result at 1440p interestingly neither a much faster than the cheaper 3q by 1060 here just 4 FPS on average separates them AMD struggles with the minimum frame rate in Star Wars Battlefront and again we see that here with the 480 the 1060 was 7% faster on average was 17% faster when comparing the minimum frame rate Tom Clancy's the division is another DirectX 11 title where the 480 and 1060 come out neck-and-neck this time with 48 FPS each interestingly the 480 came out on top when testing with Batman Arkham Knight as the 1060 was 5 percent slower Middle Earth shadow of Mordor provided competitive results here the 1060 was just 3 FPS faster handing it a 5 percent performance advantage something we found interesting in our 470 versus 10 63 gigabyte comparison was the fact that although the 470 was crushed by the 1060 in overwatch when comparing the average frame rate the minimums were exactly the same well once again we find a similar story when comparing the 1066 ki baatain 480 the 1060 was 12% faster when comparing the average frame rate but just 2% faster when comparing the minimum making in videos when here far less substantial performance was again very even in Far Cry primal 1060 was just 4% faster making for a very even fight the 1060 was 7% faster and Assassin's Creed syndicate though this did translate to just 4 FPS more on average so another close battle then Grand Theft Auto 5 weighed heavily in the 3d by 10 60s favored over the 417 and we find it again favors in video when comparing the six key by 1060 and 480 here the 1060 was 11% faster delivering 83 fps compared to 75 FPS for the 480 due to popular demand I've made sure to include ARMA 3 though it has to be said the game provides less than competitive results here the 1060 was 50% faster than the 480 this certainly isn't the norm and you won't see any other results quite like this I'm not sure why the AMD GPUs suck so bad in this title it's actually a real shame the RX 480 doesn't fare particularly well in Crysis 3 delivering just a few extra frames over the 470 this meant it wasn't just slower than the 60 by 1060 but also the 3 gigabyte model as well another game where the three gigabyte 1060 outpaced the 480 was dirt rally here the 6 gig 1060 enjoyed a 14% performance advantage with 75 FPS a postive is 66 fps yet another title where the three gig 1060 trumped the 4 idea was fallout 4 here the 6 gig 1060 was 12% faster averaging 66 FPS while the 480 averaged 59 fps like Star Wars Battlefront we find that although the 480 is much slower in Just Cause 3 when comparing the average frame rate it's a good bit slower when looking at the minimums finally we have Mad Max and like dirt rally we find strong frame rates from both the 480 and 1060 though NVIDIA does have a clear performance advantage in this title in fact whereas the 1060 was 14% faster in dirt rally it's 20% faster here power consumption for the MSI 1066 gig in our X 480 a key gaming X cards is in line with what we saw from the 1063 gig and our X 470 gaming X bottles the slightly higher n6q 1060 and our X 480 consumes slightly more power and of course this meant the 1060 was quite a bit more efficient the margins were much the same when testing with Far Cry primal Deus Ex mankind divided and dirt rally okay so before wrapping things up let's take a quick look at a few performance breakdowns starting with the director eleven titles we have results from 16 games here the six gigabyte gtx 1060 was an average temperature faster than the RX 480 not a huge marginal although it did swing in videos favor the cards did at times trade blows during the game with the RX fried he came out on top was Batman Arkham Knight though if we tested hitman a Deus Ex mankind divided using DirectX 11 and II would have one here as well still there are a few quality titles such as The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt and Tom Clancy's the division where both GPUs provided the same performance moving to the low-level API games we find very different results here the 1060 was an average 5 percent slower though you have to really look at these results to get a clearer picture of what's going on here as I said earlier ashes that the singularity is the best quality DirectX 12 game of the bunch and here the 480 in 1060 actually delivered exactly the same performance then we have doom where the 1060 was nice and slower though that results also a little misleading for a few reasons firstly the 1060 performs just as well use in Vulcan as it does OpenGL so you could easily argue that the maximum efficiency is being achieved without the need for low-level API also worth noting here is the dismal OpenGL performance of the Radeon graphics card making the Vulcan performance look even more impressive still there's no denying the doom with its Vulcan support is a great game for showcasing AMD's hardware and the results are truly impressive it's also worth noting that although the 1060 was 9% slower in this title it still provide a highly playable performance and the difference certainly won't be noticeable when gaming the 1060 loses in total war Warhammer and although this is an AMD supporter title I feel this is a fair win the big hits from video are seen in hitman and Deus Ex mankind divided though as I pointed out earlier claiming these victories down to the DirectX 12 support isn't correct the rx 40 will trounce the 1060 in both these titles even when using DirectX 11 the low-level API support has nothing to do with the wind scene here likewise rise of the Tomb Raider is a game that favors in video Hardware regardless of the API used another DirectX 12 title that it didn't have time to add to this video but have started testing is forza horizon 3 so far from what I've seen the RX 480 and gtx 1060 are very evenly matched in this title with neither having a notice performance advantage so as I've said time and time again the jury is still out for me on which GPU will provide the best performance going forward I still suspect that we'll see a fair share of DirectX 12 titles that favoring video Hardware with a good number that also favor AMD hardware hopefully they'll also be plenty like for in ashes of the singularity that run great on either manufacturers hardware the low-level API sample games featured in this review I feel a quite skewed and don't paint an accurate picture of what's to come the results from games such as hitman Deus Ex mankind dividing rise of the Tomb Raider really need to be taken with a grain of salt given the developer bias if you're after the fastest GPU for playing games right now the GTX 1060 does come out on top as of a 6% faster on average when tallying up all 22 games tested the 1060 is also significantly more efficient allowing to run cooler and quieter still the AR X 480 does have plenty of strengths and without question the future looks brighter right now this makes choosing between the two extremely difficult frankly I would pick based on the games I intend to play and of course whichever comes at the best price right now the gaming X models seem to retail you for roughly the same price in the US and Australia but pricing could vary in other regions the hope is if I've done my job correctly that you should now have all the facts and figures allowing you to make an informed purchase which one are you going to go with let me know in the comments I'm your host Matt as always and I'll see you guys next time cheers guys for joining me for another episode of Hardware on box to those of you that already support the channel thank you so much it's truly appreciated and those of you that would like to support the channel directly I do have Amazon links and a patreon link in the video description below thanks a lot and I'll see you guys next time
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