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MajorRawne

Doom on a GTX 1060?

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Greetings gents. I am wanting to buy a new graphics card for Doom and other games. I don't want to break the bank now that mid-range cards are becoming competitive against higher-end models.

Can anyone give me an unbiased opinion: for running today's games at very good quality at an attractive resolution, would a GTX 1060 be good enough? Would it require overclocking? Or are AMD the way to go? Reviews appear to indicate the 1060 renders the 970 obsolete and the 980 a pointless expense?

Other games I'd like to play would be Fallout 4, 7 Days to Die and World of Tanks, all at the best quality possible. And if that lot isn't stingy enough, it would need to be useful for a few years to come, just like my trusty GTX 460 has been.

Thank you in advance!

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I just got a GTX 1060 and at 1080p with everything on High (using Vulkan, although I don't think that matters much) I'm getting frame rates pretty consistently in the 80s or 90s in D44m. I'm not even sure I'm GPU limited either - MSI Afterburner shows the card only running at 60% or 70% power usage.

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Linguica said:

I just got a GTX 1060 and at 1080p with everything on High (using Vulkan, although I don't think that matters much) I'm getting frame rates pretty consistently in the 80s or 90s in D44m. I'm not even sure I'm GPU limited either - MSI Afterburner shows the card only running at 60% or 70% power usage.


Do you like the game?

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Thanks for the replies. Looks like the GTX 1060 really does live up to its hype.

It seems hard to believe the GTX 1060 is priced the same as the 970 and appears to thrash it on performance - it seems too good to be true. What exactly is the point of the 970, 980, 1070 and 1080 (and AMD equivalents) unless you're some kind of super-hardcore gamer?

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MajorRawne said:

What exactly is the point of the 970, 980, 1070 and 1080 (and AMD equivalents) unless you're some kind of super-hardcore gamer?


I don't know about 'hardcore' but it's nice to be able to run anything maxed out at a solid framerate.

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MajorRawne said:

Thanks for the replies. Looks like the GTX 1060 really does live up to its hype.

It seems hard to believe the GTX 1060 is priced the same as the 970 and appears to thrash it on performance - it seems too good to be true. What exactly is the point of the 970, 980, 1070 and 1080 (and AMD equivalents) unless you're some kind of super-hardcore gamer?


It's not about being a super ultra hardcore gamer, it's about saving money an 1080 seems more expensive than a 1060 but in the long term, the 1080 will be able to run games in the future where the 1060 will struggle.

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It seems like it would be better value to buy the 1060, enjoy playing games in the best possible quality, then in say 4 years time buy another high performance mid-range card.

The 1060 is currently between £230-300. The 1080 is over £600. The 1080 will also become obsolete some day. It seems better to spend £250 now, then £250 in 4-5 years, than £600 now, then £600 in 5-6 years.

I just wanna DOOM. :P

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If you think it's the better value go for it. But the 1080 will outlive the 1060 by a good #. Then again it's a personal choice.
For example, when it comes to desktop i will stick with AMD bot CPU and GPU, my last Nvidia was a 6800 after AMD got ATI, i'm using AMD only.
Been using AMD since K6 they never failed me and the price usually is cheaper than Intel / Nvidia. For me AMD is a better value than Intel but when it comes to facts, intel products are better.

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That's what I've been reading: AMD offers considerable bang for the buck, while Intel can offer higher performance but you have to pay for it. It will be a very difficult choice as my AMD Phenom II black edition has been brilliant and (apparently) doesn't need upgrading or overclocking yet.

I am choosing to stick with Nvidia for the GPU because of the price/performance of the 1060, but also because my GTX 460 is still working today, probably 6 years after I bought it. That gives confidence that the 1060 should still (hopefully) be ok in future, particularly as I'm not interested in 4K or whatever.

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GTX 1060 is a great card for Doom, should max it out at high resolutions no problem. My brother has one and he has zero issues hitting >60fps at 2560x1440, Ultra quality.

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MajorRawne said:

That's what I've been reading: AMD offers considerable bang for the buck, while Intel can offer higher performance but you have to pay for it. It will be a very difficult choice as my AMD Phenom II black edition has been brilliant and (apparently) doesn't need upgrading or overclocking yet.


Actually that's not really true. AMD CPUs are cheap, but their performance is nowhere close to what Intel's chips offer, particularly for games. An 8-core AMD FX chip is routinely thrashed by a cheap dual core Intel Core i3 in games.

Intel just has processors at a wide range of price points, from prices similar to AMD's all the way to much higher priced products because its performance is so much higher.

Check this out:



A $60 dual core Pentium G4400 performs just as well as AMD's $160 octa-core FX-8350 in Doom. Intel's CPU architectures are just miles and miles ahead of anything AMD has produced in a long time.

For gaming, don't even think about buying a new AMD CPU right now. If you have a budget in mind let me know, and I'll give you a recommendation for what to buy.

I am choosing to stick with Nvidia for the GPU because of the price/performance of the 1060, but also because my GTX 460 is still working today, probably 6 years after I bought it. That gives confidence that the 1060 should still (hopefully) be ok in future, particularly as I'm not interested in 4K or whatever.


The 1060 is great -- it's much more efficient than the equivalent AMD offering, it's generally faster, has more overclocking headroom, and the price difference is literally on the order of like $10.

RX 480 - $240 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131692&cm_re=rx_480-_-14-131-692-_-Product)

GTX 1060 - $250 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487260&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-Veeralava%20LLC-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=6202798&SID=)

Performance per dollar on the 1060 (if you buy at $249) is higher for the 1060 than for the RX 480 as you can see here:



And in terms of power efficiency it's not even a contest:



There's little reason to buy an RX 480, IMO, if you can get a GTX 1060.

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Linguica said:

I just got a GTX 1060 and at 1080p with everything on High (using Vulkan, although I don't think that matters much) I'm getting frame rates pretty consistently in the 80s or 90s in D44m. I'm not even sure I'm GPU limited either - MSI Afterburner shows the card only running at 60% or 70% power usage.

When you say High do you include any Ultra settings? I'm fairly certain this card will completely max out all options with frames over 60fps at all times. Hope so anyway, cause I'm waiting for the MSI 1060 to come in stock so I can snag one myself.

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MajorRawne said:

It seems hard to believe the GTX 1060 is priced the same as the 970 and appears to thrash it on performance


I wouldn't say it trashes the 970, but yeah there's no point to buy a last gen card anymore

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MrDeAD1313 said:

When you say High do you include any Ultra settings? I'm fairly certain this card will completely max out all options with frames over 60fps at all times. Hope so anyway, cause I'm waiting for the MSI 1060 to come in stock so I can snag one myself.


What resolution? At 1080p, 1060 should be able to handle ultra at 60fps+.

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MrDeAD1313 said:

When you say High do you include any Ultra settings?

No, everything is on High because I'd rather get the slightly higher framerates than the extremely minimal graphical improvement going from High to Ultra.

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Linguica said:

No, everything is on High because I'd rather get the slightly higher framerates than the extremely minimal graphical improvement going from High to Ultra.


What resolution are you playing at?

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Plasma Gun said:

What resolution are you playing at?

Well my screen is 1440p but I have it downscaled a bit to 80% or 85%.

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Linguica said:

Well my screen is 1440p but I have it downscaled a bit to 80% or 85%.


Try running it without downscaling. 1060 should be more than capable of playing this game at full 1440p @ high settings. I actually think Ultra will be fine too.

Also, have you tried overclocking it?

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Linguica said:

I have a 144hz monitor so getting significantly more than 60 fps is actually relevant to me.


Ohh, ok. For sure. I erroneously assumed you were running a 60Hz monitor.

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Thanks for the replies, and Plasma Gun, thanks for the excellent information. Before I ask about overclocking etc, another question about GPUs.

What exactly is the difference between a GTX card eg the 1060, and the "Gaming" version of said card? I realise there is a higher clock speed and different cooling, but in most cases the premium for the Gaming card is at least a hundred pounds of the realm, and benchmark tests show only a 1-2 fps improvement over the "standard" version.

The 1060 Gaming is not far from 1070 territory price wise and the 1070 seems to trounce it on performance. (Trounce, what a word!)

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A "Gaming" version generally comes factory-overclocked. If you're a tech nerd you can almost certainly get an equivalent overclocking on a standard card using a tool like MSI Afterburner.

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MetroidJunkie said:

In other words, it's just a way to squeeze extra money out of people who aren't nuanced enough to know how to overclock it themselves.


Mostly yes, but often times these board makers will cherry pick the best chips and sell them as part of their higher end board offerings.

I wouldn't pay extra for it, though. Buy the cheapest 1060 you can find.

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Sounds like a rip-off then. I managed to overclock my GTX 460 in MSI afterburner (original clock => overclock):

(MHz)
GPU Clock: 648 => 835
Memory Clock: 850 => 988
Shader: 1296 => 1670

(mV)
Core Voltage: 987 => 1075

I initially had the Memory Clock up to 1000 but weird artefacts appeared in the Unigine Valley benchmark. The one with the creepy music. Trying to raise the Core Clock beyond 835 makes the screen go black during benchmarking. On Ultra settings, I got the following:

EDIT: Resolution 1920 x 1080, VSync "Off"

Standard Best:
FPS: 22.1
Score: 924
Max FPS: 40.4
Min FPS: 11.7

OC Best:
FPS: 28.5
Score: 1194
Max FPS: 51.1
Min FPS: 15.4

The graphics seemed much sharper and more "professional", more photorealistic, at the higher clock. It seems that FPS isn't the only result of overclocking, as horsepower isn't the only result of remapping a car. The performance is enhanced in ways the figures simply cannot show.

Both benchmark tests seemed relatively smooth. 22 FPS isn't much, but I could comfortably play Doom at the speed the landscape was scrolling, and bear in mind this is an 8 year old card running a fairly up to date benchmark on its highest setting.

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MajorRawne said:

Sounds like a rip-off then. I managed to overclock my GTX 460 in MSI afterburner (original clock => overclock):

(MHz)
GPU Clock: 648 => 835
Memory Clock: 850 => 988
Shader: 1296 => 1670

(mV)
Core Voltage: 987 => 1075

I initially had the Memory Clock up to 1000 but weird artefacts appeared in the Unigine Valley benchmark. The one with the creepy music. Trying to raise the Core Clock beyond 835 makes the screen go black during benchmarking. On Ultra settings, I got the following:

EDIT: Resolution 1920 x 1080, VSync "Off"

Standard Best:
FPS: 22.1
Score: 924
Max FPS: 40.4
Min FPS: 11.7

OC Best:
FPS: 28.5
Score: 1194
Max FPS: 51.1
Min FPS: 15.4

The graphics seemed much sharper and more "professional", more photorealistic, at the higher clock. It seems that FPS isn't the only result of overclocking, as horsepower isn't the only result of remapping a car. The performance is enhanced in ways the figures simply cannot show.

Both benchmark tests seemed relatively smooth. 22 FPS isn't much, but I could comfortably play Doom at the speed the landscape was scrolling, and bear in mind this is an 8 year old card running a fairly up to date benchmark on its highest setting.


Overclocking is fun :)

That being said, I do think you should grab the 1060. The 460 is a venerable card, one of NVIDIA's best, but it's time to retire it if you want to really enjoy Doom IMO.

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I am getting a new GPU soonish (once MSY re stock) and well for me the RX480 Seems like it would work better being the stronger card in the long run. Though I Ask is it easy going from NVidia to AMD?

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Plasma Gun said:

Mostly yes, but often times these board makers will cherry pick the best chips and sell them as part of their higher end board offerings.

I wouldn't pay extra for it, though. Buy the cheapest 1060 you can find.

And don't forget the "custom" colors and extra paraphernalia...

I don't know how it is in the US, but at least where i live. XFX brand is quite crappy.

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