Battle of the mainstream cards: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 shootout (Updated)

Shootout updated on 11 October 2016: Originally published on 28th August with three contenders, we've now added in cards from Palit and Zotac for a more comprehensive survey of the available options. Our findings and conclusion have also been updated to award a victor for this comparison.

PC gamers are truly spoilt for choice these days. For all the news about the latest and upcoming consoles from both Sony and Microsoft, there’s still no beating the sheer variety – not to mention performance – that’s available to PC gamers.

Furthermore, NVIDIA’s Pascal cards represent one of the starkest improvements in performance over the previous generation in a while. The GeForce GTX x60 cards have long been a bastion of mainstream performance, so while they offered fairly good value for money, there was a silent acknowledgement that you couldn’t expect too much out of them either. For instance, probably no gaming at resolutions beyond 1080p.

That’s changed now with the GeForce GTX 1060, which quite literally redefines what we think mainstream performance means. With performance more or less on par with the GeForce GTX 980 – one of the previous generation’s flagships – it’s no longer fair to think of mainstream cards as delivering generally mediocre performance.

As is usual, manufacturers have chimed in with their own custom takes on the card. This means more powerful cooling solutions, additional power phases, and factory overclocks, all of which translate into a slight performance edge over the Founders Edition model.

But which card to choose? To that end, we’ve rounded up the very best cards from ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, Palit, and Zotac and pit them against each other. When it comes to custom cards, things like cooling performance and build quality matter even more, and it’s not simply about which has the highest clock speed. Read on as we dissect each option!

ASUS ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1060 OC

The design of the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1060 OC hews close to that on ASUS’ other Pascal-based ROG Strix cards. This means a stealthy, all-black cooling shroud that can look almost boring. We say look, because the card actually comes alive once you plug it in, with LED lights on the cooling shroud and on its side. These are part of ASUS’ Aura RGB feature set, and can be customized using the Aura utility (more on that later).

Suffice to say, don’t judge the card on its looks before you’ve plugged it in. Here's a glimpse of how it looks when lighted up on the ASUS product page:-

This is the OC edition of the card, so it comes with especially aggressive factory overclocks. With a 1,645MHz base clock and 1,873MHz boost clock in OC mode, this is the highest clocked card in our shootout. In comparison, the MSI and Gigabyte card feature a 1,594MHz and 1,620MHz base clock in OC mode respectively.

To deal with the faster speeds, ASUS has gone with its own DirectCU III cooling solution with triple wing-blade fans. If you’ve spent any time at all observing the graphics card industry, you’ll notice that pretty much most brands have their own name for their own fan designs. The implementation always ends up looking different, but the object is the same – quieter operation and higher air flow.

We also set the fans to work at full speed to see how noisy they could get. While they do get fairly audible, the tone was less annoying than the Gigabyte card when running at maximum speed. With that said, the fans won’t run at full speed as often during regular use, and when you add on the sound insulation that comes from installing the card in a case (we used ours on an open test bench), you shouldn’t have to worry about noise at all.

When put to the test, the DirectCU III cooler performs quite well. In fact, it put in the best performance in this shootout, so you shouldn’t worry that the higher factory overclocks will lead to toastier temperatures.

The heatsink spans nearly the entire length of the card, and is as chunky as it can go without encroaching into triple-slot card territory. There are a total of five direct contact heatpipes between the GPU baseplate and the heatsink, and you might even argue that this is overkill – albeit in a good way – for a 120 watt card. The beefy heatsink is the same one used on the ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1070. This means that the card has a decent degree of passive cooling capabilities to fall back on before switching to active cooling, which allows the semi-passive fans to remain idle for longer.

The PCB utilizes a 6+1 phase power design, an upgrade from the original 3+1 phase power delivery system on the Founders Edition card. It certainly looks like ASUS has over built the card this time, and that’s actually the case with the cards from Gigabyte and MSI as well (no, we aren’t complaining). Because of the limits NVIDIA has placed on the card’s 120 watt TDP and overvoltage settings, the card will not run anywhere close to the limits of the 6+1 phase system.

Another standout feature is ASUS’ FanConnect technology, which takes the form of two 4-pin fan headers located at the tailend of the card. ASUS is currently the only brand to offer this feature, and it allows you to connect two chassis fans to the GPU and peg them to the GPU’s temperature instead of the CPU. This is a neat idea – it makes sense as GPUs are usually the single largest source of heat in any chassis (especially when it's at load), even if there isn’t exactly a pressing need for it.

Like most custom cards, ASUS has also beefed-up the power draw capabilities of the card, replacing the 6-pin PCIe header on the Founders Edition model with an 8-pin one and bringing the total available power draw up to 225 watts from 150 watts. This theoretically gives more overclocking headroom, and a white status LED indicator will light up if a successful connection has been established. This will come in useful when troubleshooting as it lets you rule out loose power connectors as the problem.

In addition, ASUS has made some changes to the usual selection of display connectors. One of the DisplayPort connectors has been replaced with an HDMI port, so you get two of each type of connector, plus one further DVI port. This is mainly a design decision motivated by convenience as you can now connect both a VR headset and HDMI display at the same time without needing to hunt for a different cable or adapter.

Finally, there’s the usual software bundle to help you squeeze out the most from the card. The Aura lighting control utility is nothing special, and offers the run-of-the-mill options for color control and effects. A separate GPU Tweak II software lets you switch between Silent, Gaming and OC modes, and provides access to several overclocking controls like voltage, power targets, and clock speeds.

The interface is straightforward enough to use, and first-timers should have little trouble navigating and getting things to work.

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1060 G1 Gaming

We actually like the look of the Gigabyte card the most. With a black shroud and bright orange accents, the card manages to ooze gamer cred while still being quite tasteful.

It can go as high as a 1,620MHz base clock and 1,847MHz boost clock in OC mode, but there’s a lower clocked Gaming mode with a 1,594MHz base clock and 1,809MHz boost clock if you prefer slightly quieter operation. Here’s a snapshot of the card’s specifications:

The WindForce 2X cooler comprises two 90mm fans that spin in alternate directions. According to Gigabyte, this can reduce air turbulence and help dissipate heat more effectively. Each fan also has Gigabyte’s signature ridged design, complete with more pronounced fan edges, that Gigabyte says helps to boost air flow.

However, compared to the WindForce 3X cooler on the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 G1 Gaming, the WindForce 2X has scaled back on certain elements of the cooling apparatus. For instance, while the latter features three pure copper composite heatpipes, the dual-fan cooler has just two direct contact heatpipes (they’ve been flattened to maximize contact area) to draw heat away from the GPU.

The smaller size of the GP104 versus the GP106 die – 200mm² as opposed to 314mm² – means that too many direct contact heatpipes can sometimes be redundant as there are only so many that can touch the smaller GPU directly. As we’ll see later, that’s part of the reason why MSI ditched direct contact heatpipes in favor of a GPU contact plate.

When set to work at 100 per cent, the fans on the Gigabyte card could really get quite loud (the pitch was also slightly more grating on the ears than the ASUS card). Still, we tested this in an open test bench, and the noise is likely to be mitigated (somewhat) once the card is installed in a case.

In typical Gigabyte fashion, there’s a fan stop LED indicator on the side that will light up if the semi-passive fans begin to idle under low loads. While informative for the uninformed, we’ve always thought this feature had little utility, and it actually detracts from the aesthetics of the card.

The Gigabyte logo beside the LED indicator is illuminated as well, and you can customize the color of the LEDs and choose from a range of lighting effects. The lights are perhaps a little less impressive than the other cards which have LEDs built into the plastic of the shroud, but those who prefer a more subtle look may prefer Gigabyte’s approach.

The card uses a 6+1 phase power delivery system, the same as the ASUS card, which once again is plenty for the GeForce GTX 1060.

In addition, Gigabyte has swapped out the regular 6-pin PCIe connector for an 8-pin. This raises the power ceiling for the card, and should provide just that bit more of overclocking headroom.

Round the back, the display connectors are the same as on the MSI card, which to say the same as the reference Founders Edition model. Neither Gigabyte nor MSI thought it important enough to replace a DisplayPort connector with an HDMI one, and we can’t exactly fault them in this area. ASUS’ choice is more a value-added feature rather than a necessity, and we hardly think users will be worse off without it.

On the software front, Gigabyte’s Xtreme Engine utility has a plethora of advanced options for overclockers. Other than the ability to customize the LED lights, you can set things like the precise amount you want to overvolt by, target temperature and power limits, and even set GPU clock speeds for individual voltages.

We thought it a little strange that something as basic as the toggle for Eco, Gaming, and OC modes should be located under the Advanced OC tab, but it shouldn’t take you long to get used to the quirks of the interface.

MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming X 6G

At first glance, the MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming X 6G strikes you as a card that has a lot of girth to it. At 140mm wide (or high), it is the broadest card of the lot, although the ASUS card isn’t far behind at 134mm.

This probably won’t be an issue unless you own the most narrow of PC cases, but it’s nonetheless something to take note of.

The card ships in Gaming mode, but you can boost it up to a 1,594MHz base clock and 1,809MHz boost clock in OC mode. Here’s a quick look at the card’s specifications:

MSI’s Twin Frozr VI cooler (first seen on the MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Gaming Z) also happens to be the most eye-catching of the three. Instead of the subtle orange accents or all-black design of the Gigabyte and ASUS cards, the MSI card features bright red design flourishes and aggressive ridges that light up when the card is plugged in.

The two 100mm fans are larger than the 90mm ones on Gigabyte’s dual-fan cooler as well, effectively covering a larger area on the underlying heatsink. The Torx 2.0 fans are upgraded versions of the older Torx fans found on previous generation cards, featuring an alternating blade design that helps to increase air flow while channeling it over the heatsink.

The heatsink itself relies on three heatpipes – one 8mm and two 6mm – to channel heat away from the GPU. These do not make direct contact with the GPU, relying instead on a GPU contact plate that transfers heat to them. Still, they have been squared off at the bottom to maximize the surface area in contact with the heatpipes and improve the efficiency of heat transfer.

This is actually a key point of difference between this and the ASUS card. The latter reuses the cooler from the GeForce GTX 1070 Strix OC, including all five direct contact heatpipes. But because of the smaller size of the GP106 GPU die (compared to GP104), not all of the five heatpipes actually make contact with the GPU chip. While that didn’t seem to be an issue in our thermal tests, it looks like MSI was trying to circumvent this with a GPU contact plate that can make full contact with the chip.

The Twin Frozr VI cooler was also the quietest of the lot with the fans set to maximum, so it looks like the MSI is doing something right with the larger Torx 2.0 fans and dual-fan configuration that helps keep noise to a minimum.

MSI has employed a 5+1 phase power design, which is more than enough for a 120 watt card. To further boost the card’s overclocking potential, MSI has also installed an 8-pin PCIe connector in place of the 6-pin one.

Unlike ASUS, MSI has chosen to make stick with the same selection of display outputs as the reference Founders Edition card. It has just one HDMI port, but three DisplayPort connectors and a DVI output. Ultimately, while NVIDIA has touted the VR capabilities of the GeForce GTX 1060, we’re not sure that users who buy the 1060 are going to immediately hop aboard the VR train. As a result, it’s probably not much of a loss that MSI has stuck with the standard connectors. Furthermore, a DisplayPort to HDMI adapter will work just as well should the need arise.

The MSI Gaming App lets you switch between the different clock speed profiles, and they’re the first thing you see when you fire up the app. Clicking the LED icon also brings up the lighting control panel, where you can customize the RGB lights to suit your preference.

Compared to the other two, the interface of the Gaming App feels comparatively more clunky and less intuitive. For instance, it’s not immediately apparent what the icons at the top do, and we had to click them to find out. Still, once you figure everything out, there are nifty features available, like an OSD that displays GPU information that works in games like Overwatch.

Palit GeForce GTX 1060 Super JetStream

Palit isn’t bringing its new GameRock series of cards to its GeForce GTX 1060 line-up. To that end, the Palit GeForce GTX 1060 Super JetStream is the highest-end 1060 that Palit is offering, hearkening back to the brand’s mainstay cooling solution.

As it stands, Palit also has a lower clocked JetStream card, and the “Super” tag denotes the more aggressive speeds on the latter. This is to the tune of a 1,620MHz base clock and 1,847MHz boost clock, compared to the 1,506MHz base clock and 1,708MHz boost clock on the Founders Edition model.

But while the Palit card is actually among the highest clocked cards in this shootout, this doesn’t quite translate into the highest performance across the board, as we’ll see in the results section later.

Like previous cards in the series, the GeForce GTX Super JetStream is clad in a fairly neutral silver-gray finish. It’s not going to offend anyone with its looks, but it’s not going to turn any heads either. This is also a fairly bulky 2.5 slot card, which you’ll need three slots on your motherboard to accommodate.

We’re used to seeing compact mid-range cards, and the extra girth on the Palit card makes it stand out, and not in an entirely good way either. A card like the GeForce GTX 1060 is likely to be more popular in small form factor systems, and its fatter design seems to fly in the face of what could be quite an enthusiastic base of users. That said, the extra thickness probably won’t matter that much, and the card’s relatively short 248mm length will fit in most cases.

The card relies on a fairly chunky heatsink for cooling, and four heatpipes make contact with the GPU via a copper baseplate and help draw heat away. This is a dual-fan solution, and both fans rotate in opposite directions to help reduce air turbulence and improve overall cooling.

You’ll also find a metal backplate on the card as well, complete with a glossy, brushed metal finish.

Interestingly enough, the card comes with dual BIOS as well, and you can toggle between them using an onboard DIP switch. This feature isn’t all that commonplace yet, even among higher-end cards like the GeForce GTX 1080, so it’s a strong differentiating factor in Palit’s favor. However, we’re not quite sure that users actually need it. Customers who buy a GeForce GTX 1060 won’t be looking to squeeze out extreme overclocks from the card, so a second BIOS doesn’t seem as necessary, although it will come in handy in recovering from failed firmware flashes.

There are also some voltage measurement points (GPU, VRAM, and PLL) on the board, for enthusiasts who want to monitor the overclocking process more finely.

Palit has implemented a 4+1 phase power delivery circuit, but unlike some of the other cards here, it has stuck with the same single 6-pin PCIe power connector as on the Founders Edition card.

Round the back, you’ll find a three DisplayPort connectors, one HDMI port, and one DVI output. Palit has gone with a honeycomb mesh here as well, similar to what it did with the GameRock cards. While this is an open-air style cooler that dumps hot air into the case, the more porous mesh should help with airflow out the back as well.

Finally, there’s Palit’s ThunderMaster utility, which lets you overclock and monitor the card, and also tweak the card’s LED lighting. You’ll have access to all the settings you need to overclock the card here, and the software is easy enough to navigate with clearly labeled options. You’ll also be able to switch to the backup BIOS here, making things even more convenient. Still, if we were to nitpick, it’s that the lighting options here aren’t as comprehensive as on competing cards. For instance, there are only options for a rainbow effect, static colors, and GPU-controlled lighting. Furthermore, there only seems to be the option to drag the slider to overclock the GPU, and we'd have preferred to have a manual input field for more fine-grained control.

Zotac GeForce GTX 1060 Mini

In an all-out brawl involving so many cards from various brands, the Zotac GeForce GTX 1060 Mini certainly stands out from the fray. That’s not because of especially strong performance or some must-have feature, but rather its compact, single-fan form factor. This capitalizes quite effectively on the GeForce GTX 1060’s appeal to its presumed target audience – mainstream consumers who aren’t likely to go for hulking desktop builds.

But before we go on, we'd like to point out that Zotac also has a regular-sized GeForce GTX 1060 AMP! Edition card, which costs only S$30 more than the S$399 Mini model. This card measures 210mm in length and is slightly faster than its smaller counterpart, with a base clock of 1,556MHz and boost clock of 1,771MHz.  Naturally, you'll also get a more robust dual-fan cooler. 

The AMP! Edition model might appear to align more closely with the other cards reviewed here today, but we've chosen to throw the GeForce GTX 1060 Mini into the ring instead because of the small price differential between the two. The Mini card makes for a far more interesting proposition because of its niche ability to appeal to small system builders, and serves as quite a compelling alternative to the larger GeForce GTX 1060s.

The Mini measures just 174mm long, which means it’ll fit into even the most compact mini-ITX cases. And given how much power the GeForce GTX 1060 packs – it’s capable of running just about any game at 1080p with most details maxed out – you’ll be able to build quite a powerful small form factor PC. The PCB of the GeForce GTX 1060 is actually quite short, and Zotac has simply built the cooler around the PCB’s dimensions (in comparison, the longer reference card was made bulkier by its blower-style cooler).

That said, its diminutive design and single-fan cooler does come with certain trade-offs. For instance, you won’t get to enjoy any aggressive factory overclocks here, and the card features the same 1,506MHz base clock and 1,708MHz boost clock as the Founders Edition model. Higher overclocks require more robust cooling solutions, and it probably wouldn’t be wise to attempt too high a factory overclock.

The cooler itself has just one 90mm fan that helps dissipate heat from what Zotac refers as a “sunflower” aluminum heatsink, so named because of its unique radial pattern. There are no heatpipes involved here, and the heatsink makes direct contact with the GPU and is designed to evenly distribute heat from the center to the outer edges.

This is a decidedly no-frills card, a fact reflected in its price. At S$399, this is quite literally the cheapest GeForce GTX 1060 available locally now. This also means there aren’t any superfluous LED lights or features that might drive up the price, Zotac having gone for a decidedly no-nonsense, utilitarian approach.

It’s no surprise that a metal backplate is missing as well. A card this size requires little additional structural support, and the backplate would have just ended up as an unnecessary expense.

You don’t buy a mini-ITX card and expect it to be an overclocking monster either, which is probably why Zotac has opted to stick to the standard 6-pin PCIe connector. In comparison, ASUS, MSI, and Gigabyte all replaced the 6-pin connector with an 8-pin one to raise the power draw ceiling.

Round the back, you’ll find the standard selection of connectors, including three DisplayPort connectors, one HDMI port, and one DVI output.

Zotac’s own FireStorm utility was also recently overhauled in line with the launch of the new NVIDIA Pascal cards. The new interface is quite intuitive and user-friendly, with tools for monitoring and tweaking GPU and memory overclocks. The color palate is a little jarring, but you’ll be able to find everything you need pretty easily.

Updated on 11 October 2016: Originally published on 28th August with three contenders, we've now added in cards from Palit and Zotac for a more comprehensive survey of the available options. All graphs and findings have been updated.

Test Setup

The detailed specifications of our current graphics card testbed system are as follow:-

• Intel Core i7-6950X
• ASUS ROG Strix X99 Gaming (Intel X99 chipset) motherboard
• 2 x 4GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-2133 (Auto timings: CAS 15-15-15-36)
• Samsung SSD 840 Pro 256GB SATA 6Gbps solid state drive (OS + benchmark + games)
• Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gbps hard drive (general storage)
• Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
• Intel INF 10.1.1.14

We tested all three cards with NVIDIA driver version 372.54.

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Benchmarks

Since we’ve already run a full set of performance benchmarks for the GeForce GTX 1060 GPU in our review of the GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition, we ran the following reduced set of real-world and synthetic benchmarks for this shootout:

• Futuremark 3DMark 2013
• Tom Clancy's The Division

We used the Fire Strike Extreme test in 3DMark 2013 for our power and temperature tests.

Gaming Results

We weren’t surprised to see the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1060 OC take the lead here, given that it had the highest factory overclock out of all the cards. The difference in clock speeds between the highest and lowest clocked card ‒ namely, the ASUS and Zotac models ‒ is 139MHz, a gulf that’s quite readily apparent in the benchmarks. In the synthetic 3DMark benchmarks, this translated into between a 5 to 7 per cent difference in performance.

There was a similar performance differential in an actual game like Tom Clancy’s The Division. But a look at the raw numbers shows that while the ASUS card once again inched ahead because of its more aggressive clock speeds, you’re probably not going to notice the few frames of difference during actual gameplay.

The key takeaway here is that clock speeds shouldn’t be the defining factor when choosing which custom GeForce GTX 1060 card to go with (unless you’re really a stickler for numbers), and you should be focusing more on things like cooling performance, design, and price.

Overclocking Results

In our overclocking tests, the ASUS turned out to be the most capable overclocker. We were able to squeeze out the highest clock speeds from it and the best results, achieving a high of a 1,670MHz base clock, which translates to a boost clock of 1,898MHz. We were able to boost the effective memory clock to a high of 8,408MHz as well.

This netted us just under a 3 per cent increase in performance in 3DMark Fire Strike, which renders at 1080p. However, the improvement was a lot less pronounced in the more demanding 1440p and 4K Fire Strike Extreme and Ultra tests.

That said, overclocking the cards didn’t really get us a very significant boost, even at 1080p. It’s also important to bear in mind that these cards are already clocked above the reference base clock of 1,506MHz, so the overclocking headroom is already going to be limited from the outset.

Temperature and Power Consumption Results

The ASUS continued its lead in the temperature and power consumption departments as well. After looping 3DMark Fire Strike for 15 minutes, it recorded a peak temperature of 61 degrees Celsius, the lowest among the three cards. We’re used to MSI cards topping our temperature tests, so it’s nice to see ASUS show that it can be competitive in this area as well. How did the Founders Edition card fare in these tests? Not far off, but that's to be expected since it's lower clocked than the custom designs we've put to test in this article.

Interestingly enough, the ASUS card also posted the lowest peak power consumption figure, despite having the highest clock speeds.

All these may be small advantages that you won’t actually notice in real-world usage, but they go a long way to highlight the engineering put into the ASUS card to distinguish itself as the better product.

Updated on 11 October 2016: Originally published on 28th August with three contenders, we've now added in cards from Palit and Zotac for a more comprehensive survey of the available options. All findings have been updated and we've now crowned the appropriate winners.

And the winner is…

It’s always a tricky issue picking out a custom card from among a sea of its highly similar brethren. At the end of the day, it usually comes down to details like build quality, design, overclocking edge, temperature and power consumption performance. Because the raw graphics performance on the cards is so similar, it is no longer the sole deciding factor, and the finer points matter even more.

Having said that, it’s quite clear that the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1060 OC is ahead of the competition. Its aggressive clock speeds and good thermal performance aside, it is the only one to offer nifty features like the two 4-pin FanConnect headers for hooking up your case fans to be triggered based on the graphics card's temperature. All that combines with its solid build quality, understated design, and versatile lighting options to create what may be one of the most appealing custom GeForce GTX 1060s on the market today.

Then there’s the issue of price. At S$589, it’s difficult to believe that this is a card intended to appeal to the mass market, pushing into high-end card price territory as it is. In fact, when the GeForce GTX 970 was still current, it retailed in exactly the same price bracket. To put in better perspective, a basic GeForce GTX 1060 graphics card has a local suggested retail price from S$399 and you can find many others inching towards the S$450 mark. Given these prices, the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1060 OC is nearly 50% more expensive than a basic GeForce GTX 1060 graphics card. What's worse, you could actually consider a Palit GeForce GTX 1070 Dual for only S$555 - which is cheaper than the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1060 OC! Even if we were to consider it an outlier, the ASUS card is just S$100 shy of all other GeForce GTX 1070 graphics cards for consideration.

We don't deny that premium features call for a premium price, but it has to be proportionate to what's in the market, its actual tangible benefit and that of other GPU tiers.

How does the ASUS card's asking price stack up against the best of the best GeForce GTX 1060 graphics cards? Its price also makes the ASUS card nearly a S$100 more expensive than the S$495 Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1060 G1 Gaming, which appears a rather tall order given that they’re essentially the same card. Finally, the MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming X 6G sits in the middle of the pack at S$529, despite having lower clock speeds than the Gigabyte (but fancier lighting options).

And we haven’t even considered the even more affordable Palit and Zotac cards, which cost S$445 and S$399 respectively. These cards aren’t perfect either, but their affordable price (and the Zotac’s compact form factor), will still make them strong choices for anyone on a tight budget.

It's also worth noting that Zotac's regular-sized option, the GeForce GTX 1060 AMP! Edition, costs just S$429, which means it would still be the cheapest of the bunch even if it replaced the Mini card in this shootout. When it comes to getting the best bang for your buck, there's no quite beating Zotac here. 

Ultimately, we can’t help feel that the ASUS card is a way overpriced for the GeForce GTX 1060’s target audience. There are certain features it could dispense with – and which few would miss – in order to bring price down. For instance, the FanConnect headers and the rejigging of display connectors to include two HDMI ports instead of just one. These are great features for sure, but we’re not sure that mainstream consumers actually need, or even want them.

Furthermore, the cooler is also the same one used on the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1070 OC. ASUS could have used a pared down version on the 1060 and probably not have come off much worse. As we noted earlier, five direct contact heatpipes is a little overkill for the smaller GP106 die.

Ultimately, the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1060 OC is a premium card, or as premium as a card based on the GP106 chip can get. If you want one of the best 1060s, it’s a good bet. Our gripes about the price aside, there’s no doubt that the ASUS card trumps the competition in terms of performance and features - in every department you can think of. It really is the best of the bunch.

But if you’re willing to settle for a less impressive option, the Gigabyte card will do just as well, and its price tag is a lot easier to swallow. After all, the people looking to buy the GeForce GTX 1060 are likely not going to cough up high premiums and the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1060 G1 Gaming is a great all-rounder for not much more than a more basic edition GeForce GTX 1060. Oh and if you dig better looks, lighting controls and a quieter card, the MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming X 6G will be a good pick.

All that said, we'll have to give the edge to the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1060 G1 Gaming for its balanced mix of affordability, performance, and customization options. It's not the fastest, coolest, or fanciest card, but its rounded performance across the board helps it come out on top. The Zotac GeForce GTX 1060 Mini also stands out for its no-frills approach and low price, which is why we're giving it our Best Value award.