Nvidia GTX 1060 Vs AMD Rx 480

Nvidia GTX 1060 VS AMD Rx 480

I remember when Nvidia launched the Titan X. At that time it was one hyped up card which was supposed to be the supreme of all GPUs. Launched way back in March 2015 it was unmatched and expensive as hell. Costed more than an iPhone. It was meant for gaming enthusiasts and for VIP's who could afford it. It's ironic how much difference less than a year makes. Technology evolves so fast these days. This year Nvidia released a new line of GPU's which can be called as a GTX-10 series. It's important to mention one of the premium cards called the GTX 1080 outperforms the Titan X and is significantly cheaper than it.

What 2016 has in store for us?

Who would have though that 2016 would bring a new era of cheap GPU's that bring more than satisfactory performance on the table. In one corner we have Nvidia and in the other we have AMD. Who will win the Battle of the cheap. That sounded weird I know.

AMD RX 480

AMD turned the tables by releasing the RX 480, a 200 dollar card that has double the performance of a R7 370. If you compare that to a Nvidia GPU, I would say double the performance of a GTX 760. Sounds far fetched don't it? Well at least it doesn't in theory. We'll know when we'll get our hands on it. Frankly speaking AMD has slow driver support and by slow I mean pathetic. So it might now bring out the true power of this GPU. But let's not be too judgmental now.

What Radeon blessed us with this year?

A new line of GPUs or should I say "Next Gen" GPUs means improved a lot of things not just improved circuitry. Here we'll discuss some.

Polaris

AMD teased the new Polaris architecture with major refinements. Calling it a "Historic" leap in performance per Watt. But before we get to that let's discuss Polaris itself. Polaris is the name of the biggest star that can be seen from Earth. Since AMD's 4th gen GPUs are a Historic leap in performance AMD only saw fit naming it after a gigantic star.

FinFET

Apparently the 14 nm FinFET provide a cool and quiet gaming experience. With native support for DX12 and next-gen Display Engine this may be the GPU of your dreams.

VR Ready

Is it Christmas already. A 200 dollar GPU that is VR ready. Did AMD really listen to it's beloved gamers or did they just gain that extra edge over other major GPU manufacturers.

Enough small talk? Let's talk shop #Performance

Under the Hood

Basically in terms of performance it looks like this GPU should run in line with the R9 390. Let's see how this theory holds. Shall we?
I'll keep it simple. AMD says 36 compute units that's approximately 2304 cores. That would be less than the 390 but I guess for 200 dollars that's great. Well AMD did upgrade the architecture and if it holds we should see better performance. The most important note here is the TFLOPS which at peak should be greater than 5. This is comparable to the 390. Expect a clock speed of 1090 MHz on the low.

VRAM

RX 480 will run GDDR5 ram at 2000 MHz base. The downgrade from the 512 bit bus to 256 bit bus is a serious downscale. AMD didn't really tell us what mode of compression would compensate this but I guess AMD has some kind of sorcery behind it to make it work.

Is the Upgrade worth it?

Well it's kinda complected. AMD targeted this card for the Value conscious buyers who look at the price range before buying or can't afford the more expensive premium cards. If you have a R7 series GPU and are looking for a cheap upgrade this card is for you. It eats up less power and gives you more features. But bear in mind that AMD has a driver support slower than a turtle. Without the correct driver support the card wouldn't pack a punch like it truly should.

Conclusion

This may be a card of your dreams. Keeping all the things this card offers it's not bad for 200 bucks. That is Nvidia doesn't launch a counter offer to stop AMD from shining. It did didn't it? Hold that thought the battle has just begun.

Nvidia GTX 1060

Nvidia holds a major market share and gamers love it. It's a little expensive that AMD but it's worth every penny. Nvidia has had the upper hand in this battle for supremacy for ages in the high end sector. Now it's after the mid-range market as well with the release of GTX 1060 can be said to be a counter attack to AMD.

What Nvidia has brought to the table?

For now we can only see three next gen GPUs. Named the GTX 1060, 1070, 1080. It's important to say the 1070 and 1080 are faster than a Titan X. Digest that before we continue.

Pascal

Pascal is the most powerful architecture to be built in a GPU says Nvidia. Built using FinFET (sounds familiar don't it?) onto a 16 nm chips hosting 150 billion transistors. This is the largest FinFET powered chip developed. Contrary to conventional standards FinFET used technology that ensures the use of less power but more performance. What more could you possibly want?

VR Ready

Yes, the GTX 10 series are VR compatible. Well they can also handle high definition gaming but who doesn't like VR.

Performance

A 250 dollar card that's supposed to be faster than a GTX 980. Yikes! that's something.

Under the Hood

Under the hood we have a GP106 GPU that consists of 1280 CUDA cores. The GTX 980 has 2048 cores. So how is the 1060 supposed to be faster? Well according to Nvidia Pascal can fill that void.

The GPU can hit a clock speed of 1.7 GHz but Nvidia says that can easily be punched to 2.0. The bus width would be the same as the 1070 and 1080 at 256 bits. Like AMD the TFLOPS at it's peak would be greater than 5 as well.

VRAM

The 1060 also runs GDDR5X vram that's clocked at 8 GB albeit the usual 6 GB. That's all the info Nvidia gave us for the time being. 

Is the Upgrade worth it?

At this point we are uncertain because we don't have the benchmarks. But in theory it should be a worthwhile upgrade.

Conclusion

Now we have an interesting choice the 480 or the 1060. While Nvidia does say that 1060 is 15 % more powerful than the 480 and 75 % more efficient. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how the cards actually hold.