Does faster memory make a difference?
When Nvidia launched the GTX 1080 Ti one of its big features is that it had slightly faster DDR5X memory than the card's that came before it, namely the GTX 1080. Since Nvidia had figured out a method for making its current stock of memory operate at a higher frequency, it also announced it was going to be upgrading the memory for the GTX 1060 as well, going from 8Gb/s to 9Gb/s across all models. This allows Nvidia partners like Gigabyte to sell both versions of the card, with nothing changed aside from the memory speed.
So we decided to do a quick review of this new card to see what the fuss is about, and to figure out if it's really a significant boost over the vanilla version of the entry-level GPU. The card I'm looking at is Gigabyte's midrange Aorus model, the 1060 6G 9Gbs (See it on Amazon). The card has an MSRP of $299, but can often be hard to find at that price. Nevertheless, I was curious to see how the upgraded card fares against the previous version of this GPU. Since nothing else has changed I won't bother rehashing the GTX 1060 review we already published - be sure to take a look for an in-depth look at the card's specs, design, overclocking capability, and more.
Design and Features
The Auros GTX 1060 is a long GPU thanks to its triple-fan cooling apparatus. It measures approximately 11 inches, so you'll need to bust out the measuring tape to see if it fits inside your chassis most likely. It sports a copper plate behind the GPU that attaches to the metal backplate, and a lengthy aluminum heat sink on the other side with copper heat pipes. The three fans are 80mm units, and this GPU also features the "fan stop" mode where the fans won't spin unless the GPU is under load, ensuring quiet operation at all times.
It also features Gigabyte's RGB Fusion on two lights on the side of the GPU, so you can choose your color and have them flash, breath, etc. The card features three DisplayPort connectors, one HDMI, and one dual-link DVI.
This card also uses the same Aorus Graphics Engine I covered exhaustively in the review of the company's RX 580. It lets you adjust GPU and memory clocks, power target, control fan speeds, and monitor the card's vitals as well as control its lighting.
Benchmarks
It's time to see what this newfangled memory is good for, yeah? To test it we ran it against a GTX 1060 from MSI that had a GPU overclock, but the memory speeds were left untouched. This should afford us a rather straightforward apples-to-apples comparison. All the GPUs in the charts were tested on our IGN test bench, which was built using an Intel Core i7-7700K CPU (non-overclocked), 8GB of RAM, an Asus Prime motherboard, and an Intel SSD.
When compared to a similarly overclocked GTX 1060 from MSI, we see the Gigabyte GTX 1060 with the faster memory is just a tiny bit faster overall. Though it was "fastest" in most benchmarks, the margins between it and the OG GTX 1060 from MSI are small enough to make the difference a wash, as it could be within overall variance for the tests themselves. This means the move to faster memory isn't really that big of a deal at all, and is similar to how AMD refreshed its Polaris cards by bumping up the clock speeds on the 500 series cards. Since Nvidia couldn't really do much on the clock speed end of things (my assumption, of course) it boosted the memory speed, but as we can see it doesn't really make an earth shattering difference. Still, this is one fast GTX 1060, and easily the fastest one we've tested.
Overclocking
This card ran like a bat out of heck right out of the box, hitting 1967MHz without touching a thing. I was able to bump up the GPU offset in 9MHz increments just fine all the way up to 2088MHz before it started giving me some trouble. I'd move the offset slider, but the GPU clock speed wouldn't budge. This is typically the first sign of resistance, followed by artifacting, followed by a driver reset. Still, I pushed onwards as the temps were just fine at a balmy 66C overclocked and under full load. When I tried to get it to the holy grail of 2.1GHz, it downclocked, retreating to its safe space of 2GHz, or 1999MHz according to the Gigabyte software. Overall that is pretty darn good, and one of the better overclocks we've seen from an Nvidia GPU this season. Note the Gigabyte software had an issue displaying the GPU clock speed in the main window, but the monitor on the side showed the correct clock speed, verified by a 3rd party utility.
Purchasing Guide
As we've mentioned in other GPU reviews, pricing for GPUs is a bit wild currently, making it hard to find lower-end GPUs like this at MSRP. The MSRP should be around $299, but they're often only available at a higher price:
• See the Gigabyte Aorus GeForce GTX 1060 6G 9Gbps on Amazon
Note that if you click on one of these links to buy the product, IGN may get a share of the sale. For more, read our Terms of Use.
The Verdict
As a stand-alone GPU, the Aorus GTX 1060 is one heck of a piece of tech and it overclocked quite well too. The whole shebang is impressive as it was running at 66C while operating at 2GHz, which is an impressive feat. As far as the memory upgrade goes, it's nice to have, but doesn't impact performance much, if at all, in most games. Therefore my verdict is that this is an amazing GPU for 1080p gaming, and one of the fastest available, but it isn't much of an improvement over the previous version.
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