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ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1060 OC 6GB — never to get a partner in crime
Silver Pokdeward
1
Review

ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1060 OC 6GB — never to get a partner in crime

by October 15, 2016
Positives

+ Silent fan operation
+ RGB lighting effects
+ Cool temperatures under load
+ Low power consumption
+ ASUS FanConnect headers
+ Better VR compatibility with more HDMI ports

Negatives

- No SLI support

Pokde Scoreboard
Pokde Rating
Appearance
7.9
Features
7.9
Materials
8.9
Performance
7.9
Portability
7.9
Value
8.9
Bottom Line

ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1060 OC 6GB offers great gaming performance, and its only downside is its lack of SLI support.

8.2
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Every ASUS ROG STRIX graphics cards shares the same premium cooling technology and features. The ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1060 OC 6GB which is currently sitting on the second lowest rung in the NVIDIA GTX 10-Series, is no different. This is my review of the ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1060 OC 6GB. Let’s see what the card has to offer.

 

Unboxing

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Similar to the rest of ASUS’ ROG STRIX line-up’s packaging, we have a picture of the graphics card on the front. Not to be missed are the highlight features available on the card, such as the ASUS AURA RGB and VR ready capabilities. I’m not sure what this card went through before arriving at our lab, but it saddens me to see it in this condition.

asus-rog-strix-gtx-1060-oc-2The ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1060 OC shares most of its feature list with the higher end ROG STRIX cards. Using DirectCU III cooling system with the patented wing-blade fans and ASUS’ Auto-Extreme Technology.  It also includes the ASUS FanConnect for extra cooling with case fans and also ASUS AURA RGB for millions of colors customization.

asus-rog-strix-gtx-1060-oc-4Inside the box we have the ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1060 OC 6GB, two set of ROG cable ties, driver installer DVD, user manual and a World of Warship premium pass. Despite the roughed up packaging, I am very happy to see the card still in good condition.

 

Appearance

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Cooled by the premium ASUS DirectCU III direct contact heatpipe technology and triple patented Wind-Blade fans, it targets the lowest temperature possible while keeping the operation 3X quieter compared to reference cards. The cooling shroud comes in dark grey, which harmonizes well with any color when you power up the ASUS AURA RGB strips on the shroud.

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At the back we have a metal back-plate and the ASUS ROG logo. Unlike the ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1070 I reviewed before, the ROG logo here doesn’t feature RGB lighting.

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At the rear of the card we can see two extra ASUS FanConnect fan header which allow you to set up GPU-controlled case fans for targeted cooling.

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The ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1060 OC uses a single 8-pin PCIe power connector, an upgrade from the reference design to provide more juice when overclocking. Theoretically, the ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1060 has the potential to draw up to 225W of power safely.

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ASUS is always throwing in innovations to improve the user experience of their products. On the ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1060, they decided to ditch NVIDIA’s standard display options for better VR compatibility. The ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1060 comes with single active DVI connector, two DisplayPort and two HDMI port.

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Most of you might know this, but some might not. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 cards do not support SLI. So make sure you don’t try to setup SLI configurations with any NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 graphics cards.

 

Test Machine

For this review, the rig specifications are listed below. I’m using the Xeon E3 1230V3 for several reasons. Firstly, I don’t overclock and during the time I transitioned from AMD to Intel, I needed a processor with a good price-to-performance ratio. The Xeon E3 1230V3 is practically an Intel i7-4770 sans the iGPU. Who cares about any iGPU when we are building gaming rigs, right? Since the price is much cheaper than the i7-4770, the decision was very easy to make.

Hardware

Processor Intel Xeon E3 1230V @ 0.86v
Motherboard ASUS H87-PLUS
Memory Corsair Vengence DDR3 16GB (4x4GB)
Storage Corsair LS 120GB (System), Western Digital Blue 1TB (Game), Western Digital AVGP Green 2TB (Archive)
Power Supply AcBel iPower 90m 600W 80+ Gold

Software

OS Windows 10 64bit Annivesary
GPU Driver GeForce Game Ready v372.90 (WHQL)
Antivirus Windows Defender
Utilities Furmak, Fraps, MSI Afterburner 4.3 Beta 14, GPU-Z, OBS, Steam, Uniplay, Origin, GOG Galaxy
Game Tested Witcher 3, Battlefield 4, DOTA 2 Reborn, CS: GO, Overwatch

Card Specification

GPU Architecture Pascal
GPU GeForce GTX 1060
Memory 6GB GDDR5 @ 8Gbps
Memory Interfarce 192-bit
Base/Boost Clock 1645 MHz /1873 MHz
Card Dimension 298 x 134 x 40 mm
Card Weight N/A

 

Almost all the software used in this test are updated to the latest version. That includes the operating system, system drivers, BIOS and graphics driver.

ASUS GPU Tweak II

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The latest iteration of the original ASUS GPU Tweak II, it brings more responsive UI and features. ASUS GPU Tweak & MSI Afterburner are always my go-to tools for GPU overclocking.

ASUS AURA RGB Software

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The ASUS AURA RGB software can be open through ASUS GPU Tweak II under “Tools” tab. At here you can customize the RGB lighting with millions of colors and up to 6 special effects.

 

Performance

Based on the GP106 graphics processor, with a smaller die compared to GP104, how exactly does the ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1060 OC perform? As we have noted earlier the ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1060 OC is capable of drawing up to 225 watts. The highest and peak power draw recorded was 250 watts. By subtracting the 110 W (± 10 W) that the CPU and the rest of components consumes, this card only sips around 140 watts.

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Playing DOTA2 with the ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1060 OC is not a problem at all. Regardless any resolution it is, the frame rates still on average of 100 fps. On load the temperature is very nice and the power consumption at 1080p resolution is really amazing.

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Excellent performance on CS: GO, the frame rates are actually better when compared to the ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1070 8GB. I ran the game multiple times to confirm the performance and the results were quite consistent. But at 4K we can see it has lower frame rates compared to the ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1070 8GB.

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Battlefield 1 is coming very soon and I can’t wait to play the game. But meanwhile let’s stick with Battlefield 4. The performance is great at both 1080p and 1440p resolution with average frame rates above 60 fps. At 4K you might need to disable the anti-aliasing and drop the setting from Ultra to High. Temperature and power consumption wise, there’s not much difference between the resolutions.

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Not much difference whether you playing it at 1440p or 4K resolution. The results are pretty much the same for all the parameters measured, frame rates, temperature or power draw. There really is no reason why you shouldn’t play the game at 4K. No 4K monitor? Use DSR.

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Let’s move to our most challenging game in the list, Witcher 3. Playing the game with HairWorks on takes the frame rates down to an average of 49 fps. It still playable but with turning off the HairWorks features will ensure even more fluid frame rates.

 

Overclocking

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My procedure when overclocking a graphics card is to see how far it can go without increasing any voltages. The overclocked headroom on the ROG GeForce STRIX GTX 1060 is decent. I was able to overclock the GPU boost clock by 93 MHz and memory clock by 492MHz. This gave me a performance gain of around 3.5%.

 

Conclusion

In terms of game performance, ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1060 OC 6GB is adequate for both 1080p and 1440p gaming. The only disadvantages GeForce GTX 1060 has is no support for SLI configurations, which might bother those who intend to drop in a second card for more performance later on. It will always be foreveralone, sadly. However I do believe a single GeForce GTX 1060 is enough for my gaming. Based on the performance and also value for money preposition when compared to certain GTX 1070 cards, it’s hard for me to award it a Gold Pokdeward. Therefore, I award the card with a Silver Pokdeward.

Pokde-Silver

You can get the ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce GTX 1060 OC 6GB at most online retailers for around RM 1550 or cheaper.

About The Author
Muhammad Firdaus
I love technology, so I love AMD.

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