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I provide you with my Gigabyte nVidia GTX 1060 Windforce OC 3GB Review and specifications in this article. Even though the Gigabyte nVidia GTX 1060 Windforce OC 3GB has 1GB less VRAM than the ASUS nVidia GTX 1050Ti Phoenix 4GB, I have tested both before, so I can tell you that this is a step forward.

This card, which was released two months before the 1050Ti series, was regarded as a mid-range to high-end card at the time.

It compares favorably to the RX 400/500 series and currently costs about $130, which is reasonable given what it offers.

The Gigabyte nVidia GTX 1060 Windforce OC 3GB is one of the finest 1060 3GB cards since Gigabyte consistently produces high-quality goods.

In the paragraphs that follow, we’ll compare this card to other models, evaluating its performance, benchmarks, and pricing to determine whether it’s a wise purchase at the moment.

Gigabyte nVidia GTX 1060 Windforce OC 3GB Specs

Name	Geforce GTX 1060
Manufacturer	Nvidia
Launch Date	18th August 2016
Bus Standard	PCI Express 3.0
OpenGL	OpenGL®4.5
Video Memory	3GB GDDR5
Engine Clock	GPU Boost Clock: 1771 MHzGPU Base Clock: 1556 MHz
CUDA Core	1152
Memory Speed	8008 MHz
Memory Type	GDDR5
Memory Size	3GB
Memory Interface	192-bit
Resolution	Digital Max Resolution 7680 x 4320
Interface	Yes x 1 (Native DVI-D)Yes x 1 (Native HDMI 2.0b)Yes x 1 (Native DisplayPort 1.4)HDCP Support Yes (2.2)
Maximum Display Support	4
Dimensions	22.3 x 12.1 x3.9 Centimeter
Recommended PSU	400W

The specifications of this card are shown in the table above, and they significantly outperform the GTX 1050Ti.

It employs the same 4.4 billion transistors, 200mm2 GP106 GPU with a 16nm manufacturing process as the GTX 1060. With the SM count lowering from 10 to 9, we have 1,152 cores and 72 texture units, however, it is not fully activated this time. As implied by the name, the GDDR5 has been cut in half to 3GB.

By switching the Gigabyte nVidia GTX 1060 Windforce OC 3GB card to OC Mode in Gigabyte’s Xtreme Engine software, the core speed of the card may be quickly boosted to 1,582MHz from its factory-set 1,556MHz. This speed, which gives us a boost clock of 1,797MHz and is a 5 percent improvement over the reference base clock, is what we tested at. Sadly, the memory has been left unattended and operates at 8Gbps.

Even this dual-fan mini-ITX edition of the GTX 1060 from Gigabyte isn’t particularly large. With a dual-slot design and dimensions of 223mm long by 121mm tall, it will easily suit the great majority of cases. The card has a metal backplate that maintains it feeling very stiff and improves the appearance.

The open cooler shroud is made of plastic and painted black with some orange highlights. LED illumination, especially RGB LED lighting, is a feature we’ve grown accustomed to seeing in recent GPU evaluations, but you won’t get that unless you upgrade to Gigabyte’s G1 Gaming card.

Through a single 6-pin connector, power is delivered. As a result, the card’s total maximum power is 150W, which is much higher than the 120W TDP and shouldn’t be a restriction when overclocking. Adding an 8-pin header would only have been for aesthetic purposes.

Two 90mm fans are used by the WindForce 2X cooler to move air across the heatsink. The fans include 11 blades, each with a special Gigabyte design that divides the airflow between channels on top of the blades using a triangle point on the front edge.

According to claims, this leads to a 23 percent improvement in airflow compared to conventional blades. Because of the open shroud and the placement of the fins, your chassis will receive the majority of airflow. According to Gigabyte, the opposite-direction rotation of the fans “optimizes” airflow and lessens air turbulence. Once the GPU is sufficiently cool, they are also capable of semi-passive operation and won’t spin at all.

Gigabyte nVidia GTX 1060 Windforce OC 3GB Gaming & Benchmarks

Is three GB of VRAM enough for optimal 1080p60 gameplay? This is a difficult question because the graphic card is already six years old. Since many games that have since been launched are VRAM-hungry, 3GB is insufficient for 1080p top-tier gaming.

However, there are limiting circumstances here. In most games, Nvidia’s performance advantage over AMD’s RX 470 4GB is clear, and the GTX 1060 3GB costs just a little bit more.

Additionally, Nvidia’s memory compression is effective. It’s excellent. Comparisons between the four-gigabyte RX 470 and the three-gig GTX 1060 should be fascinating because it is clearly more efficient than AMD’s.

For a card of this class, we’re looking at 1080p and 1440p resolutions in our testing, which is divided into our standard resolution breakdowns. Our goal is to compare the Gigabyte nVidia GTX 1060 Windforce OC 3GB to its larger brother in terms of performance and to the four-gigabyte AMD RX 480 and RX 470 graphics cards.

The inexpensive Nvidia offering outperforms both models of the RX 480 as well as the RX 470 (and keep in mind that this will be increased by a few frames due to its factory OC). Even Ashes of the Singularity, an Nvidia weak area, exhibits fundamental parity over the duration of the film.

There isn’t any proof in any of these benches that the 3GB framebuffer creates problems, with the exception of Hitman. Performance on the GTX 1060 3GB suffers noticeably in this area, and we have a strong suspicion that the card’s VRAM limit was reached in DX12 when the developer took over memory management chores. Notably, the AMD GPUs with four gigabytes of memory don’t experience this.

Another noteworthy aspect of Hitman is that it is the only benchmark in which the GTX 970 surpasses the GTX 1060, albeit by a slim margin. The three-gigabyte restriction on the new card is the limiting factor, but once more, VRAM is the likely culprit. The processing power of GTX 1060 3GB is significantly superior to GTX 970.

Games like Crysis 3, The Division, and The Witcher 3 among others amply demonstrate that there is no performance decrease when VRAM is properly controlled. Higher quality textures, on the other hand, become more desirable the higher the scaling of native rendering resolution.

The reduced GP106 chip has the processing power to support 1440p gaming, but memory is clearly a bigger problem because we must store the same amount of texture data as at 1080p while the render targets that are internally generated to build the final scene grow in size by up to 77%. The good memory compression offered by Pascal in this situation has its limits and varies from scene to scene in terms of efficacy.

Conclusion

Should you purchase Gigabyte nVidia GTX 1060 Windforce OC 3GB, then? Is it a viable option for gaming today? Considering the costs of today, this would be a decent option for entry-level games, a step up over the 1050Ti, but the VRAM of this card could pose issues in the future if you are looking for Nvidia. Therefore, I would definitely advise spending an extra $50 for its larger 6GB brother.

Is Gigabyte nVidia GTX 1060 Windforce OC 3GB overclocked?

A high-performance graphics card, the GeForce GTX 1060 Gigabyte Windforce OC 3GB is capable of running AAA games from 2016 at 60 frames per second at 1080p on very high graphic settings. With high settings, this card can play the same games in 1440p at 60 frames per second. This card’s ability to deliver high-quality game textures will be hampered by the 3GB memory reduction, making it less future-proof when new GPU memory-hungry titles are released.

Gigabyte nVidia GTX 1060 Windforce OC 3GB is clocked is an overclocked version of the Pascal Architecture-based GTX 1060, which is the entry-level performance graphics card from the Nvidia GTX 1000 series. Instead of having the entire 6GB, it only has 3GB of locked memory.

By switching the GTX 1060 WindForce OC card to OC Mode in Gigabyte’s Xtreme Engine software, the core speed of the card may be quickly boosted to 1,582MHz from its factory-set 1,556MHz. This speed, which gives us a boost clock of 1,797MHz and is a 5 percent improvement over the reference base clock, is what we tested at. Sadly, the memory has been left unattended and operates at 8Gbps.

Is Gigabyte nVidia GTX 1060 Windforce OC 3GB good for gaming?

Because it was first released in 2016, or six years ago, this card is a little out of date. It was a mid- to high-range card back then, and it can still run games now. Now, some details may still need to be sacrificed depending on the game and the year of release. So let’s get to the point. In the text that follows, I’ll list the games we tested and the frame rates this card was able to accomplish at the specified settings and resolution.

• CS:GO – This GPU can run one of the most storied esports titles at 250+ frames per second on high settings.
• GTA V – Stable 60+ frames per second with maximum settings and 1080p resolution.
• PUBG – another esports game running at maximum settings and 1080p at about 90 frames per second.
• Red dead redemption 2 – 2018 title that puts a lot of strain on the computer, 1080p resolution, low settings, and less than 60 frames per second.
• Horizon zero dawn – With a 2020 game that is similarly GPU-intensive, 1080p resolution, and medium settings, this card can produce about 50 frames per second.
• Cyberpunk 2077 – one of the most demanding 2020 games, this GPU managed roughly 50 frames per second on low settings.
• Assassin’s Creed valhalla – The most recent entry in the Assassin’s Creed series was released in 2020. Steady 70 fps, on 1080p resolution and low settings.
• Battlefield 2042 – In 2021, the newest Battlefield game was released. GTX 1060 3GB displayed around 60+ frames per second on this demanding game’s low settings in 1080p.
• Elden ring – new game from 2022, stable 60 frames per second in 1080p, and low to medium settings.
• Dying light 2 – A horror game was also released in 2022. FPS of 70 or more at modest settings and 1080p resolution.

The testing environment used for these benchmarks is:

CPU: Intel Core i5 11600K 3.9GHz LGA1200 12MB Cache 

MB: MSI MAG Z490 TOMAHAWK Socket 1200 DDR4 4800(OC) M.2

RAM: GeIL 8GBx2 Evo Spear AMD Edition 3000Mhz CL16 DDR4

GPU: MSI GTX1060 ARMOR 3GB OC V1 GDDR5 192Bit NVidia DX12

SSD: WD 480GB Green SN350 NVMe 2400MB-1650MB M2

HDD: 2TB Seagate Barracuda + 2TB WD Blue 7200RPM

CASE: Bitfenix Nova Mesh SE White Tempered Glass ARGB

PSU: Bitfenix 750W M 80+ Gold Full Modular

OS: Windows 11

MONITOR: AOC 23.8″ 24V2Q 5MS 75HZ FHD IPS 

As a result, even though this card only has 3GB of VRAM, you can still play the majority of AAA games at 1080p while sacrificing a lot of details. So, if you want to truly enjoy games at their highest settings, you’ll need to spend a little extra money and go for a different card. However, today, this card, along with the GTX 1050 Ti, may be regarded as an entry-level card for AAA games.

Can Gigabyte nVidia GTX 1060 Windforce OC 3GB do 4K

Depending on the level of graphical detail Gigabyte nVidia GTX 1060 Windforce OC 3GB does 4K video and many games with simple graphics in 4K. If you reduce the settings, you might even be able to play some games in 4K that have more sophisticated visuals. Battlefield 1, GTA, and other newer 3D games with more detailed visuals won’t be playable at 4K with good graphics settings. In this regard, the 3GB VRAM is going to be a hindrance.

I would recommend a GTX 1070 Ti for 4K gaming at least 60 frames per second.

I use a 1070 graphics card, which can hardly run most games at high to low settings depending on the game at 4K; therefore, I often run the majority of games at maximum settings on a display set to 1440P. 60fps.

The 3GB will undoubtedly suffer because the 1060 6GB can hardly handle 1440P.

Is Gigabyte nVidia GTX 1060 Windforce OC 3GB a silent card?

The card totally shuts down its fans when it is idle (up to 60°C), which results in excellent idle fan noise.

The card is also incredibly quiet while gaming, with noise levels as low as 28 dBA. This is quieter than any GTX 1060 we have tested thus far and produces almost noiseless gameplay. You can call Gigabyte nVidia GTX 1060 Windforce OC 3GB a silent card.

What ports are on Gigabyte nVidia GTX 1060 Windforce OC 3GB?

Gigabyte nVidia GTX 1060 Windforce OC 3GB ports are:

Dual-link DVI-D *2

HDMI-2.0b*1

Display port – 1.4 *1

There are two dual-link DVI-D ports provided, one more than required by the reference specifications. With one HDMI 2.0 connector and one DisplayPort 1.4 header, everything else is standard.

Through a single 6-pin connector, power is delivered. As a result, the card’s total maximum power is 150W, which is much higher than the 120W TDP and shouldn’t be a restriction when overclocking. Adding an 8-pin header would only have been for aesthetic purposes.