Intro
This overclocking showdown is a follow-up to the $199 EVGA GTX 1060 3GB and the $199 PowerColor Red Devil RX 470 4GB evaluations. Today, we have updated each card to its latest drivers and have optimized our overclocks with all performance options set to their upper limits to get the highest performance.
At stock, the reference clocked EVGA GTX 1060 3GB won overall in DX11 performance over the Red Devil-clocked RX 470, and fell marginally short of the 6GB reference version GTX 1060 much as the RX 470 stands in relation to the RX 480. This time, we will overclock the EVGA GTX 1060/3GB and the Red Devil RX 470 as far as they each will go with a maxed-out fan profile and with added voltage to see where they stand in relation to each other fully overclocked.
The Red Devil RX 470 OC vs. the EVGA GTX 1060 3GB
The $199 PowerColor Red Devil version of the RX 470 4GB is factory clocked up to it’s maximum boost speeds of 1270MHz from 1206MHz at stock. The details of our manual overclocking to 5% may be found here. We found that as long as the temperatures remain cool and the Power and Temperature limits are maximized, it will not throttle. Even at 100% fan, the noise level is acceptable and the temperatures remain in the mid-70s C.
We again tried a +6.5% overclock as the voltage was now maximized, but the overclock was right on the edge of stability and we experienced occasional crashes to desktop even though our games could still complete our benchmarks. Although for a day-to-day overclock, we will use +6%, for this overclocking evaluation we settled on 6.5%, or on 1355MHz boost with stock memory clocks (1750MHz). Higher memory clocks did not generally gain any performance and often negatively impacted it.
Overclocking the Gaming Edition of the EVGA GTX 1060 3GB
We devoted a separate evaluation to the EVGA GTX 1060 3GB which you can read here. We achieved a final stable overclock of +125 MHz to the core which settled in at or above 1974MHz with GPU Boost 3.0 for the majority of our benching as we kept our room cool for all of our game benchmarks. Watching the PrecisionX OC in-game overlay during our benchmark runs we also often observed 1987MHz. Our memory overclock remained at +400MHz for its clock of 4404MHz which greatly contributed to the increased performance. The fan got a mild whine which became intrusive when pushed from 90% to 100% but the GPU remained cool in the mid-70s C.
Testing Platform
Our testing platform is Windows 10 Home 64-bit, using an Intel Core i7-6700K at 4.00GHz which turbos to 4.4GHz for all cores as set in the ASRock Z7170 motherboard’s BIOS, and 16GB of G.SKILL DDR4 at 3000MHz. The settings and hardware are identical except for the two cards being tested.
We also feature our newest 2016 games, Mirror’s Edge Catalyst and Deux Ex Mankind Divided, and we also include Ashes of the Singularity, Hitman, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and Total War Warhammer using DX12. We have also added Futuremark’s DX12 benchmark, Time Spy. We will compare the performance of 25 modern games at 1920×1080 and at 2560×1440 resolutions with maximum settings.
Before we run benchmarks, let’s check out the test configuration.
I have a issue with this test; in that most would never sacrifice all out overclocking for having unbearable fan settings, all while gambling long term durability.
I’d rather have seen both cards ability to garner best OC’n, while tempered by a moderate decibels (dBA) (not the intrusive whine you indicated the EVGA offered up), or sacrificing disproportionate chip temperatures. Without such information, while the EVGA card might be able to provide a higher final FPS, for how long? Sure that EVGA might achieve a high OC doesn’t mean it’s the type of card you should. Once that single fan dies and its’ simple aluminum extrusion, (which is probably already stretched) you might instantaneously bake the chip and you’re out a card. (not warranty)
I’d say to really provide revenant disclosure there needs to be actual reading of the dBA levels and chip/memory temperatures, even something like a FLIR camera. You more made this review as a one-time “drag race”, not the true “enduro competition” gamers go into expecting from there OC’d graphics card.
I have the EVGA 1060 3gb they reviewed, at 100% the fan noise really isn’t bad. It’ not as loud or annoying as older cards I’ve owned, like amd 7970, nvidia 970.
YMMV. Some are better than others within the same batch.
I have the EVGA 1060 3GB…I overclocked the core to +200 and the memory +450 and it runs fine. The fan is set to auto.
I have the EVGA GTX 1060 3GB card…I have the core @ +200 and the memory @ +500. I set the fan speed to 60% manually when gaming, and it runs fine for me. Temps do hit the mid 70’s under heavy gaming…I suppose a higher fan speed would fix that though. Just wanted to add…I have seen the core hit as high as 2063 mhz.
This was the highest i could OC my EVGA 1060 3GB SC:GPU: 2126Mhz & Mem: 4201Mhz (This was in a temp controlled room with AC) https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4be362bdc199446ae258694161658a17e7ed4b20cf94310abf8f9ac87dd26c10.png