Tuesday, August 16th 2022
Six Year Old GTX 1060 Beats Intel Arc A380, GeForce GTX 1630 and Radeon RX 6400, Wins TPU popularity contest
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB "Pascal" continues to be a popular choice among TechPowerUp readers as an entry-mainstream graphics card choice over rivals that are two generations ahead. The recent TechPowerUp Frontpage Poll asked our readers what graphics card they'd choose, assuming they're priced the same, with choices that include the GTX 1060 6 GB, GTX 1630 4 GB, GTX 1650 4 GB, RX 570 4 GB, RX 5500 XT 4 GB, RX 6400 4 GB, and the A380 6 GB. The poll received great response, with over 18,200 votes cast since it went live on June 30, 2022, closing on August 16.
The GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB dominated the poll, and nearly scored a simple majority, with 49 percent of the respondents, or 8,920 people, saying they'd choose the card over the others. A distant second was the RX 5500 XT 4 GB, with 15.1 percent, or 2,749 votes. The GTX 1650 and Arc A380 are nearly on par, with 11,9 percent, or around 2,170 votes. The remaining options, including the RX 6400, RX 570, and GTX 1630, are marginal, single-digit percentage choices.
The GTX 1060 6 GB is now over six years old, having launched in July 2016. It's based on the 16 nm "Pascal" graphics architecture, which has since been succeeded by two generations—the 12 nm "Turing" and the 8 nm "Ampere." With DirectX 12 feature-level 12_1 support, the card supports nearly all of the current online FPS, MOBA, and MMORPGs with reasonably good settings, at Full HD (1080p), which strikes at the core of the PC gaming market, or the very top of the bell-curve. Unfortunately, the GTX 1060 is retired from NVIDIA's product stack, although the latest GeForce Game Ready drivers continue to support it. You may still find the card in the second-hand market on eBay where it can be had for well under $200.
What's more interesting is that the GTX 1060 beats every AMD rival hollow, including the RX 5500 XT that's based on the 7 nm RDNA architecture, and the newer RX 6400, based on the 6 nm RDNA2. Although barely available in the West, the Intel Arc A380 appears to be riding on some novelty value, with people eager to check out the capabilities of Intel's latest 6 nm Xe-HPG "Alchemist" graphics architecture.
Catch the TechPowerUp Reviews of each card from this poll:
GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB |GeForce GTX 1630 4 GB | GeForce GTX 1650 4 GB | Radeon RX 570 4 GB | Radeon RX 5500 XT 4 GB | Radeon RX 6400 4 GB | Arc A380 6 GB
The GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB dominated the poll, and nearly scored a simple majority, with 49 percent of the respondents, or 8,920 people, saying they'd choose the card over the others. A distant second was the RX 5500 XT 4 GB, with 15.1 percent, or 2,749 votes. The GTX 1650 and Arc A380 are nearly on par, with 11,9 percent, or around 2,170 votes. The remaining options, including the RX 6400, RX 570, and GTX 1630, are marginal, single-digit percentage choices.
What's more interesting is that the GTX 1060 beats every AMD rival hollow, including the RX 5500 XT that's based on the 7 nm RDNA architecture, and the newer RX 6400, based on the 6 nm RDNA2. Although barely available in the West, the Intel Arc A380 appears to be riding on some novelty value, with people eager to check out the capabilities of Intel's latest 6 nm Xe-HPG "Alchemist" graphics architecture.
Catch the TechPowerUp Reviews of each card from this poll:
GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB |GeForce GTX 1630 4 GB | GeForce GTX 1650 4 GB | Radeon RX 570 4 GB | Radeon RX 5500 XT 4 GB | Radeon RX 6400 4 GB | Arc A380 6 GB
41 Comments on Six Year Old GTX 1060 Beats Intel Arc A380, GeForce GTX 1630 and Radeon RX 6400, Wins TPU popularity contest
In the past an RX 580 with 8GB memory could be bought at those price levels. Put that card in a the above poll and see what happens.
Meaning, I don't see the usefulness of this poll.
Simply put my opinion is that GTX 10 series cards don't belong in a 2022 build, not even an entry level one, and this includes the likes of the 1080 Ti and the Titan X.
The real time AV1 encoding capabilities of the A380 alone warrant giving it an honest chance imo. Intel will work its software problems out, I believe in the company's ability to do so.
The 7970/280X 3GB was a far better GPU than the GTX 960 but somehow never got the sales numbers or popularity..
I would take a RX480/580 8GB over the 1060 anyday and those AMD GPUs aged better than the GTX 1060.
That said the GTX 1060 is a decent GPU compared to the GTX 960 having owned 2, I still prefer my XFX GTR RX 480 8GB over it. which I still run even today because it has really low power consumption
and good enough to run all the games I play at locked 60fps.
None of the above was my choice.
Might as well of listed a 980ti :laugh:
the only reason i would go with 1060 is NVENC
1630 is incomprehensible since there is the 1650 choice (just undervolt 1650 if you need similar to 1630 power consumption) or buy a RX6400 or an ARC A380 LP and undervolt (when it becomes available in Western markets)
The generation after Pascal was the RTX rip-off, then we had global component supply issues, the US-China trade tarrifs, and ETH mining causing chaos. Despite most of the problems being resolved, it took 5 years to best the venerable 1060 in both performance/$ and performance/Watt and only now in the last six months has the RX 6600 reduced to $260 really provided a tempting upgrade option.
I was also a big fan of the RX480 which was a close match for the 1060 but 8GB Polaris cards were so good at ETH mining that their used price grossly outmatched their performance during the GPU shortages of 2019-2021.
videocardz.com/newz/intel-arc-a380-desktop-gpu-is-now-officially-available-for-preorder-in-the-us
:)
The cost / performance ratio is far better than anything you can find anywhere else.
Going to have to wait for ampere clearance after proof-of-stake, or else wait for 4050 to get released at the olds 1060 price point ( with better performance than 3060)
But I'm still amazed atr how many AAA games my HTPCs GTX 960 has been handling without sacrificing much at 1080p, buyt its about to hit a wall soon - hopefully I can work around it ( plan was to do card swap on the 3060 was purchased)_!
The unknown is exciting, and Arc is all-new. I would happily bet on its future.
If I was in a market for a low end, possibly used, graphics card - which was the premise of the poll -, I wouldn't gamble a single cent on Intel's effort though.
I know I may sound harsh calling Pascal ancient - but it's really an architecture from 2016. That's well over six years ago, more than half a decade. To put that into perspective, that's the year the iPhone 7 and the Galaxy S7 launched. See how these two mighty flagships compare to even midrange phone like a Galaxy A33 5G today? Tech has gone forward so much, and I am all too happy to acknowledge its age. Even if some people aren't willing to, but then again, many would defend using Windows 7 in this present year and I think that is completely :kookoo: myself.
End of the day, you know what's best for your own personal needs. I can respect that. But I personally won't recommend a Pascal architecture graphics card for a modern build.