MSI's GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB Armor OC sits between the MSI GTX 1060 OC and the MSI GTX 1060 Gaming X in terms of positioning. Compared to the regular "OC", which runs identical clocks, the "Armor OC" adds idle-fan-stop, a slightly more powerful cooler, additional monitor outputs, and an 8-pin power input instead of a 6-pin. The next most expensive SKU, the Gaming X, uses the exact same PCB, same power phases, but adds a backplate, even better cooler, and higher out-of-the-box clocks.

Thanks to its overclock out of the box, the MSI GTX 1060 Armor OC gains 2% in performance over the GTX 1060 reference. This makes the card 6% faster than the AMD Radeon RX 480 reference; individual performance differences depend on the games, though, but both cards are good for 1080p gaming. The next-fastest NVIDIA model, the GTX 1070, is more optimized for 1440p gaming, and is 30% faster. AMD's R9 Fury X sits in-between that, with 13% higher performance. It would have been nice if MSI had overclocked their memory chips too, which would have provided an additional performance increase. The chips can certainly take it, as our manual overclocking section shows.

MSI's thermal solution uses two heatpipes that make direct contact with the GPU surface. Also included is a small heatsink which keeps the VRM circuitry at safe temperatures. A backplate is not available on the Armor OC, and it's probably not needed in this segment where pricing is very important. The cooler does a good job at keeping the card cool and quiet at the same time. As mentioned before, the card includes the idle-fan-off feature we consider essential these days for the perfect noise-free experience during desktop work, Internet browsing, media playback, and even light gaming. Gaming noise levels are good too; with 30 dBA, they are in the typical range of what I would expect from a decent GTX 1060.

Just like on the reference design, power efficiency is amazing, with huge improvements over the Maxwell architecture that is already highly efficient. MSI's card uses a bit more power than the reference design, which is justified by higher performance out of the box, but the power increase is bigger than the performance gained, which means some overall efficiency is lost, roughly 10%, not a big deal since the card runs good temperatures and is quiet while doing so. MSI chose to upgrade the 6-pin power input of the reference design to an 8-pin, something you will never make use of because the board's power limit is set to around 130W only, so to me, the 8-pin is mostly for show to reassure potential buyers that this card will be fine for everything you throw at it, including overclocking. A higher board power limit could have helped increase out-of-the-box performance by allowing NVIDIA Boost to boost higher for longer because there is more power headroom to do so.

Overclocking worked very well on our sample, which goes to show that with "Pascal", all cards overclock very similarly, no matter if they are marketed as ultra high-end or budget. What's also worth mentioning here is that due to the not-so-high out of the box overclock you'll have more manual overclocking potential (as all cards top out at similar clock frequencies). When you choose a card that's overclocked higher out of the box, you are basically delegating the manual overclocking work to the manufacturer by paying a small price premium for it.

With a price of $260, the MSI GTX 1060 Armor OC is $20 more expensive than the cheapest GTX 1060 6 GB currently on the market. The fantastic Gaming X retails at $275, making it another $15 more expensive, but I've seen it discounted heavily from time to time, so grab it if you see it for cheap. MSI's GTX 1060 ticks most of the extra-feature checkboxes, like idle-fan-stop and plenty of monitor outputs. I still feel it is slightly on the expensive side because it is sandwiched between a lot of options. Value-oriented buyers will probably go with the cheapest GTX 1060 they can find ($240 for 6 GB) and might even consider 3 GB variants, which are significantly cheaper at $190, with only a minor loss in performance. People who are willing to spend more will probably go for the MSI Gaming X. Maybe a price around $250 would make the Armor OC more attractive as that's where a lot of the competition from EVGA and Gigabyte sits. The Radeon RX 480 is another decent option in this segment, offering better performance per dollar, but with worse power efficiency, it does create a bit more heat and noise.