ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1060 AMP Edition Graphics Card Review

And today marks the introduction to Nvidia’s latest member, the GeForce GTX 1060 and what we have in goldfries’ lab is the one from ZOTAC – the AMP Edition.

The Zotac GTX 1060 AMP is a small card with dual-fan cooling. How small? Just look at the size of the unit against the PCI-E bracket and PCI-E connector at the bottom.

There’s no backplate for this model, unlike the GTX 950 AMP Edition that I reviewed before and I must say that the GTX 950 looks a lot nicer.

Anyway the GTX 1060 model here requires only a single 6-pin PCI-E connector.

At the back, the usual I/O ports and what you can see here are copper heatpipes stretching across the bottom area.

Below is the GPU-Z screen capture.

Test Setup

Overclocking

I managed to add over 200Mhz to the default core clock but there were a few games that the card seem to fail completing benchmarks, so I finally settled in with 150Mhz. As for memory, I added some 200Mhz to it with no issue.

Benchmarks

Unigine Heaven 4.0

*NOTE : Details are set to maximum.

Metro Last Light

Shadow of Mordor

Settings : Set to ULTRA, V-sync off.

Bioshock Infinite

Settings are at
2 – UltraDX11_DDOF | 2 – Custom | 1 – 16:9 | 4 – FullHD / 4K

Grand Theft Auto V

Settings : Every option to the MAX setting available.

The Division

Settings : Set to ULTRA, V-sync OFF.

Ashes of the Singularity (DX12)

Settings : Set to CRAZY

Hitman (DX12)

Settings : Maximum

Here’s an overview of the relevant performance based on available data, the first 5 games and in DirectX 11 at Full HD resolution.

Temperature

Furmark Burn-in Test was used to stress the card. Fan settings are at Auto. Room set to ~25c.

The fan hovers at around 85% on AUTO settings when on high load but what’s great about it is that it’s still pretty quite, even at 100% RPM it sounds like the noise level of Founders Edition cooler at 50% – 60% RPM.

Power Consumption

The stress was done with Furmark Burn-in Test. Power consumption reading was taken from the watt-meter, actual power draw by the entire system from the wall point. I’m using an Cooler Master V850 with around 90% efficiency and the estimated system power draw (CPU, not including GPU) during Furmark test is 107w.

The Verdict

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1060 AMP Edition retails at RM 1,399 – So how does it fare against the AMD RX 480? It costs a bit more but you get quite a lot more performance out of it and it doesn’t draw as much power as the RX 480. Unlike the RX 480 that requires some voltage boost just to overclock (and resulting in more heat) the GTX 1060 overclocks without needing voltage adjustment and gains quite a performance boost out of it without suffering from additional heat.

Put it simple – you have a winner here, the once rather attractive AMD RX 480 now looks pale in comparison as GeForce GTX 1060 cards now reigns in its stead.

If you are a GTX 970 or GTX 980 card owner, or even R9 390 or R9 390X owner – don’t bother because you will be side-grading. For some games it is an upgrade but the improvement is not significant.