MSI GTX 1060 6GB vs MSI RX 480 8GB

That depends on the games your playing, for the most part the 1060 performs 5-15% better in dx11 titles, however in dx12 titles with the exception of rise of the tomb raider and bf1 the rx 480 performs better. The 1060 runs a bit cooler and consumes less power, but the rx 480 is on average cheaper. As of right now 6gb is more than enough with the exception of vram heavy games at 4k. The size of the bus especially when comparing totally different architectures has no bearing on performance. The gtx 960 has a 128 bit bus however it performs quite a bit better than a 760 with a 256bit bus. I bought a 1060 as you can see, but I strongly considered the 480.

They perform similarly to be honest. Dx 11 the 1060 tends to be faster, in DX12 they are fairly even, in Vulkan the rx 480 tends to be faster.

Here are some GTA V benchmarks it pretty clearly favors the 1060. Mass effect andromeda is on the frostbite engine I believe so if its anything similar to other frostbite games it will likely favor nvidia slightly. Not sure about HIZ1.

This review comapring the 480 and 1060 benches a ton of games: http://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/2518-nvidia-gtx-1060-review-and-benchmark-vs-rx-480

1. There's no justification at all for the driver statement... historically there is nothing to support that.

2. But it must be said that the first thing you should include in a GFX card question is the intended resolution. At 1080p. The answer for 1080P is different at 1440p which is different from 4k. The reason you see so many posts containing misinformation on this topic is because both users and reviewers use GPUZ or some similar tool to read what they think is VRAM usage but it's not. No such tool exists.

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/213069-is-4gb-of-vram-enough-amds-fury-x-faces-off-with-nvidias-gtx-980-ti-titan-x

GPU-Z claims to report how much VRAM the GPU actually uses, but there’s a significant caveat to this metric. GPU-Z doesn’t actually report how much VRAM the GPU is actually using — instead, it reports the amount of VRAM that a game has requested. We spoke to Nvidia’s Brandon Bell on this topic, who told us the following: “None of the GPU tools on the market report memory usage correctly, whether it’s GPU-Z, Afterburner, Precision, etc. They all report the amount of memory requested by the GPU, not the actual memory usage. Cards will larger memory will request more memory, but that doesn’t mean that they actually use it. They simply request it because the memory is available.”

Click to expand...

If you have a VISA card with a $500 charge on it and $5,000 credit limit, you credit report's list of liabilities will say:

VISA = $5,000 because a lender evaluating your ability to pay must think about your ability to pay and right now you have a potential liability of $5k

While there are exceptions due to bad console ports, lack of optimizations for new game engines or next DX version, at 1080p, 2GB and 4GB is the same in 95+% of all games.

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Video-Card-Performance-2GB-vs-4GB-Memory-154/
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/gigabyte_geforce_gtx_960_g1_gaming_4gb_review,12.html

In the above extremetech reference, they were unable to use more than 4GB in any game at any resolution except when they raised settings (at 4K) so high that the game was unplayable. So what's the significance of a game asking for more than X GB if when you pay it those settings, you get 14 fps ? When ya lower the settings enough to get > 30 fps ... bam... you no longer need more VRAM.

Today ...

1080p 3GB or more is just fine
1440p 4 GB is just fine
4k 8 GB is just fine ..... however until we see Display Port 1.4 Monitors and 120_ Hz screens, don't recommend "going there"

That's not to say that there aren't games that might show a performance decrease with less than that amount, the fact is ... a) that's rare and b) the fps hit is not that significant

Here's the 3 GB 1060 .. with 1080P screen I can't see spending $220 for a 4 GB 480 ($260 for 8GB) when ya can get a 1060 3 GB for $195


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814137034

As for the software / driver / other differences

a) Both improve their drivers over time
b) Historically, nVidia does it somewhat more frequently and is much faster outta the gate with multicard profiles
c) nVdia has PhysX / AMD doesn't ... Think of it like an air conditioner in your car.... you won't get to use it all the time but when ya can, it sure does make an impression.
d) nVidia has Shadowplay which records your game play... (i.e;. Fraps) AMD has Game DVR which is GVR based .... GVR works on both platforms....edge to Shadowplay
e) There's GeForce Experience versus AMDs Gaming Evolved and the nVidia utility is somewhat more advanced, has more options according to reviewers ... I don't get into it enough to notice.
f) Ever since the GTC 7xx / AMD 2xx series (last 3 generations) nVidia cards have 2 to 3 times the overclocking ability as AMD cards. If you OC your cards with Afterburner or whatever, this is huge. For example:
-1060 3GB overclocks 14.5%
-480 4GB overclocks 6.5%
g) NVida has G-Sync and AMD had Freesync. Both work fine with corresponding cards / monitors.... but G-Sync comes with ULMB (Motion Blur Reduction) and Freesync does not. You can see the effects of eliminating motion blur here
https://frames-per-second.appspot.com/