Exchange 1060 3g for AMD? Go or no go?

[Necruss]

Hi guys,
My current config:
i5 4460
4x4GB DDR3 1600
GTX 1060 3GB Gigabyte (http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=6089#kf)
Corsair RM650

My friend offered to buy from me my GTX for a quite good price.
In exchange I found two options on the aftermarket:
- for additional 25$ I can have MSI R9 390X Gaming 8G with more than 2 years of warranty remaining (https://www.msi.com/Graphics-card/R9-390X-GAMING-8G.html#hero-overview)
OR
- for additional 50$ I can have MSI RX 480 8G Gaming with more than 2,5 years of warranty remaining (https://www.msi.com/Graphics-card/Radeon-RX-480-GAMING-8G.html#hero-overview)

Would it be good for me to go for some of these options?

PROS:
- more ram
- semi passive cards
- theoretically better parameters

CONS:
- higher energy consumption
- older technology (R9 390x)
- worse performance in some games in 1080p (my resolution of playing)

I play mostly RPG (Fallout, Mafia, Dragon Age, DIablo) or Strategy (Starcraft, XCOM).

The whole idea came to me when I was playing XCOM2 and HWInfo had shown me that I used 97% of the memory of my 1060. Yes I know that buying 3G card was not a good idea, but it was budget decision. 6G version of 1060 is still too expensive in comparison to 3G version, and is still far more expensive option than both Radeons mentioned above.
Please share your opinion with me as I am little confused and I don't know if going for one of these AMD cards is a good choice.
Thanks in advance..

 

[Martell1977]

A shame you didn't ask before getting the 1060 3gb, the RX 480 4gb is about the same price but a little better and more VRAM.

Either the 390X or the 480 8gb are better options, but the 480 uses a lot less power (if that is a concern of yours). While the 390X is an older card, it supports and benefits from DX12 and Vulcan as well.

That all being said, if I were in your shoes, I'd get the 480 8gb. Unless the extra $25 is a problem, there is no good reason to start a generation behind. plus the drivers are still maturing for the 480 and I would expect performance improvements as they progress (don't know by how much, but history shows AMD drivers mature slower than nVidia counterparts, probably due to budget limitations.). The 480 8gb is better than the 390X and 1060 3gb @ 1080p, so no worries there.

 

[Necruss]

A shame you didn't ask before getting the 1060 3gb, the RX 480 4gb is about the same price but a little better and more VRAM.

Either the 390X or the 480 8gb are better options, but the 480 uses a lot less power (if that is a concern of yours). While the 390X is an older card, it supports and benefits from DX12 and Vulcan as well.

That all being said, if I were in your shoes, I'd get the 480 8gb. Unless the extra $25 is a problem, there is no good reason to start a generation behind. plus the drivers are still maturing for the 480 and I would expect performance improvements as they progress (don't know by how much, but history shows AMD drivers mature slower than nVidia counterparts, probably due to budget limitations.). The 480 8gb is better than the 390X and 1060 3gb @ 1080p, so no worries there.

Thanks for your answer.
The reason why I bought my card was that I had my GTX970, which was getting old and the warranty was close to an end. I got buyer for a good price so I sold and bought for exact the same money this card.
I thought that having new card, new technology, new warranty loosing only 0.5g of ram was a good choice. Specially that in some game benchmarks even 3g version of 1060 was better than 970.
Anyway - going back to the main question. You think that going into any options mentioned above is a good choice? I didn't realise that RX480 is better than R9390X. I only thought that it is only newer technological process, but 390X is still a top of the top. I thought that RX490 will be a competition for it.

 

[Martell1977]

Anyway - going back to the main question. You think that going into any options mentioned above is a good choice? I didn't realise that RX480 is better than R9390X. I only thought that it is only newer technological process, but 390X is still a top of the top. I thought that RX490 will be a competition for it.

The 480 bests the 390X in most benchmarks, that is why it's considered 390, 390X and 970 level performance. It even comes close to the 980 in a benchmark or 2.

From the little to nothing we know about the 490, the hopes are that it will be competition for the 1070 and then see how the rest of the product stack fills out. All the rumors talk of the 490, but nothing about a 490X and Fury successors. Though at the least I expect a 490 and Fury card.

On the main question...The 480 4gb is the best option of your list. The 390X is the next best and either will be better than the 1060 3gb you have now.

Unfortunately, selling your 970 to get the 1060 was a downgrade. This is because the 1060 3gb is not the same chip as the 1060 6gb. It's a cut down version with half the VRAM. I personally think it's dirty that nVidia did that, but there is nothing anyone can do. IMO, if you have 2 cards named the 1060, it should be the same chip.

 

[Necruss]

Anyway - going back to the main question. You think that going into any options mentioned above is a good choice? I didn't realise that RX480 is better than R9390X. I only thought that it is only newer technological process, but 390X is still a top of the top. I thought that RX490 will be a competition for it.

The 480 bests the 390X in most benchmarks, that is why it's considered 390, 390X and 970 level performance. It even comes close to the 980 in a benchmark or 2.

From the little to nothing we know about the 490, the hopes are that it will be competition for the 1070 and then see how the rest of the product stack fills out. All the rumors talk of the 490, but nothing about a 490X and Fury successors. Though at the least I expect a 490 and Fury card.

On the main question...The 480 4gb is the best option of your list. The 390X is the next best and either will be better than the 1060 3gb you have now.

Unfortunately, selling your 970 to get the 1060 was a downgrade. This is because the 1060 3gb is not the same chip as the 1060 6gb. It's a cut down version with half the VRAM. I personally think it's dirty that nVidia did that, but there is nothing anyone can do. IMO, if you have 2 cards named the 1060, it should be the same chip.

Unfortunately this RX480 has been sold.
So the only choice is to go for this R9 390X.
Do you think this is still a good idea?
To be honest I turned myself into this RX480 and I am not sure now if going back to the older tech is a good idea even though there is more vram on it.
Yes this is not very nice from Nvidia that they in fact cheated with this 3g version of 1060, but still this is quite decent card and technologically more advanced that R9 390X, which is in fact refreshed version of R9 290X from 2013. :/

 

[Martell1977]

Unfortunately this RX480 has been sold.
So the only choice is to go for this R9 390X.
Do you think this is still a good idea?
To be honest I turned myself into this RX480 and I am not sure now if going back to the older tech is a good idea even though there is more vram on it.
Yes this is not very nice from Nvidia that they in fact cheated with this 3g version of 1060, but still this is quite decent card and technologically more advanced that R9 390X, which is in fact refreshed version of R9 290X from 2013. :/

It's your call, the 390X is a good deal faster than the 1060 you have, plus the VRAM. Yes it is older tech, but it's not outdated just yet. They are still very capable cards and compatible with the latest API's.

The 390X is the product of architecture refinement and manufacturing maturity, kind of like Kaby Lake CPU;s are to Skylake. I'm not sure how much more advanced the latest GPU's are, many as saying that all the gains are mostly from the process shrink, which was a huge jump (28nm to 14/16nm, skipping over 22nm completely).

Of course it's your choice if the added performance is worth the cost.

 

[jeffredo]

The GTX 1060 3GB is as fast as an RX 480 and only 5% slower than an R9 390X. Personally, I wouldn't have replaced a GTX 970 for anything less than a GTX 1070, but that's neither here nor there. The 1060 3GB is a side grade at worst. Its certainly not a downgrade. Being you've already done that I would go for the R9 390X for the extra $25. I love the Twin Frozr cooler and the 8GB of VRAM are a definite plus.

 

[Necruss]

Thank you for all answers. The transaction of RX 480 was canceled and I managed to contact the guy and buy this RX480. It went even cheaper than I anticipated because after negotiation it resulted that I needed to add only 30$ to have this AMD card.
I'll have it tomorrow and I am waiting Impatiently to see how it will perform in the games.
@ jeffredo - yes - I love this cooling system also and I must admit that you can get use to semi-passive cooling system. My GTX970 was Asus Strix - so also semi-passive. This GTX 1060 is not and it was becomming annoying that coolers can be heard all the time.
Once again thank you all for your support. I hope I made good decision.

 

[jeffredo]

I'm sure you made a good decision. Hardware Canucks revisited a review between the RX 480 8GB and GTX 1060 6GB. With newer games and newer drivers the RX 480 is doing much better - pretty much matching the 1060 in DX11 games and beating it in DX12 and Vulcan.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/73945-gtx-1060-vs-rx-480-updated-review.html

 

[Necruss]

I'm sure you made a good decision. Hardware Canucks revisited a review between the RX 480 8GB and GTX 1060 6GB. With newer games and newer drivers the RX 480 is doing much better - pretty much matching the 1060 in DX11 games and beating it in DX12 and Vulcan.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/73945-gtx-1060-vs-rx-480-updated-review.html

Hi,
thanks for the article. Made me calmer. Specially that in the article there is a comparison to 6g version of GTX1060, and mine was 3g - so slower.