GTX 1060, GTX 1070, GTX 1080; Which one is the best?

Gaming has come a long way over the past few years. With more and more engines being introduced, games are now more realistic in detail than ever before. Of course, high end gaming would require better graphics card, and there is no better graphics card than the one made by Nvidia.

GTX 10 series

Nvidia graphics cards are probably the most popular graphics cards in the market today. With an even balance of quality and performance, these video cards not only offer stunning detail, but also smooth rendering at all times, so you do not miss out on those frames! With the introduction of GTX 10 series, gaming and simulation have taken a next level turn as these graphics cards offer better performance than any of the previous generations combined!

Over the years, there have been various companies, such as ATI, who have tried to compete with Nvidia, but have always lagged behind in one form or the other, and with the introduction of GTX 1060, 1070 and 1080 graphics cards, it’s no doubt that ATI and the others now have a lot of homework to do.

The price to pay
However, with great performance comes a great price, literally! Although it may be tempting to buy and make use of these remarkable graphics cards, they indeed to tend to tear a large hole in your wallet! In fact, before buying one, it is essential that one looks into the change in performance with the change in the price tag, so that one can find the perfect graphics card for their needs with the balance in performance and price.

For our comparison, we will be looking at the performances of the three most powerful graphics cards in the market made by Nvidia, the GTX 1060, GTX 1070 and the GTX 1080. We are only going to consider the stock models in this article, which means we will not be going towards the Ti models. The prices of the 1060, 1070 and 1080 are $270, $400 and $550 respectively, which means there is a huge gap in the price points of each of these cards. But which one is worth it? Let’s find out!

Refresh Rates and FPS
First lets look at the monitor frame rates. Each of these 3 graphics cards support 4k and support 1080p over 60fps. For a normal monitor, the refresh rate is usually 60Hz, or occasionally 75Hz. If you are using a generic monitor with 60-75 Hz refresh rate, the GTX 1060 is probably the best option, as it will give you a constant 60Hz refresh rate at 1080p. The GTX 1070 offers a better refresh rate, ranging from around 60 to 144Hz. This would mean that if you have got a generic monitor, you will experience a slight flicker of screen every now and then. The GTX 1080 will give you a very high refresh rate of 144Hz at 1080p, so if you’ve got a simple generic monitor, then you’ll probably be unable to utilize it’s full potential

Technical Specs
Next up are the cores. The GTX 1070 and 1060 go neck and neck with the exact same clock speeds of about 1500MHz, but the number of cores in the 1070 are a lot more than the one on the 1060, about 640 more to be exact. The GTX 1070 also has 8GB of memory to offer, whereas the 1060 provides about 6GB of memory and also does not offer SLI support as compared to the 1070 and the GTX 1080. Interestingly enough, the GTX 1060 has a greater boost clock speed of 1708 MHz as compared to the 1070 at 1683 MHz. The GTX 1070 and 1070 both have 256 bus width and the same amount of video memory to offer, with the 1080 having slightly larger amount of cores and a greater boost clock speed.

GDDR5 vs GDDR5X
The GTX 1060 and 1070 use GDDR5 memory, whereas the GTX 1080 uses GDDR5X memory. This new form of memory allows a boost in performance by one third, which means better experience while playing games. However, this can only be fully utilized by people who are very serious gamers running their games in 4k, and lets face it, most of us never go above 1080p.

The Verdict!
So the final verdict, which one is our bang for buck winner?
The Answer: GTX 1060!
The GTX 1060, although with a slight lower performance to offer than the 1070 or the 1080, does offer a much lower price point and still offers a very commendable framerate as well as graphic quality. The games today can easily run on ultra on GTX 1060, and no matter what, you will always get to utilize the full potential of graphics card at 1080p, as opposed to the GTX 1070 and the overkill GTX 1080.