Conclusion
The company has struck a very good balance between the need for speed and usability.It can be argued that AMD has successfully forced the Nvidia GeForce hand with the introduction of compelling GPUs priced at under £200. Putting Nvidia into an awkward spot by handily undercutting the GTX 1060 6GB, the green team has come back with the 3GB model now equipped with fewer shaders to boot.
A host of partners are vying to have your attention and cash in this segment. Though the first card out of the gate in terms of review, the EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 SC Gaming is going to be hard to beat.
Small. quiet, fast, and priced correctly, the company has struck a very good balance between the need for speed and usability in a myriad of systems, and we like it because it shows you don't need to be big to be good in this hotly-contested space.
A viable option for anyone considering a £200 graphics upgrade, EVGA is likely to sell plenty of these cards.
Excellent at FHD, decent at QHD
Silent when idle and quiet under load
Primed for the £200 market
Three-year warranty
EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 SC Gaming 3GB
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The EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 SC Gaming 3GB graphics card is available to purchase from Scan Computers.
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Going to quote some predictions I will made about this card a while back:CAT-THE-FIFTH
Just looking at HUKD,its apparent many have not realised the card has less shaders and are using GTX1060 6GB comparisons to the RX470 4GB to say that is how the GTX1060 3GB will perform.
I predict what will happen:
1.)Reviews will show its brilliant(some might also try and avoid titles and settings which are too VRAM heavy)
2.)Give it 10/10
3.)Will then forget about it in a few months
We saw the same with the 8800GT 256MB,and 8800GTS 320MB - reviews were all positive and then you started to see the issues when the cards hit VRAM limits quicker and it was quietly pushed under the carpet.
What is worrying is that OcUK and others have this at £190 to £200 and above. This is not a cheap card and the issue is that Steam has quite a few cards like the GTX970 with 4GB of VRAM,so games will no doubt push over 3GB for better settings as time progresses.
We have two new consoles with more graphical grunt coming out soon,so I expect cross-platform titles will also start to push better graphics. So I am not sure whether a 3GB card is that good a deal now.
Edit!!
I wish they had even done something like they did with the GTX660 - have another 1GB of RAM addressed at a lower speed(not to the slowness of the GTX970 OFC which made it pointless).
The historical precident is there - this card will do worse and worse as time progresses.
Plus,the GTX1060 6GB can be had for £40 more - more shaders and more VRAM. This card will be a poor purchase over time.
The 8800GT 256MB,8800GTS 320MB,GTX460 768MB,HD3850 256MB,HD6950 1GB and HD7850 1GB all say hi!
All looked reasonably fine at the start and got progressively worse and worse.
A great example is the 8800GT 256MB.Look at the 9600GT 512MB against the 8800GT 256MB. Remember the 8800GT had 112 stream processors and the 9600GT had 64 stream processors. The 8800GT 512MB was generally faster than a HD3870 512MB.
Remember the 8800GT 512MB was rebadged as the 9800GT 512MB during that time.
Both the 9600GT and HD3870 had weaker cores,than the 8800GT.
Hitting VRAM limits tanks performance,as the card will need to use slower system RAM. Yes,you can turn down settings,but it defeats the whole point of spending £200 on a graphics card IMHO,and as time progresses games will tend to use more and more VRAM.
That is a 64 shader core 9600GT 512MB beating a 112 shader core 8800GT 256MB,and the former is only clocked 50MHZ higher too.
The 8800GT 512MB had no such issue beating the 9600GT 512MB or HD3870 512MB.
History is going to repeat itself over time.Plus some other testing from other sites has shown issues with the card.
Actually as DF said,get the GTX1060 6GB,which chimes in exactly with what I said. Guru3D said the same. In Hitman the GTX1060 6GB is 14% faster overall it appears,and it gets bigger as the resolution increases too. Remember,Nvidia says it should be a 5% difference.
Both DF and Guru3D show it drops down to slightly below a GTX970 in the game too.
The same problem with Rise of the Tombraider:
http://images.eurogamer.net/2015/articles/1/8/5/1/9/0/1/digitalfoundry-2016-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1060-3gb-vs-6gb-review-147222507975.png/EG11/resize/600x-1/quality/80/format/jpg
DF said there was stuttering for the 3GB card.
Guru3D is testing a pre-overclocked card with better cooling against the FE GTX1060 6GB.
The 3GB card is pointless for such a small saving - it will get worse and worse. Games are going to push even more VRAM over the next couple of years. In fact Deus Ex,seems to also push VRAM usage.
History is not on the side of VRAM gimped performance cards.
Personally it won't affect me(or people I know in real life as I will tell them why spending that extra is worth it),but it makes me feel sorry for people who get the impression it will be fine,as its their money which is being wasted as time progresses.
So I am not sure what the point of the GTX1060 3GB card:
1.)Not enough VRAM as it can get pushed even at 1080P in very intensive games(both 2016 games)
2.)Not enough VRAM meaning it limits your monitor upgrade choices if you want to get a higher resolution monitor
3.)Less cores
4.)Only £30 to £40 difference
5.)Probably less resale value and less re-use value for a secondary rig
The same goes with the RX470 which is now more like £190 to £200 too. You might as well get an RX480 8GB.
At least the 8800GT 512MB was 40% more expensive than a 8800GT 256MB.
The GTX1060 3GB is not massively cheaper than a GTX1060 6GB.
£30 to £40(or even £50) on a £200 card over two to three years is nothing.
Its even more hilarious that the GTX1050 will be a 4GB card too - millions of GTX970 and GTX980 cards have over 3GB of VRAM and on Steam its either 1GB,2GB or 4GB of VRAM too.
My prediction is people will argue on how 3GB is “enough” and then it will be forgotten about when the next cards are launched.
