MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming X 3GB Graphics Card Review

System Overview & Testing Procedures
When you power your system on for the first time you will notice that the MSI Dragon logo on the side of the card lights up as well as the red parts of the cooler shroud. The Dragon logo is an RGB led, while the lights in the shroud itself are only red. Both have different effects like breathing, flashing, reacting to music etc. Both can also be controlled independently.

MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming X 3GB Graphics Card MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming X 3GB Graphics Card

We will be testing the MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming X 3GB in our graphics card test bench. It is made up of the following components:

Processor: Intel Core i7-5960X
Motherboard: Gigabyte X99-Ultra Gaming
Graphics Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming X 3GB
Memory: 32GB Crucial DDR4-2133
Storage: Crucial MX300 750GB SSD
Power: Corsair HX1200i
Cooling: Corsair H80i GT
Case: Lian Li PC-T80

This card features three different profiles, which have different speeds:

1809 MHz / 1594 MHz / 8108 MHz (OC Mode)
1784 MHz / 1569 MHz / 8008 MHz (Gaming Mode)
1708 MHz / 1506 MHz / 8008 MHz (Silent Mode)

These profiles can be switched using MSI’s Gaming App, which we cover on page 9 of this review. Opening up GPU-Z for each profile we can verify their speeds.

info-silent info-gaming info-oc

Sadly because of the new test system we do not have any cards to compare this card to. As new cards start to trickle in we will be updating the graphs on the following pages. We will be comparing the following cards:

MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming X 3GB
Sapphire Nitro+ RX 470 OC
Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Ti AMP!

AMD Cards tested on: Crimson 16.10.1
NVIDIA Cards tested on: Game Ready 373.06

Benchmarking Information
We have an entire benchmarking suite to test these cards to their full potential. Games will be run at 1080p, 1440p and 4K resolutions. Our benchmarking suite also includes synthetic tests as well.

Synthetic Tests
3DMark
– Time Spy
– Fire Strike
– Fire Strike Extreme
– Fire Strike Ultra
Heaven Benchmark 5.0
Steam VR Performance Test

Game Tests
Ashes of The Singularity
DOOM
The Division
Star Wars Battlefront
Grand Theft Auto V
FarCry 4
Batman Arkham Origins
Metro Last Light Redux

Other Tests
Power Consumption
– GPU-Z Sensor reading
Temperatures
– GPU-Z Sensor reading
Noise Levels
– Galaxy Audio CM130 Sound Pressure Level Meter

Now let’s get to testing!

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