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Review: Inno3D GeForce GTX 1060 iChiLL X3

by Tarinder Sandhu on 23 August 2016, 09:09

Tags: NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA), Inno3D

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qac5jz

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Conclusion

...Inno3D certainly does that with the massive iChiLL X3 version that's been a previous success on the higher-performing Pascal GPUs.

The GeForce GTX 1060 hits something of a middle ground as far as enthusiasts are concerned. Now Nvidia's preferred choice at £250, it's arguably faster than the GTX 970 but much slower than the GTX 1070.

And it's one area where Nvidia has honest-to-goodness competition in the form of the Radeon RX 480 8GB available, meaning that the green team's partners really do need to pay attention to cards based on this GPU.

Inno3D certainly does that with the massive iChiLL X3 version that's been a previous success on the higher-performing Pascal GPUs. It brings with it a 2.5-slot form factor, excellent balance between quietness and temperatures, while a hallmark of this series is overclocked memory.

Arguably more futureproof and faster than the 3GB models slowly coming to market, if you can get past the size and favour the look, the £260 Inno3D is a good bet, assuming you're happy to go with Nvidia for your gaming thrills and spills.

The Good
  
The Bad
Almost silent
Very cool
Overclocked memory
Energy efficient
  
Massive, 2.5-slot card
AMD RX 480 better in DX12
3GB cards cast a shadow over value



Inno3D GeForce GTX 1060 iChiLL X3 6GB

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The reviewed card is available from Overclockers.co.uk.

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At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.


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HEXUS Forums :: 5 Comments

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Posted by Tunnah - Tue 23 Aug 2016 12:33
£60 premium on a 970 you'd have to be tapped in the head
Posted by scaryjim - Tue 23 Aug 2016 15:16
I wouldn't trust nvidia to support the 970 for more than about another 6 months, and I have no doubt CAT will be in here to bemoan the lack of driver improvements his 660 and 960 got compared to the competing AMD cards. The fact that it's down as low as £190 is just proof that people are desperate to shift stock of old NV cards.

This is faster than a 970, will be supported by nvidia for longer, uses less power, and has a host of other architectural advancements. There's plenty of reasons to go for the 1060 over the 970. OTOH, paying £40 more for an over-engineered and overcooled version compared to the base partner cards? That I really don't see the point in.

Of course, personally if I had ~£260 to spend I'd buy an RX 470 and a freesync 1080p monitor…. ;)
Posted by Tunnah - Tue 23 Aug 2016 16:06
scaryjim
I wouldn't trust nvidia to support the 970 for more than about another 6 months, and I have no doubt CAT will be in here to bemoan the lack of driver improvements his 660 and 960 got compared to the competing AMD cards. The fact that it's down as low as £190 is just proof that people are desperate to shift stock of old NV cards.

This is faster than a 970, will be supported by nvidia for longer, uses less power, and has a host of other architectural advancements. There's plenty of reasons to go for the 1060 over the 970. OTOH, paying £40 more for an over-engineered and overcooled version compared to the base partner cards? That I really don't see the point in.

Of course, personally if I had ~£260 to spend I'd buy an RX 470 and a freesync 1080p monitor…. ;)

I'm on SLI 670s and I can't really complain about drivers. I still get incredible second-card performance (it hits 70% more often than not, hell I'd say 80). Power draw means nothing to a desktop user, it just doesn't, unless that is a specific concern for your build, but for practically every user out there power savings mean nothing. Yes the card is better than a 970, but for a 1080p usage scenario, I don't see the point in going for a 1060 over a 970.

But this is one of those scenarios where there is no definite answer, it's personal preference town
Posted by nobodyspecial - Tue 23 Aug 2016 18:17
“Run via Vulkan, gaming is nice and fluid at QHD. The Inno3D is handily beaten by that Sapphire, mind.
We wonder how the 3GB version of GTX 1060 will perform: we should know in a few days time.”

Not sure this is accurate at all until Bethesda fixes ASYNC for Pascal cards right? Without that, it's just a score that shows ONE side is working properly and the other is an unknown until a patch comes. Bethesda faq says they're working on it with NV so hopefully benchmarks will show the full picture soon. EVERY article you write and test DOOM in you should note this HEXUS! At least hardocp does this and mentions it's even loading the incorrect libraries compared to AMD's cards which use the proper ones. ;) Not sure if it's a library issue, or actually a separate Async FIX that is required but it's clear Vulkan is doing nothing on NV's side as it scores pretty much exactly like DX11 on pascal.
Posted by D.king88 - Sat 03 Sep 2016 16:49
Tunnah
I'm on SLI 670s and I can't really complain about drivers. I still get incredible second-card performance (it hits 70% more often than not, hell I'd say 80). Power draw means nothing to a desktop user, it just doesn't, unless that is a specific concern for your build, but for practically every user out there power savings mean nothing. Yes the card is better than a 970, but for a 1080p usage scenario, I don't see the point in going for a 1060 over a 970.

But this is one of those scenarios where there is no definite answer, it's personal preference town

I completely agree. When you're talking about products that fall in the mid-high end spectrum, I am always baffled when my driends speak of power draw and try and use it as a point in their favour - if I was concerned about juice, I wouldn't be running a 1200w system with 2x980ti's in