Hardware & Technical GPU Upgrade - GTX 1060?

Ceeege

Ceeege
Hi folks

I'm looking to give my current 4 year old PC a little boost, potentially with a new GPU. My current set up is a DELL XPS 8500 which if memory serves correctly has the following -

Radeon HD 7870
Intel Core i7-3770K
24 Gb Ram (upgraded!)
Windows 10
Triple screen setup but only gaming on a single 1920x1200 monitor
Budget - not silly prices but around £200 or so

It has been quite happily running ED since the Alpha and usually gets a solid 60FPS in space, dropping to around 30-45 in Stations/Planets. My level of detail is not cranked up that high in order to keep things fairly smooth.

I'm a casual gamer with limited time (aren't most of us?!) but do feel I'm missing out on some of the shinier details ED has to offer and also want to be a little more future proofed to see what SC brings to the table when I can be bothered to download the latest Alpha!

I've been looking at the GTX 1060 as a potential new card. Can any of you fine Commanders offer any advice on it? Would it fit / work with my set up and also are things like the Power consumption / connectors suitable for my aging PC.

Also there seem to be several models/manufacturers of the GTX 1060 out there. Are there differences / better versions of these cards to get, other than the differences in on-board RAM?

Apologies, but there were the types of questions that I would have been able to answer myself 20 years ago!!

Many thanks Commanders. Fly safe o7
 

Porina

Porina
1060 uses less power than the 7870 so should be fine. Just check physical size depending on your case. Don't think there is much to choose between models but you can always look up reviews, or do what I do and choose by price/looks/brand depending on my mood. 6GB is the obvious choice to be future resistant although it will be more than £200.
 

milligna

milligna
It's a nice card, will work very well with ED and does excellent VR. You'll be very impressed when you crank up the settings for the first time!

As Porina said, check the size... and make sure your PSU is enough! There are smaller versions available too.
 

MickyG1982

M
You are looking at £230 plus for the 6gb model, it is well worth the extra cost however and performs at least as well as the 980 in most respects.
 

The Chairmaker

The Chairmaker
You might want to check out the Radeon RX470 if your budget is £200. Its slower than the 1060 or Rx480, but for the gaming resolution your at is pretty much spot on.

The Nvidia card runs cooler and is more power efficient than the AMD cards. It also tends to play better in older game titles.
On newer titles especially the burgeoning DX12 games the AMD cards are pulling ahead.

My belief is that going forwards the AMD cards will gain against the NVIDIA ones as all the major gaming platforms have AMD inside them be it xboxone, PS4, PS4 Pro, xpox Scorpio. Recent releases appear to be highlighting that trend.
 

Ceeege

Ceeege
Thanks for the replies folks. I think I've convinced myself that the 1060 is probably the minimum hassle option with similar power consumption, i.e. not having to worry about my PSU. If it's a little extra for some newer technology then I'm happy with that. Presumably they're not going to come down in price soon, especially not in the UK!

Anyway, I'll probably leave it a week or two, read some more reviews and then go for it.

Thanks again :)
 
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