Zotac GTX 1060 Mini for Oculus Rift?

[Arubeto]

I got my Zotac Mini last week and did some tests: with my current rig, 3DMark score increased from 3601 points with the GTX 970 to 3993 points with the GTX 1060. More importantly, the upgrade improved the performance of Elite: Dangerous in VR! I didn't quite reach constant 90 FPS in all situations I compared the cards in (hangar, station interior, planet surface, space, conflict zone), but on average got 15% more FPS! And on top of that, some issues where I had the impression that the head tracking of the Oculus Rift got wonky when I was on the bridge of large ships like the Cutter and Clipper within starports, probably because of the limited amount of VRAM of the 970 (4GB), got completely resolved by the switch to the new 6GB card!

In addition, the Zotac Mini is - like the name implies - very small and extremely easy to fit into my PC case, much easier indeed than the huge MSI 970 card was! Its also even quitter than its predecessor, up to the point where I'd call it nearly completely silent, even when the GPU is running with 100% usage!

And last but not least, the new card needs even less power than the already very power efficient 970, reducing the TDP from 145 watts with the 970 to just 120 watts (tops!) with the 1060!

The really great thing about all this, though, is, that this nice upgrade did - like I hoped - turn out to be quite cheap for me in the end, because I was indeed able to sell my used GTX 970 for 230€ the other day on Ebay! With the Zotacs price being around 280€, the smoother ED VR performance and reduced power consumption of the card did cost me only 50€ in the end!

So, one happy consumer here! Thanks everyone for your thoughtful advice to not upgrade from the 970 to the 1060, but I am happy I didn't follow it p), the upgrade did exactly get me the modest improvement of performance I wanted, for the little price I was willing to pay!

 

[JerryLove]

Finally coming to my question: I am considering to upgrade my - still quite new - GTX 970 to a GTX 1060 that just got released. Reviews and benchmarks say it delivers quite a performance boost compared to the GTX 970 and often comes close or even surpasses the GTX 980 in performance. This, compared Nvidias "multi-projection" feature, which I hope will be used to further improve the ED VR performance in the future, have made it a very appealing card to me.

The bad news is that, thusfar, ED doesn't support multi-projection. It won't benefit you in this game today. As a 1080 owner: I'm all but begging FD to fix this.

Before someone suggests "got for a 1070 or even 1080, its the only way!" I'd also like to state that I already spend more than enough money on my rig and ED in recent times and am not willing to spend another 400-500 € for a performance upgrade in VR. I'd rather live with my current setup then.
The 1060, on the other hand, is so cheap that I will likely be able to sell my current 970 on ebay for nearly the same price I would have to pay for the 1060, which would be 279 €. This, of course, is the most basic variant of the 1060, in this case the "Zotac GTX 1060 Mini" (https://www.zotac.com/us/product/graphics_card/zotac-geforce-gtx-1060-mini#spec).

If you can get to the right price-point: go for it.

Having said that: The performance increase for most games is 5%-20%. Signifigant, but something to limit your spending over. For VR supporting multiprojection, that number should go way up; but I don't have benchmarks on such a program and, at this moment, ED isn't it.

- does the "Mini" in the card mean any kind of performance loss compared to other "non-mini" cards? (specs imply otherwise) I am not talking about a comparison with overclocked cards, but with standard GTX 1060 base clock cards with larger form factor. If not, which trade-off do I have to pay for the reduced form factor? If there is no such trade-off, it really looks like a pretty good deal to me

None. The card is spec'd identically to the Founder's edition. It's worth noting that the Founder's edition card is actually the same length as this one; it merely has a cooling system longer than the card itself.

- do the 1060 support multi-projection in the same way as their big brothers (1070, 1080)? Is this just a marketing thing from Nvidia, or do you expect it to really have an impact on the performance of VR?

Yes. Multi-projection is a feature of the Pascal architecture. This should have a signifigant impact on VR performance once it is supported. Right now: nothing does.
http://www.roadtovr.com/nvidia-gtx-...ad-to-head-against-the-980ti/3/#vr-benchmarks

970 GTX to 1060 GTX is no upgrade, it's a sidegrade. Anything below a 1070 GTX is not worth it for you.

More RAM. Faster RAM. Lower TDP. Support for things like Multi-projection (once supporting sofware becomes available) and 5%-20% performance improvements in games benchmarking.

I'd say the "worth" of the upgrade is to him to decide. I certainly would not buy a 970 right now anywhere near the 1060 price.

 

[Thoemse]

The bad news is that, thusfar, ED doesn't support multi-projection. It won't benefit you in this game today. As a 1080 owner: I'm all but begging FD to fix this.


If you can get to the right price-point: go for it.

Having said that: The performance increase for most games is 5%-20%. Signifigant, but something to limit your spending over. For VR supporting multiprojection, that number should go way up; but I don't have benchmarks on such a program and, at this moment, ED isn't it.


None. The card is spec'd identically to the Founder's edition. It's worth noting that the Founder's edition card is actually the same length as this one; it merely has a cooling system longer than the card itself.


Yes. Multi-projection is a feature of the Pascal architecture. This should have a signifigant impact on VR performance once it is supported. Right now: nothing does.
http://www.roadtovr.com/nvidia-gtx-...ad-to-head-against-the-980ti/3/#vr-benchmarks


More RAM. Faster RAM. Lower TDP. Support for things like Multi-projection (once supporting sofware becomes available) and 5%-20% performance improvements in games benchmarking.

I'd say the "worth" of the upgrade is to him to decide. I certainly would not buy a 970 right now anywhere near the 1060 price.

Faster ram? What good is it with a crppled memory interface? An overlocked 970 is as fast as a 980 too. You are paying about 130 bucks difference after selling the 970. You get a little more performance and more memory. Sorry but that is a pretty damn horrible investment. It's like going from a r9 290 x 4gb to a r9 390x 8gb.

 

[JerryLove]

Faster ram? What good is it with a crppled memory interface? An overlocked 970 is as fast as a 980 too. You are paying about 130 bucks difference after selling the 970. You get a little more performance and more memory. Sorry but that is a pretty damn horrible investment. It's like going from a r9 290 x 4gb to a r9 390x 8gb.

Whether the difference is worth the money to Arubeto isn't up to you. It isn't up to me. It's up to Arubeto.

I've accurately described the differences in the cards. He now gets to chose what that is worth to him.

 

[Seneleron]

I think a lot of people really miss the point of the exercise in "which video card should I buy".

I get it, you don't want to drop $450-$700 on a video card.

But at the same time, you want any card you get to last for 5+ years.

Granted, everyone has their own idea about what performance should be, what they can live with, and ultimately what they can afford.

That said, the GTX 1060 is a great budget card. The GTX 970 is a great budget card. The problem with the 1060, though, is the same problem with the 970: By next year, with the additional patches and graphical overhead added, you're possibly going to be in the same spot you are now.

At the end of the day, the GTX 1070 still ends up being the better performance/dollar comparison, because it will last across one generation, and possibly two [you're talking. . what, 30-50% more performance?]

It's not about "I don't need 1070 performance". It's about "how LONG will my purchase last me before I need to replace"?

Ultimately, I'm not saying go one way over the other. . I'm just adding an additional thing to think about before committing. Sometimes a little money now will save you a lot of money later.

And as always, if you don't HAVE the money, don't sweat it. It's a journey, not a destination O7