MSI GTX 1060 6GB Gaming X Review

Rating: 9.0.

There is certainly no shortage of options when it comes to choosing a GTX 1060 graphics card, Nvidia's mid-range GPU is the most fiercely contested by all its graphics partners. MSI's Gaming Series interpretation of Nvidia's GPUs has been a winning formula in this competitive market in the past, let's see if MSI's latest iteration has what it takes to continue that success.

With five MSI graphics cards to choose from for Nvidia's new GTX 1060 MSI is naturally trying to draw the buyer's attention towards the more prestigious and expensive Gaming Series variants. The design philosophy is consistent with recent MSI graphics cards, even the keen observer will find there's fairly little to differentiate the MSI GTX 1060 Gaming X from Gaming variants of the GTX 1070 and GTX 1080.

The sixth iteration of the Twin Frozr cooling solution is the primary selling point for MSI's GTX 1060 Gaming – a tried and trusted blend of copper heat pipes, two large fans and semi-passive fan operation. The overall design and appearance is familiar with an established red and black colour scheme, though a styling facelift and RGB lighting does bring it into 2016.

MSI is effectively offering the same graphics twice with Gaming and Gaming X models, the only obvious difference between the two being pricing and clock speeds (see below table). ASUS has implemented a similar strategy with its GTX 1060 STRIX but MSI seems to have the edge with more aggressive pricing, even if ASUS has opted for a larger overclock on the flagship model.

The out of the box frequencies are a somewhat contentious point after a controversy embroiled a number of graphics card vendors, ASUS and MSI included, for shipping review samples at higher clock speeds than retail samples.

In this review we're testing the MSI card with its default Gaming Mode profile that is shipped to customers, a better performing “OC Mode” profile can be toggled using MSI's Gaming App software which raises the maximum boost from 1784 to 1809MHz and the memory from 8 to 8.1 GHz.

MSI's packaging is typically well presented, emphasising the stand out features – RGB lighting, the Twin Frozr VI cooler and the Gaming App that enables additional performance.

The accessory bundle is par for the course – documentation, optical media containing drivers and software, as well as some stickers.

MSI's sixth iteration of the Twin Frozr cooler uses a dual slot form factor and measures in at 11 inches/28cm which is fairly sizeable for a mid-range GPU.

Both fans measure in at 95mm, 9.5 cm, and have alternating blade designs with what MSI are calling “dispersion” and “traditional” blades.

The full-cover backplate provides additional PCB rigidity and protection for the graphics card. MSI claims “solid metal” but it feels more like a low-grade metal and has the texture of plastic. 11 screws hold the backplate on and it can be removed without voiding the warranty. However, the cooler cannot be removed without voiding the warranty so prospective buyers looking to regularly change thermal paste should take caution.

I/O options are reasonable for a GPU of this calibre with three DisplayPort 1.4, one HDMI 2.0 and a dual-link DVI-D. ASUS still seems to be ahead in the I/O area since its inclusion of two HDMI ports will be more useful to VR users.

MSI's Twin Frozr VI cooler has two 6mm and one 8mm heatpipes with the GTX 1060 Gaming X, that's a few heat pipes less than both the MSI GTX 1070 and 1080 Gaming as there is less heat to disperse.

Power is drawn in through a single 8 pin connector.

Our newest GPU test system has been built with the intention of benchmarking low to mid-range graphics cards, we have a separate test system which benchmarks higher-end graphics cards such as the RX 480, GTX 1070 and GTX 1080. To reflect the performance of GPUs being tested the scope of testing has been reduced to 1080p and 1440p, since 4K is largely irrelevant for GPUs of this price point.

General Test System Notes

• AMD Graphics cards were benchmarked with the AMD Crimson Display Driver 16.6.1, though the RX 480 was tested on 16.7.2 to rectify power issues with the PCI Express slot
• Nvidia Graphics cards with the Nvidia Forceware 368.39 driver except the newer Nvidia GTX 1060 GPUs which were tested using the 368.64 release driver
• To tune the test system appropriately for acoustic measurements the case was outfitted with ultra quiet Noctua 800RPM fans and the Corsair H100i set to a fixed fan speed of 700RPM to further reduce the base noise level.
• The CPU was left to default Intel Turbo behaviour, disabling motherboard manufacturer enhancements such as all-core Turbo to minimise heat output inside the case and non-GPU related power consumption.
• Each benchmark or game is run 3 times at each resolution with an average result of the three runs taken as the final result for the graphs. Where benchmark screenshots are shown note these may not match the graphed figure since an average of three is taken.

Test System Components

• Case: Corsair 400Q (two stock case fans replaced with Noctua 800 RPM 120mm rear exhaust and 140mm front intake fans)
• Processor: Intel Core i7-6700K (Stock Intel Turbo behaviour).
• Memory: 32GB (4 x 8GB) G.Skill Trident Z DDR4 running at JEDEC 2800MHz.
• Graphics Card: Variable.
• System Drive: Mushkin Chronos 120GB.
• Games Drive: Samsung 850 EVO 512GB SSD
• CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i w/ Noctua NTH1 (fan speed limited to 700 RPM on Corsair H100i).
• Power Supply: Seasonic Platinum 760W.
• Operating System: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit.

Comparison Graphics Cards List

• EVGA GTX 750 Ti 2GB Superclocked (1176MHz core, 1255MHz boost, 5400MHz memory )
• MSI R7 370 2GB Gaming (980MHz core, 1030MHz boost, 5600MHz memory)
• MSI R9 380 4GB Gaming (980MHz core, 5700MHz memory)
• MSI R9 390 8GB Gaming (1040MHz core, 6000MHz memory)
• PNY GTX 950 2GB XLR8 OC Gaming (1152MHz core, 1342MHz boost, 7200MHz memory)
• PNY GTX 960 4GB XLR8 OC Gaming (1203MHz core, 1266MHz boost, 7200MHz memory)
• Sapphire R9 380X 4GB Nitro OC (1040MHz core, 6000MHz memory)
• XFX R7 360 2GB Core Edition (1050MHz core, 6000MHz memory)
• Zotac GTX 970 4GB (1076MHz core, 1216MHz boost, 7010MHz memory)
• ASUS GTX 950-2G (1026MHz core, 1190MHz boost, 6612MHz memory)
• AMD RX 480 8GB (1266MHz core, 8000MHz memory)
• AMD RX 480 4GB (8GB card with 4GB vBIOS, 1266MHz core, 7000MHz memory)
• Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB Founders Edition (1506MHz core, 1708MHz boost, 8008MHz memory)
• Nvidia GTX 1070 8GB Founders Edition (1506MHz core, 1683MHz boost, 8008MHz memory)
• ASUS GTX 1060 6GB STRIX OC (1620MHz core, 1848MHz boost, 8208MHz memory)
• MSI GTX 1060 6GB Gaming X (1569MHz core, 1784MHz boost, 8008MHz memory)

Software and Games List

• 3DMark
• Ashes of the Singularity
• Furmark
• GPU-Z
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Metro Last Light Redux
• Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
• MSI Afterburner
• Rise of the Tomb Raider
• Steam
• Unigine Valley

The GTX 1060 is a VR-capable GPU in any form so MSI's excellent cooling and factory overclock only help things further. A score of 8.6, according to Steam, will deliver a ‘very high' quality VR experience.

3DMark Fire Strike is a showcase DirectX 11 benchmark designed for today's high-performance gaming PCs. It is our most ambitious and technical benchmark ever, featuring real-time graphics rendered with detail and complexity far beyond what is found in other benchmarks and games today.

3DMark summarises the narrative we'll see throughout all the benchmarks – MSI's GTX 1060 Gaming X falls between the Founders Edition GTX 1060 and the ASUS GTX 1060 STRIX OC model.

UNIGINE Valley Benchmark is a new GPU stress-testing tool from the developers of the very popular and highly acclaimed Heaven Benchmark. The forest-covered valley surrounded by vast mountains amazes with its scale from a bird’s-eye view and is extremely detailed down to every leaf and flower petal.

This non-synthetic benchmark powered by the state-of-the art UNIGINE Engine showcases a comprehensive set of cutting-edge graphics technologies with a dynamic environment and fully interactive modes available to the end user.

We test Unigine Valley using the Extreme HD Preset, changing the resolution setting only for 1440p.

The MSI Gaming X GTX 1060 is closer to the ASUS card than it is to the Founders Edition, though overclocking can easily remove that gap.

Ashes of the Singularity is a real-time strategy game set in the future where descendants of humans (called Post- Humans) and a powerful artificial intelligence (called the Substrate) fight a war for control of a resource known as Turinium.

Players will engage in massive-scale land/air battles by commanding entire armies of their own design. Each game takes place on one area of a planet, with each player starting with a home base (known as a Nexus) and a single construction unit.

A few frames per second is all that separates the GTX 1060s on test.

Grand Theft Auto V is an action-adventure game played from either a first-person or third-person view. Players complete missions—linear scenarios with set objectives—to progress through the story. Outside of missions, players may freely roam the open world. Composed of the San Andreas open countryside area and the fictional city of Los Santos, the world is much larger in area than earlier entries in the series. It may be fully explored after the game’s beginning without restriction, although story progress unlocks more gameplay content.

Both the ASUS and MSI GPUs are capable of more performance with their respective software but, as we'll show later on, performance evens out once you take overclocking into the equation.

Just like the original game Metro 2033, Metro: Last Light is played from the perspective of Artyom, the player-character. The story takes place in post-apocalyptic Moscow, mostly inside the metro system, but occasionally missions bring the player above ground. Metro: Last Light takes place one year after the events of Metro 2033, following the canonical ending in which Artyom chose to proceed with the missile strike against the Dark Ones (this happens regardless of your actions in the first game). Redux adds all the DLC and graphical improvements.

It is perhaps a little disappointing to see how far the overclocked GTX 1060s fall from Nvidia's GTX 1070.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is a third-person open world video game, where the player controls a ranger by the name of Talion who seeks revenge on the forces of Sauron after his family, including his wife, are killed. Players can travel across locations in the game through parkour, riding monsters, or accessing Forge Towers, which serve as fast travel points.

At 1440p the MSI R9 390 just edges ahead of the MSI GTX 1060, the only time this happens in the review.

Rise of the Tomb Raider is a third-person action-adventure game that features similar gameplay found in 2013’s Tomb Raider. Players control Lara Croft through various environments, battling enemies, and completing puzzle platforming sections, while using improvised weapons and gadgets in order to progress through the story. It uses a Direct X 12 capable engine.

The GTX 1060 is just as capable at DX12 as it is at DX11.

Our acoustic measurements are less precise on this mid-range test system, the noise floor of the totally quiet testing room is 35 dBA as measured with a Benetech GM1351 Digital Sound Level Meter.

We take our measurements with the decibel meter protruding off the front-top section of the chassis, overhanging by exactly 1 inch. The underlying noise level of the system, generated by the 800 RPM Noctua case fans and H100i with fixed 700RPM fans is 39 dBA, thus anything above this level can be attributed to the graphics card since the PSU is passive for most of it's power capability.

Noise levels were measured after 10 minutes of load under three scenarios: Furmark GPU stress test, Unigine Valley looping at the Extreme HD preset and desktop idle.

Noise levels are absolutely class-leading for the MSI card with the fans generating no additional noise over the other system components. Under the most stressful 3D Load, Furmark, the fans on the MSI card barely broke 900 RPM and under more realistic gaming scenarios they were between 700 and 800 RPM.

MSI's GTX 1060 is quieter than its rival – the ASUS STRIX model which operated at 1700 RPM under Furmark load but this higher RPM is on smaller 85mm fans so the noise output is still very low.

Temperatures were measured after 10 minutes of load under three scenarios: Furmark GPU stress test, Unigine Valley looping at the Extreme HD preset and desktop idle. GPU-Z was used to record the maximum temperature, fan profiles were left to their default behaviour.

Delta temperatures are presented below to account for small fluctuations in room temperature, but for all the testing present in this graph the temperature ranged from 21.4 to 23.5 degrees Celsius.

Despite quieter operation temperatures are barely affected – in a 23 degrees Celsius room the typical operating temperatures were in the low 60s. MSI doesn't compromise on noise or cooling performance.

The passive idling temperature is a little higher than some other cards, in the mid 40s, but this is certainly nothing to be concerned with.

Thermal imaging shows that the card stays cool all-round with a peak PCB temperature of 52 degrees – the two large fans and backplate are both doing a stellar job.

Power consumption was measured after 10 minutes of load under three scenarios: Furmark GPU stress test, Unigine Valley looping at the Extreme HD preset and desktop idle. The measurement was taking using an Energenie ENER007 power meter and measured for the whole system, excluding the monitor.

While Furmark and desktop idle provide stable and consistent power read-outs, Unigine Valley does not so the power reading is taken as the highest value in Scene 1 of 18.

Typical gaming power consumption was slightly lower for the MSI GTX 1060 versus the ASUS GTX 1060, likely reflecting the clock speed deficit. On the other hand, Furmark power consumption was about 15-watts higher for no easily explainable reason.

In the grand scheme of things the GTX 1060 is still a very power efficient card and AMD's rival card, the RX 480, is 30-50 watts more thirsty based on our testing.

Overclocking results with the MSI GTX 1060 fell in line with all the other GTX 1060s we've tested with a final result of 1679 MHz on the core and 2327 MHz on the memory.

Our ASUS GTX 1060 STRIX OC sample achieved 1690 MHz core and 2302MHz memory while our Founders Edition sample reached 1681 MHz core and 2302MHz memory before hitting instability.

The boost from overclocking is a respectable 10 per cent compared to out of the box performance.

PC Gamers are undoubtedly spoilt for choice when it comes to GTX 1060s and MSI's GTX 1060 Gaming X is arguably one of the better options. While not everyone will be sold on the looks, red and black isn't exactly one size fits all colour scheme, the MSI GTX 1060 Gaming X is an impressive upgrade over the Founders Edition model.

In the UK you do pay a premium over the Founders Edition (£275) with the MSI GTX 1060 Gaming X costing £290~300, the similar MSI GTX 1060 Gaming is slightly cheaper at £280~290. The premium is definitely worth paying if you value more performance, less noise, better cooling and more features.

Over in North America MSI's GTX 1060 Gaming X is the same price, around $300, and sometimes less than the Founders Edition making it almost a no-brainer – unless you have a specific need for the blower style cooler (e.g a heavily airflow-restricted compact chassis).

In both markets a 3 year manufacturer warranty is standard.

Competition is stiff and although we've not yet been able to assess all of MSI's main rivals it is fair to say that MSI's GTX 1060 Gaming X is an excellent option. MSI continues to deliver one of the best balances between noise, cooling and performance, the continuous improvement of the Twin Frozr cooler has clearly played a large part in this.

MSI does still have room for improvement – a slightly better out of the box overclock would bolster its credentials as a top-end product. Granted, MSI does offer a “one-click” solution to overclock further with its gaming app but even the maximum overclock offered doesn't reach the default shipping frequency of other GTX 1060s that are available in this class. Perhaps MSI is leaving space to shoehorn in a GTX 1060 Lightning at a later date, though this seems unlikely for a mid-range GPU.

Build quality and presentation is very strong on the whole but in a market moving towards neutral colour schemes the red and black cliché feels a bit tiresome. There's, theoretically, nothing to stop MSI going for an all-black design with removable red accenting (stickers or removable plastic pieces) to make the design more malleable.

MSI is also fortunate in that its Carbon products have gained traction in recent times so a Carbon version of the GTX 1060 Gaming X isn't out of the question.

Buy from Overclockers UK for £289.99 inc vat HERE.

Pros

• Excellent balance of cooling and noise
• Keen pricing
• Stylish design, backplate and RGB functionality

Cons:

• Out-of-the-box overclock should be higher
• Colour scheme isn't neutral

KitGuru says: MSI has delivered a superb blend of low noise, excellent cooling and premium build quality with the GTX 1060 Gaming X. Any GTX 1060 shortlist would be incomplete without it.

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