Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB Founders Edition Review

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.

While the thermal output of the GTX 1060 is down compared to the GTX 1070, the reduced size of the heatsink means the blower fan works just as hard.

At full Furmark load on both Pascal cards tested here 2100 RPM is the peak consistent fan speed, which is noticeable over the system's base noise level, but not significant enough to cause discomfort or irritation when gaming.

Become a Patron!