Soon after AMD revealed the RX 480, its budget card offering premium gaming and VR experience, NVIDIA followed suit by announcing their own answer to the AMD counterpart, the GTX 1060. Aftermarket cards available on the market give users a wide range of options, and the GALAX GTX 1060 EX OC is a great performer.
| CUDA Cores | 1280 |
| Base Clock | 1544 MHz |
| Boost Clock | 1759 MHz |
| Memory | 6 GB |
| Memory Interface Width | 192-bit GDDR5 |
| Display | HDMI, DVI, DP |
| TDP | 120 W |
| Dimensions | 268 x 139 x 42 mm |
The card looks quite sleek with a minimalistic design, and the black colour gives it quite a nice feel. Two large 90 mm fans sit on top for cooling with a copper cooling base and nickel plated heatpipes for effective heat dissipation.
The Galax GTX 1060 EX OC comes with a full backplate, unlike the Founder’s Edition, which may come as a concern for temperature control, though it makes the PCB more secure. However, there are vents on the backplate to help with the cooling and it also provides an aesthetic look to the card.
For display options, the Galax GTX 1060 EX OC covers all the bases, providing two DVI ports, one HDMI port and one DP socket. The card supports DP 1.4 and HDMI 2.0b. The power supply is catered for by a 6-pin connector and the card has a reference TDP of 120 W, making it quite efficient for a decent PC build.
We all know that you guys are all about the benchmarks, so let’s dive into the numbers without further delay. First up, we decided to check how the card performs in Directx 11, including titles like Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Rise of the Tomb Raider (all games on max settings).
For Witcher 3, when we ran the game on 1080p, the card gave a decent average framerate of 46 FPS while on 1440p the framerate dropped a little, down to 38 FPS.
Running the latest title, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided on max settings, we found the card struggling a bit, with only 33 FPS on 1080p and 24 FPS on 1440p. So we decided to run the game on High preset. Here the card’s performance improved a bit, and we got a stable framerate of 39 FPS when running the game on 1080p and 28 FPS on 1440p.
For Rise of the Tomb Raider, the card’s performance was quite impressive as it gave an almost constant framerate of 63 FPS on 1080p and 46 FPS on 1440p.
To test how the card performs when running a game in Directx 12, we tried Rise of the Tomb Raider, this time with Directx 12 enabled. We saw a dip in performance, with an average framerate of 55 FPS on 1080p and 33 FPS on 1440p, leading us to conclude that the GTX 1060 may be better optimized for Directx 11 for now.
We also tested the card’s performance for DOOM, running on OpenGL 4.5. The GPU performed quite well, with an average of 96 FPS when running the game in 1080p and 71 FPS in 1440p (both ultra settings).
The GALAX GTX 1060 EX OC Edition is a great card that lets you play your favourite (and latest) titles without putting a dent in the pocket. However, as the numbers suggest, the card seems to perform better on Directx 11 than Directx 12, which may raise some questions regarding whether the card is future proof or not. But considering the card costs less than INR 25000, it can be a great GPU for someone who’s looking for a great gaming experience on a budget.
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