GTX 1060 vs RX 480 – Oculus Rift Games
With those details and explanations in tow, let’s look at an early round of direct GPU comparison. For VR testing, the most relevant story surrounds the GeForce GTX 1060 and the Radeon RX 480 graphics cards. When AMD launched the RX 480 (8GB variant) it was pitched as the lowest priced card to offer a solid VR experience. The GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB variant in these tests) is slightly more expensive ($220 vs $240) but falls in the same competitive category.
| PC Perspective GPU Testbed | |
|---|---|
| Processor | Intel Core i7-5960X Haswell-E |
| Motherboard | ASUS Rampage V Extreme X99 |
| Memory | G.Skill Ripjaws 16GB DDR4-3200 |
| Storage | OCZ Agility 4 256GB (OS) Adata SP610 500GB (games) |
| Power Supply | Corsair AX1500i 1500 watt |
| OS | Windows 10 x64 |
| Drivers | AMD: 17.2.1 NVIDIA: 378.78 |
A couple of notes before we get into the comparisons. For the Oculus Rift based testing (Chronos, Dirt Rally, Edge of Nowhere, Obduction) all settings were left at default. The HTC Vive testing through SteamVR had a slight modification. As of this writing, AMD GPUs do not support asynchronous reprojection in SteamVR while NVIDIA’s do support it. Asynchronous reprojection will allow SteamVR to handle missed frames and late frames much more efficiently. In order to maintain the most accurate comparisons of performance, asynchronous reprojection was disabled on both platforms. (Interleaved reprojection is supported on both platforms and remained enabled.)
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Chronos on the Oculus Rift running at the High preset runs noticeably faster on the GTX 1060 than the RX 480. Our interval plots show near perfection when it comes to 90 FPS consistency but the Radeon card finds itself in the 45 FPS ASW state a few times as the frametimes spike above the 11ms mark. The GTX 1060 provided an unconstrained FPS of 112 FPS, 49% higher than the 75 FPS provided by the Radeon RX 480.
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Even though Dirt Rally continue to make me uncomfortable while playing it, it was a highly-requested game we included it here in our initial batch of results. Again, the GTX 1060 has the clear edge, able to maintain the 90 FPS mark for smooth and consistent VR gaming, while the RX 480 at the same High quality preset was in the 45 FPS / ASW state the clear majority of our testing time. In one of those odd results, the unconstrained FPS is slightly lower than the delivered FPS on the GTX 1060, but higher on the RX 480. The net result comparing unconstrained results though shows the GTX 1060 being 31% faster than the Radeon card.
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The Edge of Nowhere is an interesting VR title but doesn’t offer any quality settings at all (or at least isn’t exposing them), giving us one testing environment. Both the GTX 1060 and the RX 480 perform very similarly with the slight edge going to the GeForce card. Both deliver a solid 90 FPS to the headset but the unconstrained FPS of the GTX 1060 is 4-5% faster.
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Our Obduction testing is a bit more variable, with the RX 480 operating at lower frametimes in some locations but the GTX 1060 running faster in others. Both video cards run a significant portion of their time at 45 FPS with ASW in action when running at the High preset. The unconstrained FPS is higher on the GTX 1060, 73 FPS vs 61 FPS, but because both average frame times are well over the 11ms mark, the experiences they provide the gamer are similar.
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Our final Oculus Rift test is probably the most popular current game on the platform. Robo Recall takes the engine and design language of Epic Train demo that circulated since the early days of modern VR and turns it into arguably the best shooter we have seen utilizing room scale technology. With the High preset, both the GTX 1060 and RX 480 have a decent run at it, but the RX 480 does have a few windows where "real" frames drops to 45 FPS and Oculus is forced to enable asynchronous space warp. Not so on the GeForce GTX 1060 that holds steady. Based on the unconstrained FPS numbers, the GTX 1060 has an 18% edge in performance.
Great write-up! Your
Great write-up! Your GeForce.com link for FCATVR in the last sentence of the article is pointing to a file location on your C drive instead of Nvidia’s site though. This tool looks really interesting and I look forward to playing with it at some point myself 🙂
What, you can access my hard
What, you can access my hard drive? Huh… 😉
Thanks!
Better than it was, but now
Better than it was, but now it takes me to the first page of the article instead of the download page on Nvidia’s site.
Fixed… Again!
Fixed… Again!
“Gentlemen, we can correct
“Gentlemen, we can correct this link; we have the technology…” 😉
Thanks Ken!
Thanks for all your hard work
Thanks for all your hard work guys!
Tests I’d like to see:
Higher
Tests I’d like to see:
Higher performing GPUs (Fury, 1070)
SLI/CF
7700K-based build (better for games than 5960X)
Interesting that the RX 480
Interesting that the RX 480 loses in all Unreal Engine 4 games (and Dirt Rally, don’t know about Codemasters Engine), an engine that is heavily tailored to Nvidia cards. Look at the only game using Unity, Edge Of Nowhere and, surprise, surprise, the RX 480 magically catches up to the GTX 1060. *rolleyes*
I wish more VR devs would use Unity or the UE devs build in better support for AMD Hardware.
It’s clear that amd is in
It’s clear that amd is in just stay alive mode in the gpu space, similar to where they were against Intel for the last four years with Bulldozer. I really don’t expect Vega to be competitive for more than a month or two as Volta is right around the corner. It’s a bad time to a gpu enthusiast from a competition perspective.
You could ignore AMD and just
You could ignore AMD and just buy nVidia for GPU and Intel for CPU like any other normal person. You’re not poor are you?
By definition, ‘normal’
By definition, ‘normal’ people are not ‘rich’, as they are considered ‘average’ in wealth, hence the concept of the ‘rich’, ie. above average in wealth, having more money than the average person.
Just a tip. You’re not going to win any friends on here spouting elitist cr@p like that. Nobody here cares how much money you think you have or actually have. It’s utterly irrelevant. What matters is whether you are a person of substance, rather than a shallow, materialistic looser.
How can the delivered fps be
How can the delivered fps be higher than the unconstrained fps? See the “Dirt Rally – High Preset” result on the “GTX 1060 vs RX 480” page
Check the last paragraph on
Check the last paragraph on the “GPU Performance Scaling” page. It explains that phenomenon.
Thx for pointing that out,
Thx for pointing that out, here’s the quote for the even lazier than me:
“Because the frametimes reported by the Oculus and SteamVR runtimes combine the CPU and GPU, but the unconstrained time is based on GPU alone. In situations where the frametime is very close to the 11ms/90FPS mark we see overlaps of CPU and GPU time (rather than it being purely sequential). The result is that unconstrained FPS will sometimes be lower than delivered FPS.”
However, I still don’t get it, I’m sorry. Perhaps a few more words are in order?
My interpretation of this is
My interpretation of this is that in this scenario, the CPU is getting some work done while the GPU is working; aka the system is performing better/faster simultaneously instead of work having to wait for one to finish before moving to the next compute device for the current operation.
Unconstrained FPS doesn’t take the extra performance-gain into account, so when only looking at the GPU and expectation of frame delivery, it’s presenting a slower/incomplete analysis of performance. It doesn’t pick up that the system is doing some of the work at the same time instead of sequentially, so it’s analysis is that it’s taking longer than reality shows.
The internet will correct me if I’m wrong, but that was my interpretation of the situation.
So, Nvidia wants us to wait
So, Nvidia wants us to wait for AMD Vega for VR? OK, I’ll wait.
What is the shader:ROP ratios
What is the shader:ROP ratios for both the GTX 1060 and the RX 480? And it again looks like time will tell as to what if any gaming software and driver/API tweaks will do for AMD’s polaris based SKUs! The RX 480 and Polaris SKUs are getting some tweaks in the form of the RX 580/other Polaris updates so maybe some retesting should happen then.
There is also maybe some driver/games/other software improvments coming along with any of the Polaris/Refresh RX 500 series SKUs so this very same bemchmark run on the RX 500 series SKUs and maybe some feature support that the RX 480 lacks compared to the GTX 1060.
I also want to see any current CF/SLI VR benchmarking along with any DX12/Vulkan explicit multi-GPU adaptor benchmarking where both CF/SLI are not used and any Dual GPU usage is done through DX12’s/Vulkan”s API multi-GPU load balancing methods.
Vega is still a little ways off so some good looks at the RX 500 series Polaris refresh SKUs like any RX 480/RX 580 to GTX 1060 benchmarking, with some added multi-GPU VR/Non VR setups are in order. The RX 480’s are dropping in price below the $200 dollar price point and if the RX 580s retail at around $199 then the RX 480 pricing will most likely hit the 150 price point at some point in time on any stock of RX 480s that may be remaining in the retail channels! And that bodes well for some affordable RX 480 CF gaming uaseg for VR/Non VR gaming usage with the new Ryzen/AM4 options that are now available and without.
The Rx 480 is $179, correct ?
The Rx 480 is $179, correct ? Isn’t the GTX 1060 40% more ?
They seem to be different class of GPU based on price.
The Radeon Fury seem to be the direct competitor to the 1060, no ?
Exact same price as the 1060.
Would be cool when comparing cards, that the same class or card (based on price) get compared.
Because I’m pretty sure the GTX 1080 ti crush the 1060 at VR…
but then its also pointless the compare them both when they dont cost the same.
depends where you live. in my
depends where you live. in my country the two still pretty much about the same price. sometimes a bit cheaper than 1060. also RX480 with such price still depending on deal. AFAIK AMD has not officially cut RX400 series price.
the thing about geforce is they tend to sell well even without price cut so retailer have no reason to offer big deal on them unlike AMD cards that is much harder to sell.
“the thing about geforce is
“the thing about geforce is they tend to sell well even without price cut so retailer have no reason to offer big deal on them unlike AMD cards that is much harder to sell.”
Sigh. Yes, the legions of the stupid strike again. I’m going to really enjoy watching AMD do to nVidia what they just did to Intel. 🙂
Damn the GTX 1060 is stompin
Damn the GTX 1060 is stompin RX 480. Really want to get into performance testing myself.
Curious what model of the rx
Curious what model of the rx 480 and 1060 was used?
The gap in unconstrained FPS make little sense,
unless the rx480 may have been running at like 1ghz ?
I also found anything below 90fps in VR gives a very poor experience. its not like a game on a monitor going from 60 to 40fps, its noticeable but ok.. in VR dropping below 90fps is headache inducing.
So here the “hardocp” method would be good to use.
in short. what is the game setting to use to reach near rock solid 90fps.
can the gtx 1060 even reach that, and be used for solid VR ?
From this it seem it falls short with the tested settings.
We’re using the standard
We're using the standard RX480 and GTX 1060.
Very interesting paper, but
Very interesting paper, but you should give more technical data on the videocards you tested. parameters like memory or GPU frequency, Oced or not, driver version, etc. are important. Not all 1080, 1060, 480 are born equal.
Standard cards were used, and
Standard cards were used, and drivers were current as of time of testing for the review.