NVIDIA GTX 1060 vs AMD RX 480 specs comparison: AMD can't compete with NVIDIA on performance

AMD Radeon RX 480AMD

With the latest graphic cards releases boasting of high the end specs, consumers will be hard pressed to find the best product given the level of competition in the market today.

Such is the case of the GeForce GTX 1060 and its competitor, the AMD Radeon RX 480.

Based on specifications, the GeForce GTX 1060 features 1280 CUDA cores and 80 TMUs. Its interesting to note the recent effort of NVIDIA to boost the Pascal GP106 core beyond 1.7 GHz which would benefit its users immensely with its performance.

The company currently is in the forefront of core frequencies which is a testament that their chips are capable for pushing past 2 GHz when overclocked. The GTX 1060 also has 6 GB of GDDR5 memory that runs at 8 GHz.

What this means for users is that they will be getting 192.00 GB/s bandwidth on this card as it comes with a 192-bit bus interface.

On the other hand, the AMD Radeon RX 480 boasts of Polaris architecture and AMD's liquid VR technology that delivers a rich and immersive VR experience to its users.

In terms of specifications, the RX 480 clocks at 1266 MHz / 1120 MHz and peaks at 5.8 TFLOPS. Its memory clock speed reaches beyond 1750 Mhz while its memory bandwidth is at 224 GB or higher.

It also features a 256 bit memory interface, AMD Freesync technology, DirectX 12 Support, Vulkan Support, Virtual Super Resolution, HDMI Version 2.0 and a 1.4 HDR Ready Display Port Version.

According to PC Gamer reviewer Jarred Walton, in terms of performance, "RX 480 doesn't set any records, but it brings formerly high-end performance into the mainstream."

Gamespot Tech Reviewer Jimmy Thang for his part, supported NVIDIA's claim that its product performed 15 percent better on the average compared to the RX 480.

"Overall, the GTX 1060 is a great card for 1080p gaming, offers excellent VR performance for the price, overclocks well, runs cool, and is super-quiet. The one major knock is the lack of SLI support, but beyond that, I'd highly recommend the GeForce GTX 1060 to most PC gamers," he said.

He however said that even though the GTX 1060 performed faster, the RX 480 was relatively cheaper by 25 percent giving it the better value for money.

At the end of the day, the choice of purchase will still fall on the hands of the consumer and it will always depend on his priority, this time, it may be a battle of performance vs price.