Long story short, I've fallen behind and am no longer on current terms, so I could use some help from those of you guys who deal with this stuff daily. I'm obviously aware that GF1060 is a 'slightly' dated generation, and I won't be surprised if the landscape changes radically to its disadvantage some time soon. I'm also aware that AMD's RX 580 is essentially repackaged 480 with better factory overclocks but also correspondingly greater challenge keeping manageable temperatures and noise levels on stock timings, although 480 was and still is a strong chip. And 8 GB probably has more future than 4 GB, plus 580 can do multi-GPU.
I'm inclined to pick up an MSI GamingX 1060 6GB from Amazon.co.uk for GBP 249.99 (actually preorder for 27 December) and just put this all behind me, because it's the best price for the best 1060, so how much more could one want. On the other hand, I'm kind of meh about this because I might equally as well have bought the same card a year ago for a very similar price instead of sticking with my 280X, so this would basically amount to admission that I wasted a year.
But then it's always better to waste one year than to keep wasting another.
The reason why I'm not considering 1060 3GB or 480/580 4GB is that I want more memory for high-res thingies, basically maxing out 1080p and fooling around with resolution scaling.
The reason why I'm not considering 1050ti is because it lags behind 1060 quite massively judging by the tests, so it's no point. Similar sentiment about 470/570. Plus, I want the stronger card and nVidia --60 or AMD -80 seems to be my sweet spot.
The reason why I prefer MSI Gaming X is silence and temps AFAIK this is the best cooler out there; please correct me if I'm wrong. Reliability is an added bonus this card's been bought by millions of people and keeps getting great reviews.
The reason why I prefer nVidia over AMD, though with a heavy heart, is better drivers, less overheating, less noise, and presumably more stability because it requires less PSU juice (I have an old bronze-rated 600-something, on a relatively lean overall PC setup, but still) and obviously because it won't overheat so much. Otherwise I'd prefer AMD because of stronger architectures.
Alternatively, I could:
(1) in fact go with 480/580, but I really, really, really care about the noise, and I seem to never be able to get good airflow in the case, meaning hit and noise from AMD, plus my disappointment with their drivers (both failures and limitations imposed due to company policy) has peaked, so I'd rather leave them behind
(2) land a cheap 1060 3GB, as they really are cheap these days, but see above about 3 GB vs maxing out 1080p, so nope
(3) find a 280X for CF, but this sounds like an awful lot of drugery and basically necromancy at this point (raising undead miners and all
), so really, nope; besides, AMD drivers for old cards
ugh
(4) wait until the Christmas and New Year season is over and until the market reacts to the mining crackdown in China, but you never know how that works out, might as well end up holding out for another year fruitlessly
Sounds like I should just go and buy that MSI 1060, nope?