Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB)
Room to expand.
Creeping up to around $400 will net you a card that can do 1080p with absolutely all the bells and whistles, and also offer breathing room to keep that up in future titles that are a bit more demanding. Alternatively, if you’re using a higher-definition 1440p screen or a 27-inch ultrawide, spending this much on a GPU should generally let you play at High detail settings.
In this space, you’ve basically got two $370 cards going head to head: the Radeon RX 480 with 4GB of memory, and the GeForce GTX 1060 with 6GB of memory. While there’s also an 8GB version of the RX 480, it doesn’t actually complicate things: at $430, it’s nearly 15% more expensive, but in most current games, it doesn’t improve framerates more than a percent or two over the 4GB edition. It’s not worth the extra $60.
Coming back to that main contest then, it sometimes a close competition, but ultimately the 1060 pulled ahead enough of the time to crack a 10% lead across our 16-game suite at 1080p and slightly less at 1440p and 4K (not that the latter is playable).
While an overclocked RX 480 can close that difference, the 1060 is no slouch when it comes to overclocking itself, opening up the same 10% gap.
While the RX 480 does actually deliver decent value on a cost-per-frame scale, it’s been outcompeted by the 1060 at this price.
Astute readers may also have seen the Radeon R9 390 selling at around $410, but it’s no match for the 6GB GTX 1060 either.