GTX 970 beats a stock 1060. Nothing but ice, and a dream.
Posted by Tra5hL0rd_@reddit | buildapc | View on Reddit | 36 comments
I've been trying to get an old 970 to outpace a stock 1060 in a few modern (ish) games. Started on air and got close but needed more. Ended up activating the 3D printer again and bolting an AIO block onto it, ran tubing into an esky of frozen bottles and water, and pumped water through the block with a fish tank pump. It worked... Best set up so far actually and I am hoping the new mounts will be reusable on any GPU with a 58.4 spacing.
One 970 died early on (RIP), probably didn’t like the volts, VRAM... who knows. The replacement made it through, but only after hours of tweaking. Turns out you have to set voltage in GPU Tweak and clocks in Afterburner, otherwise nothing sticks. That alone took a while to figure out. The voltage sliders in AB were locked (yes I know about the settings) and the clock sliders in GPU Tweak didn't go high enough, so I ended up using them both together.
Then came the real pain, dialling in stable clocks per game. Some runs were fine at +290 core, others crashed at +250. Ended up settling around +240/+250 core and +500 memory on air and +250/+280 on ice. That finally pushed it past the 1060 in TR 2013, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Fortnite, and a world record on firestrike!
It only won be a couple of frames in each test, and about 1000 points in firestrike... but hey, winning is winning don't they say?
Didn’t think it would work tbh, but it did. With enough ice and determination! Anything is possible.
If anyone wants the chaos, I made a vid on it, but mainly just happy it finally held together long enough to win. https://youtu.be/5CTjMUdB-vw
DominionSeraph@reddit
Now do a mild OC on the 1060...
Tra5hL0rd_@reddit (OP)
Sure, I’ll mildly OC the 1060…
Right after I gently apologize to the 970 for the beating it gave it.
alvarkresh@reddit
Make sure it's a 6 GB GTX 1060. The 3 GB model was trash.
purinikos@reddit
I have a 3gb model on my brother's pc and it's a trooper. It doesn't do miracles but it lets him play PoE on low 1080p. Honestly 12 years of service is great.
water_frozen@reddit
but GN tells me all entry level cards are a "waste of sand" tho
raxiel_@reddit
Just the 5050
karmapopsicle@reddit
The 1060 3GB launched 9 years ago…
JoeZocktGames@reddit
Hearing stuff like that makes me hopeful my new 9060 XT 16GB will last equally long lmao
Ockvil@reddit
now sure, when it came out maybe not, what with only 0.5gb less (usable) VRAM than the 970
0gopog0@reddit
3GB had one saving grace that kept it from being trash and actually having a use on the market: it was one of the few cards that didn't really price spike the same ways as others due to the etherum DAG file being 4GB. Where I lived, the 1050ti went for about 25% more than the 1060 3gb did, and the 6gb went for 100% more.
NessLeonhart@reddit
I still have my old SLI pair sitting in their boxes somewhere… great card.
Tra5hL0rd_@reddit (OP)
SLI... not that is a great idea!
Ciertocarentin@reddit
tbh, I've been surprised at how well my "limp" 1060sc 6G has handled Skyrim since I installed it into my at-the-time new PC (I spec'd it with the 1060 cuz I just didn't have the bucks for more) in 2019.
Not really a gamer, so I can't comment on any other titles, but despite all the negativity I've heard about my "inferior" card being "unsitable" for Skyrim (beyond vanilla), it's performed quite well (modded well beyond "vanilla" CGI-wise), even though GPU activity while playing is pegged just below the 100% mark.
aVarangian@reddit
A 750Ti can run vanilla Skyrim at 1440p and a 1070 at 5k...
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FinancialRip2008@reddit
as an aside, i've been revisiting the xbox 360 era. it's crazy how bad lowres textures look on a hires display. like i've been intentionally lowering game resolution and upscaling so the blurriness feels more natural.
currently playing Enslaved, and the super good character textures are jarring against the basic background textures. (great game, btw)
it's interesting how the software is designed around the hardware, and you don't even see it in the moment.
Ciertocarentin@reddit
that's nice. And?
Mrcod1997@reddit
There are indeed 5k monitors.
Xunderground@reddit
That person didn't even say anything about textures.
You're so pissed off that you're reading comprehension took a dive off of a cliff. Chill the fuck out
PuzzledTelevision@reddit
I mean, it's not that surprising considering Skyrim was a 8 year old game at that point, and it never was a extremely demanding game, even when it came out.
Ciertocarentin@reddit
??? I am playing Skyrim SE 1.6.1170 with ~600 mods, a full compliment of Community Shaders mods, a variety of other visual enhancement mods, as well as 2K and 4K textures.
Sorry, that's just not the 12 year old Skyrim LE.
KillEvilThings@reddit
You have to manually adjust the curve to ensure stability. The lower part of the curve should have minimal OC then gradually scale up to your desired clockrate. Treat it like a torque/hp curve on a car.
Make too much down low and you get knock (or errors, in a GPU) and thus instability.
Tra5hL0rd_@reddit (OP)
Yeah for sure, I usually do curve tuning like that too, ease into the volts and clock like a power band. But for this one I kept it simple on purpose so the average person (non-OC crowd) could follow what was going on. Just wanted to show how far you can push it without getting buried in the details.
Ciertocarentin@reddit
tbh, I've been surprised at how well my "limp" 1060sc 6G has handled Skyrim since I installed it on my at-the-time new PC (I spec'd it with the 1060 because I just didn't have the bucks for more) in 2019.
edit: since someone has already incorrectly described the game I'm running as what is now considered an effectively obsolete version, ie, "Skyrim LE": I play Skyrim SE 1.6.1170 with ~600 mods, a full compliment of Community Shaders mods, a variety of other visual enhancement mods, as well as 2K and 4K textures
Not really a gamer, so I can't comment on any other titles, but despite all the negativity I've heard about my "inferior" card being "unsuitable" for Skyrim (beyond vanilla), it's performed quite well (modded well beyond "vanilla" CGI-wise), even though GPU activity while playing is pegged just below the 100% mark.
KillEvilThings@reddit
They optimized games back then.
I played a moderately modded skyrim LE on a i7 2670qm laptop and 540m 1gb VRAM GPU. Shit handled it like a fucking trooper.
Then when PS4/XB1 came out everything went to shit. My 960M laptop couldn't handle dogshit.
The 20 series mobile GPUs were actually good because they were actually full sized silicon.
water_frozen@reddit
there are alot of entitled people on this sub who gatekeep entry lvl gfx cards because some YT deemed them "not good enough"
really, there are alot in this space who can't think for themselves at the end of the day
TYGRDez@reddit
My first ever GPU was a 560 Ti, which I specifically bought to play Skyrim... and then 5 years later I upgraded to a 1060 😄
mattpilz@reddit
Excellent! The 900 series holds a special place for me, as the last GPU and chipset to have native integration with Windows XP. I used a 980 TI to dual boot XP and Windows 11 for the best of both worlds (I know it's a rare use case, but there are still certain games and apps that can only run properly on native XP hardware).
bardockOdogma@reddit
3.5 is all I have to say
HatchingCougar@reddit
Wow, well done OP!
Though, it really does also show how the 1060 was a banger of a card.
DamnAcorns@reddit
This is the content I want on build a pc. Not the 1000th post of should I buy GPU A or GPU B.
iamoftenwrong@reddit
I salute you, man of science!
Ankit07Singh@reddit
Haha funny ...just watched your video... I was also thinking of buying a low budget graphic card
Tra5hL0rd_@reddit (OP)
I actually think they are really underrated... pretty sure I could have this 1060 give a 3050 a beating.
Ankit07Singh@reddit
I would like to see that
Tra5hL0rd_@reddit (OP)
It's on my list 😁