For gamers who are the type to show off their systems or just want a bit of extra flair, this certainly makes the STRIX GTX 1060 stand out. Moving on, since the PCB itself is carried over from the higher-end GTX 1000 series parts, so is the power delivery system. ASUS implements a 6+1 phase delivery system on the STRIX GTX 1060, utilizing their own Super Alloy Power branded components (yes, that’s the ROG logo on the chokes). Out of the box the GPU base clock is 1620MHz and the boost clock 1847MHz, 114MHz and 138MHz respectively over the GTX 1060 reference clocks.
There will not be a Founder’s Edition card, as this time around it’s just partner cards, and surprise – it should be available to purchase as you are reading this. Beyond the bulky heatsink and fan trio, the ROG Strix GTX 1660 Ti packs additional features for better thermal performance. Strix GPUs include “MaxContact Technology,” a fancy way of saying that the heat spreader contacting the GPU is precision-machined to be 10X flatter than traditional designs, allowing for improved heat dissipation. Any PWM case fans connected to the headers can automatically react to the GPU’s temperature, picking up speed when temperatures rise and slowing down when your GPU is idle.
Asus also includes a hardware button on the top of the card (when it’s installed) that lets you turn off the lighting with a tap. What separates the ROG Strix version from the other Asus models are a few things. The first is what Asus calls Auto Extreme Technology, which simply means parts of the GPU are built with automated technology, so there’s less chance for mistakes in the manufacturing process, enhancing reliability. The second is called MaxContact Technology, and it’s how the heat spreader is designed. Essentially Asus has designed a smoother plate with less pits that it claims allows for “2x more contact” with the GPU die, resulting in a cooler GPU.
MFAA makes use of a new hardware feature in the company’s recent cards, which switches between multiple AA sample patterns on the fly to create the best possible image. At the same time, Nvidia claims, applying MFAA reduces the performance hit versus 4x MSAA by roughly 30 percent. On the other side of the spectrum, for games that look really good but don’t run all that well at high resolutions with anti-aliasing settings cranked up, Nvidia is introducing a new setting, Multi-Frame Sampled Anti-Aliasing . Nvidia says MFAA delivers image quality similar to what you get with existing Multisample AA, or MSAA.
Note, I managed to put this inside a Dell Optiplex SFF 9020 and it barely fits. The second set of ram retention clips is right on the the backplate but nothing is being pushed. The locking clip to remove the HDD caddy won’t unlock, so you’ll have to remove the GPU everytime you want get under gtx1080 price the optical drive. The pcie slot is unique in this unit, it’s wired to run as a normal x16 but is an open ended x4 slot. Needless to say, if you can get away with using a GT 1030 you’ll run into less trouble. With CUDA, NVIDIA allows applications to hand off CPU-intensive tasks to the GPU.
Also of note, this card is outfitted with a secondary 6-pin PCIe power connector in addition to the standard 8-pin one, which means more headroom for overclocking. The power connectors are a little recessed, which makes for neater cabling but also makes it a bit difficult to install and remove this card – especially with sharp heatsink fins right there to snag nvidia1080 a finger on. White LEDs on the rear let you know that the connectors are inserted properly. The first custom-designed GTX 1080 card to land in our hands is Asus’ Strix GeForce GTX 1080. The first thing you’ll notice is its size – this card is taller and longer than the Founders’ Edition, and looks quite imposing with its all-black shroud and sharp angles.
Modern game engines are the ones which will benefit the most from these changes as more and more integer operations are being requested of today’s graphics silicon. That’s a smart play in the mainstream segment, where price is king and you need to get the maximum standard performance out of your silicon without wasting die space on extraneous effects that won’t run smoothly on a lower-end GPU anyways. The Asus ROG Strix GTX 1660 Ti OC screams performance with the biggest cooler and highest clocks we’ve seen on Nvidia’s new mid-range GPU, but you’ll need to overclock this puppy to get the most value out of it.
Stainless steel is used for the I/O bracket to protect ports and provide a more secure mount. A conveniently placed Dual Bios switch allows customization of the card’s default performance profile without software. The sum of all the design improvements found on the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs results in a massive leap forward in thermal design.