Reference cards use an Nvidia approved design, they usually have a shroud and the blower dumps hot air out the back of the case. They're potentially better for SLI setups as the cards will exchange less hot air. These cards usually ship with stock clocks as the cooling is achieved by a relatively small single fan with a high RPM.
Nvidia's partners are usually allowed to develop their own versions of the cards and push the limits. By developing their own heatsinks, fan configurations, backplates, beefed up components and PSU connections they can deliver more power, increase the clocks and keep temperatures down. This also helps prevent thermal throttling which lowers clock speeds and frame rates. They may also use cherry-pick boards with a high ASIC rating which can deliver higher speeds using less voltage.
The non-reference cards employ dual or triple fan solutions which are far larger and cover more of the card, they can spin at lower speeds which reduces the noise and improves airflow.
A reference card can hit the same clock speeds, but often for shorter periods. This might drop you below your target frame rate (e.g. 60Hz) which will cause temporary stuttering. With the non-reference design you get a higher guaranteed boost and a greater chance to maintain those clock speeds.
sam0
11 Sep 163#4
Bear in mind the ASUS has an extra year warranty, and only 99p more.
Latest comments (30)
joe94
5 Oct 16#30
Update: card arrived.
Ocuk delivered in one day with DPD, very fast delivery and DPD gave me a one hour slot - none of this 9-5 rubbish! Brilliant service.
As for the card itself:
Looks great in person, really nice simple cooler design; silver and metallic grey with some blue streaks. Shroud is plastic but I really couldn't tell until I felt it compared to the aluminium fins.
Card is really quiet, fans still spin at idle but they are inaudible in my mini itx case (SG13).
Overclocks well (+200mhz core without touching voltage).
Stays cool when gaming, I never saw temps over 70°C.
Really pleased, I actually side-graded from a 390x but I am finding the performance to be a lot cooler, quieter and smoother in Fallout 4/GTA 5.
Don't be scared by the unknown brand! They actually have a long history in the PC hardware business.
mistafaz
3 Oct 16#29
Bought the 1060 6GB Windforce OC - slightly better core and boost clock.
garbageguy
3 Oct 16#28
I bought the Gygabyte windforce gtx1060 from scan, very quiet and very fast
joe94
3 Oct 16#27
Couldn't wait any longer. Bought!
Free delivery and a good price. Will leave a review here when I get the card.
TheSpartan
12 Sep 161#26
Does anyone have any experience of these smaller/mini cards are there any cons to them? Specifically the EVGA one that keeps being brought up in threads
sgtbarton
11 Sep 16#21
Would like to know if these 10 series cards will suffer from coil whine etc, is it the norm now? Was it a 9 series issue only? Was gonna get another 970 but thinking wait wait wait.
garbageguy to sgtbarton
11 Sep 16#22
970 were on offer at £155 on overclockers until Saturday (yesterday)
kennyn1980 to sgtbarton
11 Sep 16#25
I have just upgraded to a GTX 1070 from a GTX 780 Ti. Both suffered from coil whine.
Looking4Glitches
11 Sep 162#13
This is 10 quid more, but you will get 3yr warranty and can upgrade to 5yrs for £16 extra.
My last 2 cards were EVGA and I used them both for 4 years and 5 years and never had a problem with them so +1 for EVGA :smiley:
garbageguy
11 Sep 16#23
READ THIS: The offer has now changed, its a twin fan design !!! even better !!! same price 60NRH7DSL90K
garbageguy
11 Sep 16#20
Me to !!
catbeans
11 Sep 161#19
Blowers still come in at higher base temps and with louder fans than the various aftermarket coolers if you look at the benchmarks, You want your ten series card no where near 80c that they are testing at in that article.
If you have a small form case like a micro, a blower is good because it pushes all the hot air from inside the case and doesn't cycle the hot air around a small space, otherwise after market coolers with their large heatsinks and fans are preferable. My 10 series card fans are idol and the card sits at 25c when not playing games.
I was looking at that too, I think it's going to depend on the games you play? I am a Battlefield addict and any comparisons I can find point to the 1060 being ahead slightly, decisions.
thelagmonster to garbageguy
11 Sep 16#15
That's a reference card, so I'd take this every time personally.
And as a bonus, the 1060 uses less power than the 480, even while OC'd. Not a huge amount, around 30W, which around 5-10 quid over the life of the card.
Is there any reason these cards are much cheaper than the MSI 1060?
catbeans to dbx125
11 Sep 161#3
Blower coolers arent great compared to aftermarket heatsinks/coolers and if you want to get the most out of a 10 series card you want the best tempature as possible. The blower style coolers are fine but you will need to jack up the fan which will be very noisy.
Glacc to dbx125
11 Sep 161#16
Back with the GTX 9xx series, the MSI "Gaming" models were arguably the best out of all the non-ref designs, yet still incredibly competitive in price.
I guess they've decided they should charge more for their quality now, but have gone way overboard and landed on the other end of the spectrum. Close to £300 for a midrange card is just ridiculous.
pukenukem
11 Sep 16#10
What's the real world difference between this card and say a better cooled card, other than noise? I'm asking with ignorance, not as a troll baiter. I paid extra for the MSI card, and I do sometimes question what would have happened if I'd gone cheaper. Are we taking big fps differences?
MBeeching to pukenukem
11 Sep 167#11
Reference cards use an Nvidia approved design, they usually have a shroud and the blower dumps hot air out the back of the case. They're potentially better for SLI setups as the cards will exchange less hot air. These cards usually ship with stock clocks as the cooling is achieved by a relatively small single fan with a high RPM.
Nvidia's partners are usually allowed to develop their own versions of the cards and push the limits. By developing their own heatsinks, fan configurations, backplates, beefed up components and PSU connections they can deliver more power, increase the clocks and keep temperatures down. This also helps prevent thermal throttling which lowers clock speeds and frame rates. They may also use cherry-pick boards with a high ASIC rating which can deliver higher speeds using less voltage.
The non-reference cards employ dual or triple fan solutions which are far larger and cover more of the card, they can spin at lower speeds which reduces the noise and improves airflow.
A reference card can hit the same clock speeds, but often for shorter periods. This might drop you below your target frame rate (e.g. 60Hz) which will cause temporary stuttering. With the non-reference design you get a higher guaranteed boost and a greater chance to maintain those clock speeds.
sgtbarton
11 Sep 16#9
I see now - reference v non reference - think I would rather take a years less warranty over reference-
I am told reference better for getting air out of case which is what I kind of need but not at the cost of noise - want silent when not gaming and low send when gaming.
sam0
11 Sep 163#4
Bear in mind the ASUS has an extra year warranty, and only 99p more.
sgtbarton to sam0
11 Sep 16#8
Where is this please.
siz111
11 Sep 16#7
Looks good but only 1 display port, would mean second screen would have to be dvi/hdmi
thelagmonster
11 Sep 161#6
Great price for a non-reference design. Very tempting!
gw42
11 Sep 16#5
clicking through to the overclockers' site, it's showing a custom cooler rather than a blower. no idea whether it's any good, but presumably it's better than the reference cooler.
![Fresh Breakfast Meat Box (Using code) @ Campbells Meat [Haggis / Lorne Sausage / Bacon / Black Pudding & More]](/images/topics/208684_1.jpg)
![[Xbox One] Q. u. b. e: Director's Cut on Deals with Gold](/images/topics/208716_1.jpg)
Opening post
60NRH7DSL90K
Core Clock: 1518MHz
Boost Clock: 1733MHz
Memory: 6144MB 8008MHz GDDR5
Stream Processors: 1280
VR Ready
PhysX/CUDA Enabled
2 Years Warranty.
Top comments
Nvidia's partners are usually allowed to develop their own versions of the cards and push the limits. By developing their own heatsinks, fan configurations, backplates, beefed up components and PSU connections they can deliver more power, increase the clocks and keep temperatures down. This also helps prevent thermal throttling which lowers clock speeds and frame rates. They may also use cherry-pick boards with a high ASIC rating which can deliver higher speeds using less voltage.
The non-reference cards employ dual or triple fan solutions which are far larger and cover more of the card, they can spin at lower speeds which reduces the noise and improves airflow.
A reference card can hit the same clock speeds, but often for shorter periods. This might drop you below your target frame rate (e.g. 60Hz) which will cause temporary stuttering. With the non-reference design you get a higher guaranteed boost and a greater chance to maintain those clock speeds.
Latest comments (30)
Ocuk delivered in one day with DPD, very fast delivery and DPD gave me a one hour slot - none of this 9-5 rubbish! Brilliant service.
As for the card itself:
Looks great in person, really nice simple cooler design; silver and metallic grey with some blue streaks. Shroud is plastic but I really couldn't tell until I felt it compared to the aluminium fins.
Card is really quiet, fans still spin at idle but they are inaudible in my mini itx case (SG13).
Overclocks well (+200mhz core without touching voltage).
Stays cool when gaming, I never saw temps over 70°C.
Really pleased, I actually side-graded from a 390x but I am finding the performance to be a lot cooler, quieter and smoother in Fallout 4/GTA 5.
Don't be scared by the unknown brand! They actually have a long history in the PC hardware business.
Free delivery and a good price. Will leave a review here when I get the card.
EVGA 1060
If you have a small form case like a micro, a blower is good because it pushes all the hot air from inside the case and doesn't cycle the hot air around a small space, otherwise after market coolers with their large heatsinks and fans are preferable. My 10 series card fans are idol and the card sits at 25c when not playing games.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/his-radeon-rx-480-8192mb-gddr5-pci-express-graphics-card-gx-10a-hs.html
The 1060 is ahead, on average.
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_1060_STRIX_OC/26.html
And as a bonus, the 1060 uses less power than the 480, even while OC'd. Not a huge amount, around 30W, which around 5-10 quid over the life of the card.
I guess they've decided they should charge more for their quality now, but have gone way overboard and landed on the other end of the spectrum. Close to £300 for a midrange card is just ridiculous.
Nvidia's partners are usually allowed to develop their own versions of the cards and push the limits. By developing their own heatsinks, fan configurations, backplates, beefed up components and PSU connections they can deliver more power, increase the clocks and keep temperatures down. This also helps prevent thermal throttling which lowers clock speeds and frame rates. They may also use cherry-pick boards with a high ASIC rating which can deliver higher speeds using less voltage.
The non-reference cards employ dual or triple fan solutions which are far larger and cover more of the card, they can spin at lower speeds which reduces the noise and improves airflow.
A reference card can hit the same clock speeds, but often for shorter periods. This might drop you below your target frame rate (e.g. 60Hz) which will cause temporary stuttering. With the non-reference design you get a higher guaranteed boost and a greater chance to maintain those clock speeds.
I am told reference better for getting air out of case which is what I kind of need but not at the cost of noise - want silent when not gaming and low send when gaming.