PNY GTX 1060 6GB Test Setup
In testing the PNY GTX 1060 6GB graphics card, I am using a Gigabyte Z170X Gaming 7 motherboard powered with an Intel Core i7-6700K. The CPU is set to run at its default stock speeds. Below are the rest of the system specifications:
Operating System: Windows 10 Pro 64bit
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z170X Gaming 7
Processor: Intel Core i7-6700K
CPU Cooler: Cryorig A40 Ultimate All-in-One
Memory: Klevv Cras DDR4-3000 16GB
Graphics card: PNY GTX 1060 6GB
Storage Drives: Zotac Sonix 480GB NVMe SSD
Power Supply: Seasonic 1050W Platinum
Chassis: DimasTech Bench Table Easy V3.0
Below is a GPU-Z screenshot of the said graphics card:
During my tests and benchmarking, I was using the GeForce driver version 372.54 for Windows 10 64bit. All games are tested in three resolutions, namely: 1920×1080 or full HD, 2560×1440 or WQHD and 3840×2160 or 4K ultra HD.
Temperature and Noise
Idle to Light Load Temperature
We don’t have the Founders Edition to compare this version of GTX 1060. But I am more positive that the PNY GTX 1060 has a better cooling performance compared to the reference one. On idle to light load, we got around 51° degree Celsius. You might be wondering that’s high for an idle temp. Take note that the fans on this card doesn’t run while on idle to light load. Notice the fan speed, it’s at 0%; making it a dead silent graphics card in this scenario.
Full Load Temperature
On full load, the fans are definitely working and fan speed could go up to 80%. The temperature we got was just below 80° degree Celsius, around 78° to 79° degree Celsius to be exact. You could get a better (or worse) temperature depending on your room temperature and your setup.
PNY GTX 1060 Noise
In terms of noise, on idle to light load situation the graphics card is dead silent since the fans doesn’t spin at all. It doesn’t have any coil whine noise (at least this specific unit) so it doesn’t produce any sound or noise at all. However, I would not consider this card to be the most silent card when running in full load. The fans are spinning at around 70% to 80%, are tiny bit audible. I wouldn’t consider them to be loud or noisy, and I can consider them silent at 80% fan speed, specially if you have a closed case setup. The fans do get loud already at 100%, but I haven’t seen it running at maximum speed when in auto mode.
Overclocking the PNY GTX 1060 6GB
Overclocking the PNY GTX 1060 6GB was not that difficult and I was able to push the clock speeds higher. It has room for overclocking since it was running at stock reference speed out of the box and it also has a better cooling solution compared to the reference one. I was able to push the base clock speed to 1757MHz and boost clock speed to 1959 MHz that would occasionally go up to 2151MHz. Those overclock speeds are actually similar or better compared to other competing GTX 1060 on the market with factory overclock speeds out of the box. In short, the PNY GTX 1060 is definitely not the fastest out of the box as it is running at reference speeds, but you can overclock it further to match the other non-reference GTX 1060.
Let’s proceed to the next page for the benchmark results…
