DIY GTX 1060 ‘Hybrid’ Results: 2151MHz Overclock Now Possible | GamersNexus
GTX 1060 DIY Hybrid Mod: Tear-down
Read about the full tear-down process here, or watch the video instead. Here are a few of the photos to recap:
As explained previously, we’ve got the extra difficulty of a power header attached via soldered cables, which would be a little unsightly if just hanging out of a board with no shroud. That was the first reason for attempting to keep the shroud, followed by better guidance of the air through the card. Tear-down was trivial and revealed the six VRAM modules (*-HC25 from Samsung, as found on the RX 480), the GP106-400 GPU, the VRM (left of the GPU), and the minimized PCB size.
The rebuild is where we encountered some issues.
GTX 1060 DIY Hybrid Mod: Build
Building the GTX 1060 Hybrid required a few extra steps, most revolving around the coldplate. We wanted to use the EVGA cooler for a few reasons: (1) the protruding copper coldplate allows for greater heat sinking and dissipation potential, (2) the GPU height is exceeded by the socket height, meaning a flat plate would not reach the GPU without removal of the baseplate (or dremel work), and (3) we thought that it would fit most readily.
All three of those points were challenged by the revamped Founders Edition design for the 1060.
Point 1: The copper coldplate protrusion does help with thermals, as we’ve proven. Unfortunately, the coldplate is just slightly too large to fit into the socket (~1mm too wide), and so we had to file down the edges of the baseplate socket to fit the coldplate. Once the plate fit, we realized that the GTX 1060 FE socket screws are smaller than the 980 Ti Hybrid’s cooler calls for, and therefore all EVGA Hybrid coolers. NVidia changed the screw size for the 1060 FE, and so we dug out a bag of 980 Ti & 1080 screws to work around this issue (successfully).
After this, and after completely re-assembling the cooler, we ran tests and saw immediate jumps to 90C, prompting a swift shut-down. We then pulled the card apart and saw that there was limited contact between the coldplate and GPU.
For anyone doing this at home – which, honestly, you really shouldn’t be unless misery is fun, as there’s a good deal of risk – it’s easy to spot limited contact by looking at the thermal paste marks on the silicon. We ordered some copper shims and slotted them into the socket, resolving this final issue and pushing us into thermal testing territory.
Test Methodology
Game Test Methodology
We tested using our GPU test bench, detailed in the table below. Our thanks to supporting hardware vendors for supplying some of the test components.
The latest AMD drivers (16.7.2) were used for testing GTA V & DOOM (incl. Vulkan patch) on the RX 480. Drivers 16.6.2 were used for all other devices or games. NVidia’s 368.64 drivers were used for game (FPS) testing on the GTX 1060.
The 368.69 drivers were used for other devices. Game settings were manually controlled for the DUT. All games were run at presets defined in their respective charts. We disable brand-supported technologies in games, like The Witcher 3’s HairWorks and HBAO. All other game settings are defined in respective game benchmarks, which we publish separately from GPU reviews. Our test courses, in the event manual testing is executed, are also uploaded within that content. This allows others to replicate our results by studying our bench courses. In AMD Radeon Settings, we disable all AMD «optimization» of graphics settings, e.g. filtration, tessellation, and AA techniques. This is to ensure that games are compared as «apples to apples» graphics output. We leave the application in control of its graphics, rather than the IHV. In NVIDIA’s control panel, we disable G-Sync for testing (and disable FreeSync for AMD).
Windows 10-64 build 10586 was used for testing.
Each game was tested for 30 seconds in an identical scenario, then repeated three times for parity.
Average FPS, 1% low, and 0.1% low times are measured. We do not measure maximum or minimum FPS results as we consider these numbers to be pure outliers. Instead, we take an average of the lowest 1% of results (1% low) to show real-world, noticeable dips; we then take an average of the lowest 0.1% of results for severe spikes.
| GN Test Bench 2015 | Name | Courtesy Of | Cost |
| Video Card | This is what we’re testing! | — | — |
| CPU | Intel i7-5930K CPU | iBUYPOWER | $580 |
| Memory | Corsair Dominator 32GB 3200MHz | Corsair | $210 |
| Motherboard | EVGA X99 Classified | GamersNexus | $365 |
| Power Supply | NZXT 1200W HALE90 V2 | NZXT | $300 |
| SSD | HyperX Savage SSD | Kingston Tech. |
$130 |
| Case | Top Deck Tech Station | GamersNexus | $250 |
| CPU Cooler | NZXT Kraken X41 CLC | NZXT | $110 |
For Dx12 and Vulkan API testing, we use built-in benchmark tools and rely upon log generation for our metrics. That data is reported at the engine level.
Video Cards Tested
- MSI GTX 1060 Gaming X ($290)
- NVIDIA GTX 1060 FE ($300)
- AMD RX 480 8GB ($240)
- NVIDIA GTX 1080 Founders Edition ($700)
- NVIDIA GTX 980 Ti Reference ($650)
- NVIDIA GTX 980 Reference ($460)
- NVIDIA GTX 980 2x SLI Reference ($920)
- AMD R9 Fury X 4GB HBM ($630)
- AMD MSI R9 390X 8GB ($460)
- And more