When it comes to LAN rigs, there are some cases that support full sized cards, but when getting into the smallest options they need shorter ITX sized cards. Over the past few years, these options have been opening up, especially with the GTX 1060’s where the cooling and power requirements are a little lower but the performance is still what people are looking for. I’ve had the chance to check out one ITX sized 1060 back at launch and one that was close as well. Well MSI is introducing their new Aero ITX lineup with a GTX 1050 Ti, GTX 1060, and a GTX 1070. Today we have the chance to check out the GTX 1060 so I’m going to see what MSI is doing differently and then find out how it compares to the competition. Is this the card for your LAN rig as we get close to all of the spring events? Let’s find out.

Product Name: MSI GTX 1060 Aero ITX 6G OC

Review Sample Provided by: MSI

Written by: Wes

Pictures by: Wes

Amazon Link: HERE

 

Specifications

Model Name

GeForce® GTX AERO ITX 6G OC

Graphics Processing Unit

NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1060

Interface

PCI Express x16 3.0

Core Name

GP106-400

Cores

1280 Units

Boost / Base Core Clock

1759 MHz / 1544 MHz

Memory Clock Speed

8008 MHz

Memory

6GB GDDR5

Memory Bus

192-bit

Output

DisplayPort x 2 (Version 1.4) / HDMI x 2 (Version 2.0) / DL-DVI-D

HDCP Support

2.2

Power consumption

120 W

Power connectors

6-pin x 1

Recommended PSU

400 W

Card Dimension(mm)

175 x 115 x 38 mm

Weight (Card / Package)

472 g / 862 g

Afterburner OC

Y

DirectX Version Support

12

OpenGL Version Support

4.5

Maximum Displays

4

VR Ready

Y

G-SYNC™ technology

Y

Adaptive Vertical Sync

Y

As always I also have a GPUz screenshot. We always want to confirm that out sample has the same clock speeds as advertised. This is also so everyone can see what firmware and driver versions I tested on as well.

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Packaging

The box for the Aro ITX GTX 1060 couldn’t be much simpler. It is blacked out with a gloss black circuit board design around it. The front has the branding right in the middle and then the green and black wrap around from Nvidia down on the corner. On the back though they do address a few things. They talk about the Torx fan design that the card uses, the focused airflow, and the heatpipes. Obviously, with this being a short card, cooling is a top priority. The back also has a very short and basic specification listing and a feature list as well. Nothing that would lock the box into the OC or non-OC versions, though, so you just get the GPU and memory size basically. This way they can use the same box for both models.

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Inside the card comes wrapped in a static bag and it sits in a really thick foam tray with a layer of foam above it as well. There is a product registration card floating around with the card and then a pouch. Inside it has the driver disc and a standard MSI user guide.

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Card Layout and Photos

The Aero branding from MSI is interesting. With some of the cards Aero is their forced air cards where they use a plastic fan shroud with a reference style blower cooler to keep costs down and offer a simple solution to OEMs and for SFF builds were a blower card is the best option to keep temperatures down. With the ITX cards, they still focus on the SFF builds but this time around they have shorted the cards down to the 6-inch form factor. MSI did have a similar form factor for the GTX 1050 Ti and it’s a surprise to me that they also have a GTX 1050 Ti in the Aero ITX cards, but this is new for them in the GTX 1060 line. Some of the other manufacturers did have ITX 1060’s at launch so it's not completely a surprise, but I am happy to see them jumping into the market as well. The GTX 1060’s is a good performing card and its low power usage at similar performance t the RX480 makes it the better option for tight builds. In this case, they went with a simple black fan shroud with just the Aero branding and a white line on it as well as a touch of fake carbon fiber. The fan isn’t a blower style, though, something that most other ITX cards do, but they did use a large fan for the extra cooling power.

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The Aero’s heatsink design uses two extremely thick heatpipes with one on the top and one on the bottom to have direct contact with the GPU and to pull the heat out and into the heatsink on the ends. Unlike the GTX 1050 Ti card from MSI that I reviewed, they did use a sheet metal heatsink this time around and when you check it out from all three edges you can see they kept it low and tight against the PCB to pack in the most cooling possible. The fan blows down into the heatsink against the PCB and this pushes the air just about every direction. This is why the fan shroud is open on the three sides. SO expect warm air to be venting into your case with this card. Up on the top edge, the small touch of fake carbon fiber weave goes with all of the carbon fiber along the top edge of the card. There is also an MSI logo as well if your card faces the card that direction. With the extra tight SFF cases that isn’t always an option, but it does look good.

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Unlike the Founders Edition GTX 1060, the Aero has the 6-pin power connection directly on the PCB. They did, however, flip it around with the clip facing the PCB with a notch in the PCB for clearance. This allows MSI to fit the cooler a little tighter as you can see with the heatpipe running next to the connection.

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The back of the card doesn’t have any fancy backplates but it does give us a good look at the black PCB. It also lets us see the extra height up above the top of the PCI bracket where the PCB is a little tall and the notched PCB for the power connection.

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While the GTX 1060 Aero ITX might be smaller, MSI didn’t skimp on the display connections. The card has a total of five. It has a single DVI connection, then things get a little more interesting. They went with two HDMI connections where most cards only have one and then two full size DisplayPorts. For cooling the backplate has large openings next to the DVI and they even slipped in holes in the room between the DVI and HDMI ports as well.

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Our Test Rig and Procedures

Our Test Rig

CPU

Intel i7-5960X

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Memory

Kingston HyperX FURY Black 32GB Quad Channel Kit 2666 MHz

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Motherboard

Gigabyte X99-SOC Champion 

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Cooling

Noctua NH-U12S Cooler

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Power Supply

Thermaltake 850w

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Storage

Kingston Hyper X Savage 960GB SSD

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Case

Dimastech Test Bench

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OS

Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

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Our Testing Procedures

3DMark

The same goes for the most current version of 3DMark using the Fire Strike benchmark in normal, extreme, and ultra settings

Unigine Valley Benchmark 1.0

Using the Extreme HD preset to get an average FPS

Catzilla 4k

Default tests for 1080p, 1440p, and 4k resolutions using the overall score for each as our result

SteamVR

Default SteamVR test using Average Quality score

VRMark

Orange and Blue rooms tested, use Average FPS for the result

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Tests are done using the built-in benchmark at High and Ultra graphic settings at both 1080p and 1440p resolutions.

DOOM

Doom is tested on the Ultra quality setting. Tests are run at 1080p and 1440p using both OpenGL and Vulkan. The benchmark is a basic one using just the average FPS in the opening scene.

HITMAN 2016

Fullscreen with V-Sync turned off Detail, Texture Quality, Shadow Maps, and Shadow Resolution all set to their highest settings. We test using both DX11 and DX12 at both 1080p and 1440p resolutions.

Ashes of the Singularity

Built-in benchmark ran at 1080p and 1440p with graphics settings set to the “Crazy” setting with the exception of turning off V-Sync Mode. The benchmark scenario is set to GPU Focused and we use the Average Framerate for All Batches as the result. Tests are run both in DX11 and DX12

The Division

Built-in benchmark ran at 1080p and 1440p with graphics settings set to the default “Ultra” setting with the exception of turning off V-Sync Mode

Bioshock Infinite 

Using the Adrenaline Action Benchmark Tool we run Bioshock Infinite on the “Xtreme” quality setting. This has a resolution of 1920x1080, FXAA turned on, Ultra Texture detail, 16x Aniso Texture Filtering, Ultra Dynamic Shadows, Normal Postprocessing, Light Shafts on, Ambient Occlusion set to ultra, and the Level of Detail set to Ultra as well. We also run this same test at 2560x1440 using the same settings as mentioned above.

Tomb Raider

Using the Adrenaline Action Benchmark Tool we run Tomb Raider on the “Xtreme” quality setting. This has a resolution of 1920x1080, Exclusive Fullscreen turned on, Anti-Aliasing set to 2xSSAA, Texture Quality set to Ultra, Texture Aniso set to 16x Aniso, Hair Quality set to TressFX, Shadow set to Normal, Shadow Resolution on High, Ultra SSAO, Ultra Depth of Field, High Reflection quality, Ultra LOD scale, Post-Processing On, High Precision RT turned on, and Tessellation is also turned on.  We also run this same test at 2560x1440 using the same settings as mentioned above.

Hitman: Absolution

Using the Adrenaline Action Benchmark Tool we run Hitman: Absolution on the “Xtreme” quality setting other than the MSAA setting is turned down from 8x to 2x. That setting puts the resolution at 1920x1080, MSAA is set to 2x, Texture Quality is set to High, Texture Aniso is set to 16x, Shadows are on Ultra, SSA is set to high, Global Illumination is turned on, Reflections are set to High, FXAA is on, Level of Detail is set to Ultra, Depth of Field is high, Tessellation is turned on, and Bloom is set to normal. We also run this same test at 2560x1440 using the same settings as mentioned above, except on the “high” setting.

Sleeping Dogs

Using the Adrenaline Action Benchmark Tool we run Sleeping Dogs on the “Xtreme” quality setting. That means our resolution is set to 1920x1080, Anti-Aliasing is set to Extreme, Texture Quality is set to High-Res, Shadow Quality is High, Shadow Filter is set to high, SSAO is set to High, Motion Blur Level is set to High, and World Density is set to Extreme. We also run this same test at 2560x1440 using the same settings as mentioned above.

Total War: ROME II

Ultra-setting tested at 1920x1080 and 2560x1440, built in forest benchmark

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

Using the built-in benchmark we test with ultra settings at 1440p

Sniper Elite 3

Ultra-setting tested at 1920x1080 and 2560x1440, built in benchmark

Thief

Tested using the “Very High” setting at 1920x1080 and 2560x1440, with Vsync turned off

Folding at Home 2.2

Using the Folding at Home benchmark 2.2.5 set to OpenCL, WU set to dhfr, and run length set to the default 60 seconds. We test at both double and single precision and use the score at the result

CompuBenchCL

Video Composition and Bitcoin tests

Unigine Valley Benchmark 1.0 heat testing

We run through Unigine Valley using the “Extreme HD” preset for 30 minutes to test in game cooling performance with the fan speed set to auto then again with the fan set to 100%.

Power Usage

Using Unreal Valley Benchmark 1.0, we get our “load” power usage number from the peak power usage during our test. We get our numbers from a Kill-A-Watt connected to the test benches power cord.

Noise Testing

Our Noise testing is done using a decibel meter 18 inches away from the video card on the bottom/fan side of the card. We test at both 50% and 100% fan speeds. The 100% test isn’t a representation of typical in-game noise levels, but it will show you how loud a card can be if you run it at its highest setting or if it gets very hot. This is done using a Protmex PT02 Sound Meter that is rated IEC651 type 2 and ANSI S1.4 type 2. Tests are done set weighted to A and set to a slow response using the max function.

 


Synthetic Benchmarks

Before getting into in game testing I like to run through a few of the synthetic benchmarks to get a good look at how the different cards compare. In this case, I really only had my focus on a few cards that I have tested in the past. I wanted to see how the Aero compares to the GTX 1060 Founders Edition, the two GTX 1060 aftermarket cards previously tested, and then all of the RX 480s especially the XFX RX 480 that I recently tested with AMDs newest drivers. Before getting into that, though, let's check out the clock speeds on the different 1060’s.

Boost Clock / Base Clock

MSI GTX 1060 Aero ITX 6GB 1759 MHz / 1544 MHz

Zotac GTX 1060 6GB AMP! 1771 MHz / 1556 MHz

EVGA GTX 1060 Superclocked 1835 MHz / 1607 MHz

GTX 1060 Founders Edition 1708 MHz / 1506 MHz

The EVGA is still the highest clocked of all of the cards and it is also in the ITX form factor. The MSI 1060 Aero comes in just below the Zotac but still has a slight overclock over the Founders Edition card.

For my first set of tests, I ran through 3DMark Fire Strike using all three graphic settings that represent 1080p, 1440p, and 4k performance. I also tested using the newer Time Spy benchmark that tests DX12 performance. In all three Fire Strike benchmarks, the Aero came in just below the EVGA and above all of the RX 480’s and other GTX 1060’s. It even outperformed in Time Spy where it is obvious Nvidia has tuned their drivers a little more to keep the GTX 1060 up ahead of the RX 480.

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In Unigine Valley Benchmark the results the Aero came out ahead of the other GTX 1060’s and RX 480’s once again with the next closest card being the GTX 980 or a pair of RX 470’s in Crossfire being ahead by 10 FPS.

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Like in 3DMark, for Catzilla I tested at all three common resolutions. The results were about the same as what I’ve seen in the other synthetic benchmarks. The Aero trades blows with the EVGA 1060 and is once again higher than all of the RX 480’s.

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Last but not least I wanted to check out the VR performance of the Aero GTX 1060. Here I tested with the SteamVR benchmark and I have also recently added the new VRMark benchmarks as well. In SteamVR it comes in with a health 8.3, putting the Aero GTX 1060 firmly in the good category for VR performance and above the other 1060’s and 480’s. The VRMark results are a little harder to tell because it is new and there are only a few results on the charts, but it did outperform the XFX RX 480 by a tiny margin. VRMark put the Aero GTX 1060 in the good range for the orange room test but the more demanding blue room test showed that there is still room for important if you plan on playing future VR games with more demanding graphics.

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In-Game Benchmarks

Now that we have an idea of how the cards stand compared to each other, it’s finally time to get down to the in-game performance numbers. To do that I ran through our entire in-game benchmark test suite. The suite has 13 different games tested at both 1080p and 1440p at their highest settings. Four of the games are also tested in more than one configuration to see the difference between DX11 and DX12 performance or in the case of the most recent addition, DOOM I test out both OpenGL and Vulkan performance. The problem is, with so many results it can be a little too much to take in. To help with that I have condensed our results into two graphs, one for 1080p and the other for 1440p. All of our games are run at their max settings and we use the average FPS as the end result. The graphs below are broken down into three FPS ranges to represent unplayable (below 30), playable but not ideal (30 to 60), and ideal (over 60 FPS). So what did I find from those results?

Well for starters, the GTX 1060 Aero didn’t have any results in the red meaning at both resolutions everything you toss at the card is going to be at least playable. At 1080p all but three of the results were in the 60+ range. Those three were Deus Ex at the ultra setting and as always Ashes of the Singularity in DX11 and DX12. The 1440p results weren’t a good and there is good chance that if you plan on running at 1440p you are going to need to turn the settings down a little for the buttery smooth gameplay. The 1440p results were exactly the same as the XFX RX 480 that I recently tested but at 1080p it did edge out one more in the green than the 480. All in all the GTX 1060 Aero seems to hit the sweet spot where everything is playable without being a big flagship card, perfect for a LAN rig.

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As always I also include all of the actual results as well for anyone crazy enough to want to dig through them all. So were any of the results interesting? Well, Nvidia’s drivers have evolved as have AMDs so it was interesting to see how things have changed from the launch performance. In DOOM, for example, the Aero jumped in performance on both OpenGL and Vulkan, but the OpenGL numbers really jumped. The RX 480’s using Vulkan are still the better option in DOOM though with the huge performance benefits they get with Vulkan. In Shadow of Mordor the performance has dropped a little and in The Division the performance has jumped all the way up into the GTX 1070 range. I’m sure the 1070’s would have a similar jump as well if retested. All in all, the 1060 Aero is quick both because of its overclock and because of a few driver improvements, the EVGA is still going to be quicker with those same driver improvements, but we will have to wait until tests later to see if the higher clock speeds hurt other aspects.

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Compute Benchmarks

While I don’t think many people need ITX sized folding cards, I did still run the GTX 1060 Aero through our standard compute benchmarks. Well, I tried at least, as it turns out in between now and my last Nvidia review there have been driver issues with Folding at Home. Hopefully, those will be worked out soon, but I had to skip out on those benchmarks this time around.

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I did still test using CompubenchCL though to check out video composition and Bitcoin mining performance. For Video Composition the Aero saw a big jump in performance over the other GTX 1060’s putting it up with the fast Sapphire RX 480 and not far behind the GTX 980Ti. The Bitcoin results were a little more consistent with older driver results with the Aero coming in behind the EVGA 1060 but ahead o the other GTX 1060’s, just like it should given the clock speeds.

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Cooling, Noise, and Power

Beyond the normal synthetic and in game benchmarks, most of which really only depend on clock speeds. There are a few tests where the different card manufacturers can really make their cards stand out. The first of those is power usage, so to test that I ran the Aero 1060 through Valley Benchmark and noted the highest wattage out entire system pulled using a Kill a Watt. The Aero GTX 1060 came in between two RX 470’s but was surprisingly high compared to the other GTX 1060’s by about 30 watts. Given the higher clock speed, I expected the EVGA to come in higher, but even at 238 watts, this is still more than low enough for any SFX power supply.

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Next, I tested noise levels at both 50% and 100% fan speed but sadly our decibel meter died. I went with a new meter and changed a few things about our test procedure as documented in the test procedures section, but for now, the Aero GTX 1060 is the only card in our new results. With the new meter and procedures, the old results aren’t comparable. I will say that in my testing the fan on the Aero came in about the mid-range for noise, but I did also experience some coil whine, something I rarely hear these days.

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The last set of tests were for cooling performance. I tested the card by warming it up looping Valley Benchmark. I did this twice, once with the stock fan settings and again a second time with the fans at full speed. This way we can see what you can expect out of the box and what the cooler is capable of if needed. In this case, the ITX sized card ran in line with the other GTX 1060’s at stock fan settings though I should remind you that the EVGA card did see higher numbers with their newer firmware that gave the card the ability to turn the fan off at lower loads. The Aero did have some extra headroom in it as well, so when I turned the fan up it did drop down 11 degrees, putting it below the long 1060 Founders Edition and the Zotac card.

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Overall and Final Verdict

I was really excited to hear that MSI was introducing new ITX cards but then again I’m always happy to hear of more options in the SFF market. Though of the three cards introduced, the GTX 1070 was the most exciting. The GTX 1060 Aero is still a good thing, just a little late to the market where some of their competition had ITX 1060’s available back at launch. Like I said, though, more options are always good and it is really needed this generation. On the AMD side of things, the RX 480 that competes with the GTX 1060 doesn’t have any ITX options, so the 1060 cards have to pick up that slack. The GTX 1060 Aero ended up having good performance, especially at 1080p. The numbers are a little inflated because this card was tested using a newer driver than the launch cards, but it seems on top of the driver improvements MSI did put together a solid performing card. Ignoring its size, it is keeping up and outperforming full sized GTX 1060’s and RX 480’s almost across the board. Really the only competition was from the EVGA GTX 1060 and it is also an ITX card. Because of that one of my main requests would have been for a little more of an overclock out of the box to match what EVGA did with their card.

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The card itself looks good and it has a color neutral color scheme, aka all black with a little fake carbon fiber. This is especially good with a lot of boards and cases letting you go with any color using RGB, the 1060 Aero is going to fit in anywhere, both with its size and colors. I also mentioned its power usage in both my pros and cons because it does do much better than any of the AMD RX480’s that are close on performance, but it also could have done better when compared to the other GTX 1060’s.

So is the GTX 1060 6G Aero the card to pick up? Given the direct competition with the EVGA ITX card, it all comes down to the pricing. As of me writing this review, the 1060 Aero isn’t really in the mainstream stores and MSI didn’t have an MRSP for me so I had to go off the one price I could find it at online. That price was $249.99 and it does seem to be about where this card should be. The EVGA is currently on sale for a little less, but its normal price is about the same as the 1060 Aero. Assuming matching pricing it really just comes down to brand preference, they are both great cards and they are both a great pick for a small form factor gaming build.

fv5recommended

Live Pricing: HERE

Author Bio
garfi3ld
Author: garfi3ldWebsite: http://lanoc.org
Editor-in-chief
You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers. If you are interested in writing for Wes here at LanOC you can reach out to him directly using our contact form.

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