Gaming laptops with Nvidia’s GTX 1060 graphics were very capable when it launched back in
2016, and for a number of years afterwards, but how well does the GTX 1060 hold up in
modern games in 2021, and is it finally time to upgrade?
Let’s find out what the 1060 is capable of in today’s current games.
The laptop that I’m testing with is the Lenovo Y530, basically the older Y540.
Mine has an 8th gen Intel i5 8300H CPU, otherwise it’s got 16gb of memory in dual channel,
and of course Nvidia GTX 1060 6 gig graphics, no Max-Q or lower 3 gig version here.
It’s also worth noting that with AMD’s FSR on the way, future games that add support
will be able to get a further speed boost on older 1060 laptops, it just depends on
which games add support.
We’ll start out by seeing how 10 modern games perform on the GTX 1060 graphics, then
afterwards I’ll show you how this laptop stacks up against others so you can see how
it fits in.
Let’s start off with Cyberpunk 2077.
Despite the 30 FPS or so at medium settings, I personally still found it fairly playable.
There was more noticeable stuttering at high or ultra settings though, but for the most
part low and medium settings 1080p seemed ok for me.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was another game that came out long after the time of the GTX 1060.
Even higher end modern laptops don’t score too impressively at ultra settings, while
low was able to get above 50 FPS here, but this is another resource heavy game.
Microsoft Flight Simulator was tested in the Sydney landing challenge.
Similar results here too, around 50 FPS with the lowest setting preset which honestly is
seen even in much newer laptops.
Regardless, the game was still quite playable.
You don’t always need a solid 60 FPS to have a good time, especially in games like
this.
Control is the first game tested that was able to push beyond 60 FPS with the low setting
preset, but again this is one that I think you can still play quite fine with lower frame
rate if your preference is visual quality.
I wouldn’t go to high settings, but personally I found medium usable.
This game is almost a couple of years old now, but I’ve never previously tested it
on the 1060.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was tested with the game's benchmark tool.
Again low settings were able to exceed the magical 60 FPS sweet spot, but even higher
setting levels were still quite playable, there wasn’t too much of a difference between
many of them.
Watch Dogs Legion was also tested with the game's benchmark.
This one was right on 60 FPS with the low setting preset, but I found medium to high
settings to still play well while looking a bit better, though this is of course a bit
of personal preference at the end of the day.
Death Stranding was tested by walking around, because that’s the name of the game.
There wasn’t that much of a difference between the different setting presets.
Even the highest very high preset was running fine with above 60 FPS for average frame rate,
and the 1% low wasn’t too far behind either, a good result.
Fortnite is actually slightly older, but hey it’s still super popular and regularly updated,
so this is what more of an esports title can run with on GTX 1060 hardware these days.
Still above 60 FPS no problems even with the highest epic setting preset, while you could
easily take advantage of a 144Hz screen at the lower setting levels.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a little older now, but it’s still popular in benchmarking
and came out a couple of years after the GTX 1060.
This one was close to 60 FPS in the games benchmark tool even with the high setting
preset, with one of the highest frame rates seen in the games tested at the lowest setting
preset.
Battlefield V is also a bit older now, but is another that still came out a couple of
years after the 1060, plus I regularly still use it for comparisons so have included it.
Very close to 60 FPS with the ultra setting preset here, while 100 FPS was just possible
with the low setting preset.
Those last three games are a bit older compared to the titles tested earlier, and their frame
rates were also a bit better than those newer games, which I think goes to show that those
modern games are more demanding and in general will see a benefit from new hardware.
Now let’s see how well the GTX 1060 compares against other laptops.
These are the results from Shadow of the Tomb Raider with the highest setting preset at
1080p, our GTX 1060 laptop is highlighted in red.
The 1060 is slightly under the Radeon RX 5500M, but still higher than the newer GTX 1650 and
1650 Ti.
Meanwhile 1660 Ti, even Max-Q configurations, are able to offer fairly good improvements,
while the latest RTX 30 series, whether that be 3050 or 3060 were offering even higher
improvements.
Far Cry 5 was also tested at max settings, and the GTX 1060 laptop is still sitting in
the same position relative to the other laptops tested.
Above 60 FPS at max settings isn’t really anything to complain about, but this is an
older game to be fair.
Still though, you can see the sorts of boosts that are possible with newer hardware.
I was kind of expecting the newer GTX 1650 to be closer to the 1060, but it seems that
the 1060 still has some legs.
Things get a bit weird in Battlefield V. The GTX 1060 is still close to 60 FPS at max settings,
that’s fine, what’s weird is the RTX 3050 and 3050 Ti are doing worse with newer 11th
gen 8 core processors.
Those did only just launch with new drivers, so I might need to retest them in future,
but at the moment in this specific game the 1060 seems to be ahead, and this wasn’t
the case in those last two games.
It could simply be that the newer 3050 GPUs have less VRAM compared to the 1060.
That weirdness aside, the 1060 is otherwise in a similar position to the last couple of
games.
So GTX 1060 hardware is definitely still capable in modern games at low to medium settings,
but it was able to do better in older games at high and even ultra settings, especially
esports titles.
As we’ve just seen the GTX 1060 is able to beat the GTX 1650 and 1650 Ti that came
out after it, so if you are considering an upgrade there’s no real point going to one
of those.
Generally I’ve been considering the GTX 1660 Ti as a nice upgrade over the 1060.
When I compared those two in 15 games I found that the 1660 Ti was around 42% better, so
a pretty reasonable improvement.
Now although the 1660 Ti came out about 3 years after the 1060, it’s worth noting
that it’s still a GTX card, so you’ll be missing out on features like ray tracing
or DLSS, which is actually starting to appear in many games now.
Games that I covered before like Control and Fortnite for instance will see a performance
boost with DLSS.
Unfortunately at least for now that does require RTX hardware, so if you’re considering that
an RTX 2060 would be the minimum, or maybe the new RTX 3050, but I’m still yet to see
how well that stacks up against the 2060.
As mentioned earlier, AMD’s FSR is on the way and they’ve demonstrated it working
on a GTX 1060, so depending on which games support this feature, it might be possible
that the 1060 will live a bit longer yet.
If there’s a lot of new games that come out with FSR support then I might revisit
this video and test out the 1060 in that, so make sure you’re subscribed for that
upcoming content.
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