Found a sale, gotta act quickly. What's the best bang for the buck on this list?

[NewbieOneKenobi]

Priorities (in this order): silence, lowest peak temp, overall stability and reliability.

Resolution: 1080p, perhaps virtual 1440p.

Rest of the system: i5-6600 (probably can't count on stellar fps with this anyway…), Asrock K6 Fatal1ty, 16GB DDR 4@3000/15, SSD (M.2 PCIE), discrete soundcard (X-fi), 650W OCZ PSU.

Maxing out on the settings, especially in 1440p, and making this my last GPU before playable 4K hits the mainstream would be a bonus, so I might be tempted to get the 1070 because the price is good, and it could also delay my CPU upgrade.

Normally, though, I'd be in the 1060/480 money range. Here, I'm torn on the extra memory. On the one hand I know modern games can eat through 3 GB in 1080p even without maxing out the settings, but at the same time tested performance in reviews apparently never shows more than 5% difference between 3GB and 6GB even in 1440p with high AA settings. The difference in price is obviously so much larger than 5%.

Strictly in 1060 6GB range, I'm finding it hard to justify the extra cost of MSI Armor and MSI Gaming X (forget Asus Strix) over Zotac AMP!. Also heard Palit JetStream is really good. This said, I've never run any of these cards, not even any card with the same cooler, so I have zero experience with them. And some of the comparative reviews available on the Internet are quite old, before driver and BIOS updates, so they may reflect issues already fixed (or made worse). Halp?

1060 3GB:
(mostly for comparison, as I think 3GB is insufficient)
PLN 719: Cheapest — GigaByte ITX OC
PLN 749: Cheapest full-sized with 2 fans— Palit (plain Palit, no JetStream, no OC)
(all sorts of OC two-fan models from decent manufacturers in between)
PLN 799: MSI Armor
PLN 863: MSI GamingX

1060 6GB (my preferred group):
PLN 935: Cheapest: Zotac Mini (1-fan)
PLN 975: Zotac AMP! 2-fan (IIRC this was one of the best models shortly after launch); plain MSI OC
PLN 1013: MSI Armor OC
PLN 1039: Palit JetStream
PLN 1087: MSI Gaming
PLN 1111: MSI GamingX
(3-fan Gigabyte and 3-fan Asus Strix in PLN 1150–1160 range)

480 4GB:
PLN 783: Cheapest: Asus Dual OC (it's actually cheaper than the non-OC Dual, due to how the prices are effed up, possibly the best budget option, I guess)
PLN 855: MSI GamingX

480 8GB:
PLN 927: Cheapest: Asus Dual OC (this does look promising)
PLN 991: Asus ROG Strix (3-fan)
PLN 1055: MSI GamingX

(Yeah, no 580 at all.)

1070:
(I don't normally buy in this range, so mostly for comparison, but I guess I could be tempted if this was to be my 'terminal' 1080p/1440p GPU and buy me several years of peace before decent 4K monitors hit the mainstream)
PLN 1419: Cheapest: GigaByte Mini OC (1-fan)
PLN 1479: Zotac Mini (2-fan)
PLN 1499: MSI Armor OC (looks like a good price point)
PLN 1535: Zotac, no OC, 3 fans
PLN 1559: Zotac IceStorm
PLN 1575: Palit JetStream
PLN 1679: MSI GamingX (so clearly off the mark)

1080:
(just for comparison)
PLN 1959: Palit JetStream, MSI Armor

 

[Alaric]

I would get the 1070 if at all possible. Even War Thunder can max out my 1070 now at 1080p, so for 1440 I would call a 1070 the minimum for high settings. I wouldn't even look at 3 GB or 4 GB cards if my resolution were over 720p.

 

[bob4933]

REALLY depends what games youre playing. "Most games" wont use 3gb vram at 1080p. Even super sampling doesn't change too terribly much. If youre trying to max out the newest titles, I'd go for a 1070 personally.

On the 1060 vs 480 debate; again it REALLY depends on what games youre playing. DOOM? The 480 is hilariously faster. Cinematic titles favor the 1060 by a large margin. They truly average each other out though. I'd spend the 50 zloty on a 1060 6gb over a 480 personally.

 

[EarthDog]

1070.

A 1060 or rx 480 wont cut it at 2560x1440.

 

[Nebulous]

1070.

A 1060 or rx 480 wont cut it at 2560x1440.

Tru dat!

 

[||Console||]

1080 if you want 1440p to last on high for a few years.or 1070ti

 

[NewbieOneKenobi]

Don't want to bore you guys to death, so keeping this as short as possible.

Re: what games, I play RPGs (typically shooter engines), car racers and all manner of strategies. I'm a sucker for eye candy but not to the point of absolutely needing to have all of those things the human eye can barely see. In terms of fps, I'm usually comfortable with 40; for ranked multiplayer I can lower the settings.

Re: 1440p, I forgot my previous experience with virtual resolutions was mixed, and I'm not replacing this monitor any time soon.

So, in 1080p:
Will 1060 6GB be insufficient? Now? Next year? 2–3 years?
How much of a step will it be from 1060 and 1070 and 1070 to 1080, realistically?

Basically trying to not overinvest significantly but also to not shortchange myself either.

Also would a bronze-rated 650W PSU (on a lean PC) be sufficient for 2x1070? For 2x1080 probably no chance?

 

[Kenrou]

My 1060 6gb has played every game I ever tried (except ME:A but we all know how badly programmed that was) at well over 60fps 1080p max settings. Fallout 4, GTA5, MWO, Crysis 3, all the CoD, some “older” games like ME1-2-3 modded for high res textures at 4K without any issues. It handles recent games just fine at 1080p max, 1440p would be stretching but doable at lower settings, 4K a definitive no.