It's a good card. It's just not as versatile as the 480. Polaris can do tessellation but Pascal can't do DX12/Vulkan.

Point being, if you want a longevity based upgrade you'd go 470/480/1070+, but if you want a cheap upgrade good for a couple of years then the 1060 is fine.

Let's say I have a 210 that has the VGA taken off because there's literally no room for a fullsize card? What are my options in a Optiplex 780 SFF?

I just bought a GTX 1060, because the price is right, and because I've still got a 1080p monitor and don't plan on getting a new one anytime soon. So far it runs everything I've thrown at it maxed out as smooth as butter. Only thing I hadn't taken into consideration first with the EVGA GTX 1060 was the size, it just barely fit into my case. Also, the dual 6-pin female to 8-pin male cable that came with the card wouldn't fit properly because the pins were too loose, and aligning all 8 of them was impossible, so I ended up having to buy a sturdier replacement cable.

What? :|

I crammed a tiny Nvidia 210 into my Optiplex Small Form Factor. What are my upgrade options?

I read that as looking for a low profile card to fit a slim case, like this but more up to date. The most up to date Nvidia I found in that form factor is a 710 or 730 and they are only marginally better than what you already have.

Anything to squeeze slightly better performance out of a Linux PC! :P

Funny this topic should come up, as I actually just installed a GTX 1060 today as a replacement for my HD 6950 that was dying (side note: a dying GPU can produce some rather odd graphical artifacts). Obviously I haven't had it long, but I ran it through its paces on my more graphically demanding games and so far it's performed very well. From the research I did beforehand, the RX 480 will give you more power for the price, although it seems it won't work with some older motherboards so you have to be careful to check compatibility beforehand (this is what resulted in me getting the 1060 instead).

Thanks for the feedback. Its cheaper than the rx480 right now which is why I was looking at acquiring one.

[...] but less frames per second in any game that isn't perfectly optimized for DX12 or Vulkan (or a new Square Enix release like Hitman or Deus Ex, that is heavily optimized for AMD hardware).

My old HD 6870 died and I wanted to get a RX 480, but then the GTX 1060 came out of nowhere before the 480 customs got released. It's slightly faster than the 480 in most games, a bit cheaper and needs ~35 Watt less power (which allows for quieter cooling solutions). That's why I got an EVGA 1060 SC. It's 17cm/6.8 inches short, has a single fan cooling solution with additional heatpipes (that allow passive cooling outside of games!) and it comes slightly overclocked. And it was one of the cheapest cards on release! I'm happy with it.

The GTX 1060 and the RX 480 pretty much are on par. The 1060 is faster in most DX11 games and the 480 is faster in DX12/Vulkan games. If a game makes good use of DX12/Vulkan, the 480 wipes the floor with the 1060. The problem with DX12: Most games still run faster in DX11 than they do in DX12. And DX12 is Windows 10 exclusive. The problem with Vulkan: It's not DirectX. And developers love their DirectX -.-

If you go for the 1060: Make sure to get a model with 6 GB RAM! The 3 GB model comes with a slower chip! There's quite a difference between them (see benchmarks). I have no idea who thought it would be a good idea to call both of them "GTX 1060".

I was wondering why they bothered with a 3GB model to be honest. Seems a little pointless in this day and age.

Check this out.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/08/11/nvidias-geforce-gtx-1060-the-new-1440p-king/

Just look at this little guy. Isn't he cute? ;) I wonder if there are any cooling issues with such though.