Nvidia Disables SLI On GTX 1060 3GB Cards

As we approach the July 7th launch date for Nvidia's upcoming GTX 1060 we're seeing more and more information about the card leak. The latest comes from a Polish technology outlet PurePC, who's editor revealed that GTX 1060 samples have been sent out to reviewers.

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 is set to launch on July 7th, giving reviewers approximately 3-4 days to conduct their testing. Which is more than sufficient but notably significantly shorter than the lead time Nvidia gave reviewers with the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070. Perhaps lending some credence to the notion that Nvidia may have pushed the launch ahead to compete with the just released RX 480.

Nvidia GTX 1060 Comes In 6GB & 3GB Configurations - SLI Disabled On The 3GB Version

Additionally, VCZ reports that there are two variants of the GTX 1060, the more affordable of the two won't support SLI. It's believed that in a similar fashion to what AMD has done with the RX 480, the GTX 1060 will launch with two memory variations. These will be 6GB and 3GB, given the card's 192-bit memory interface.  It's not yet clear whether the two variants of the GTX 1060 will differ in other ways besides the memory configuration. However, it's been reported that the two versions don't even share the same driver codenames, unlike the 4GB & 8GB variants of the RX 480.

Furthermore, it's said that the likely reason SLI support has been disabled on the 3GB variant is to not affect sales of the higher end GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 graphics cards. Which hints at the potential performance of the GTX 1060 coming in at approximately half that of the GTX 1080.

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This makes sense considering that the GTX 1060 has a similar boost clock speed to the 1080,  exactly half the number of CUDA and 60% of the memory bandwidth. So we're likely looking at the GTX 1060 delivering roughly ~55% of the GTX 1080's performance. Depending on how taxing a given game is on the memory subsystem we could see that figure go up or down. Which interestingly is exactly where AMD's RX 480 currently falls-in compared to the 1080. So we're set up for an extremely close race here between the 1060 and the 480.

Nvidia GTX 1060 Listed By Korean Retailer

Before we close this off there's one additional interesting bit reported by our friends over at videocardz. A Korean retailer announced a new promotion on GTX 1000 series. The promo includes a free copy of Overwatch with the purchase of select Nvidia GeForce graphics cards. Among those cards is the yet unannounced GTX 1060.

NVIDIA GeForce 10 Pascal Family

Graphics Card Name	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 2 GB	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 3 GB	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 5 GB	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080	NVIDIA Titan X	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti	NVIDIA Titan Xp
Graphics Core	GP107	GP107	GP107	GP106 / GP104	GP106	GP106 / GP104	GP104	GP104	GP104	GP102	GP102	GP102
Process Node	14nm FinFET	14nm FinFET	14nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET
Die Size	132mm2	132mm2	132mm2	200mm2	200mm2	200mm2	314mm2	314mm2	314mm2	471mm2	471mm2	471mm2
Transistors	3.3 Billion	3.3 Billion	3.3 Billion	4.4 Billion	4.4 Billion	4.4 Billion	7.2 Billion	7.2 Billion	7.2 Billion	12 Billion	12 Billion	12 Billion
CUDA Cores	640 CUDA Cores	768 CUDA Cores	768 CUDA Cores	1152 CUDA Cores	1280 CUDA Cores	1280 CUDA Cores	1920 CUDA Cores	2432 CUDA Cores	2560 CUDA Cores	3584 CUDA Cores	3584 CUDA Cores	3840 CUDA Cores
Base Clock	1354 MHz	1392 MHz	1290 MHz	1506 MHz	1506 MHz	1506 MHz	1506 MHz	1607 MHz	1607 MHz	1417 MHz	1480 MHz	1480 MHz
Boost Clock	1455 MHz	1518 MHz	1392 MHz	1708 MHz	1708 MHz	1708 MHz	1683 MHz	1683 MHz	1733 MHz	1530 MHz	1583 MHz	1582
FP32 Compute	1.8 TFLOPs	2,3 TFLOPs	2.1 TFLOPs	4.0 TFLOPs	4.4 TFLOPs	4.4 TFLOPs	6.5 TFLOPs	8.1 TFLOPs	9.0 TFLOPs	11 TFLOPs	11.5 TFLOPs	12.5 TFLOPs
VRAM	2 GB GDDR5	3 GB GDDR5	4 GB GDDR5	3 GB GDDR5	6 GB GDDR5	6 GB GDDR5/X	8 GB GDDR5/X	8 GB GDDR5	8 GB GDDR5X	12 GB GDDR5X	11 GB GDDR5X	12 GB GDDR5X
Memory Speed	7 Gbps	7 Gbps	7 Gbps	8 Gbps	8 Gbps	9 Gbps / 10 Gbps	8 Gbps	8 Gbps	11 Gbps	10 Gbps	11 Gbps	11.4 Gbps
Memory Bandwidth	112 GB/s	84 GB/s	112 GB/s	192 GB/s	160 GB/s	224 GB/s / 240 GB/s	256 GB/s	256 GB/s	352 GB/s	480 GB/s	484 GB/s	547 GB/s
Bus Interface	128-bit bus	96-bit bus	128-bit bus	192-bit bus	160-bit bus	192-bit bus	256-bit bus	256-bit bus	256-bit bus	384-bit bus	352-bit bus	384-bit bus
Power Connector	None	None	None	Single 6-Pin Power	Single 6-Pin Power	Single 6-Pin Power	Single 8-Pin Power	Single 8-Pin Power	Single 8-Pin Power	8+6 Pin Power	8+6 Pin Power	8+6 Pin Power
TDP	75W	75W	75W	120W	120W	120W	150W	180W	180W	250W	250W	250W
Display Outputs	1x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	1x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	1x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b
Launch Date	October 2016	May 2018	October 2016	September 2016	August 2018	July 2016	June 2016	October 2017	May 2016	August 2016	March 2017	April 2017
Launch Price	$109 US	$119 US-$129 US	$139 US	$199 US	TBD	$249 US	$349 US	$449 US	$499 US	$1200 US	$699 US	$1200 US