NVIDIA has officially unveiled their GeForce GTX 1060 graphics card which will be aiming the budget market with a sub-$300 US pricing. Announced today, the graphics card will be available to users on 19th July 2016 when it will be available in both custom and reference variants around the globe at pricing starting at $249.
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 is unveiled for a starting price of $249 US.
NVIDIA Unveils The GeForce GTX 1060 Graphics Card - Starting at $249 US For 6 GB Variant
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX will be the latest entrant in NVIDIA's lineup which will feature performance on par or greater than the GeForce GTX 980 at a price that would be half of the 980's launch MSRP ($549). NVIDIA's GTX 1060 will be available on 19th July around the globe at a starting price of $249 US for the custom models while the founders edition which will be the reference model will be available for a price of $299 US. The card will be delivering superior performance and overclocking performance with its 16nm Pascal architecture which shows impressive clock frequencies on stock and overclocked.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Official Specifications - 1.7 GHz Core Clock and 4.4 TFLOPs of Compute
The GeForce GTX 1060 is based on the GP106 GPU which features 1280 CUDA cores and 80 TMUs. The card comes at clock speeds of 1506 MHz but boosts all the way up to 1708 MHz. NVIDIA has a massive lead in terms of core frequencies with TSMC’s 16nm FF process node and that shows as their chips are built to clock beyond 2 GHz when overclocked. The pixel fill rate for this chip is 72.3 GPixel/s while the texture fill rate is 159.6 GTexel/s.
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 features the GP106 GPU with 1.7 GHz core clock.
The graphics card features 6 GB of GDDR5 memory which runs at 8 GHz. This means that we will be getting 192.00 GB/s bandwidth on this card since it comes with a 192-bit bus interface. The reference variant only features 6 GB memory and we haven't seen any mention of 3 GB variants from NVIDIA. The 3 GB models that were much talked about in rumors seem to be a different GP106 GPU which should hit at prices around $149 US.
The GeForce 1060 will also be using the reference Pascal display configuration of three Display Port 1.4, single HDMI 2.0b and also a single DVI port. Since this is Pascal we are talking about, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 would feature just 120W TDP and power would be provided through a single 6-Pin connector. The GTX 1060 does not feature SLI functionality which means there won’t be multi-GPU support on GP106 based GPUs.
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 |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 is Better Than RX 480 in Gaming, VR and Power Efficiency
The slides also show that the GeForce GTX 1060 is not only faster than the Radeon RX 480 but also the GeForce GTX 980 while being affordable for every gamer. This means that NVIDIA is taking the battle to AMD in all field whether that be VR gaming or affordable mainstream gaming. The GeForce GTX 1060 is said to be 15% better than the Radeon RX 480 at stock speeds, up to 25% better in VR Gaming thanks to NVIDIA’s Simultaneous Multi-Projection Technology and more than 40% better in terms of power efficiency.
GP106 GPU being an budget tier core has performance of high-end GM204 cores. (Image Credit: Videocardz)
NVIDIA’s power efficiency numbers have gone through the roof with Pascal as both the GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 are more than 50% better than Polaris 10 GPU with extremely efficient designs. NVIDIA really wants users to get performance of GTX 980 class graphics cards at a much lower price point which is the same strategy AMD apply to their Radeon RX 480 graphics card. We can expect decent gaming performance at 1440P along with some VR features that allow optimized performance in such experiences.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition Set at $299 US - Availability on 19th July
The design of the GTX 1060 Founders Edition is very similar to its other two Pascal based siblings. The GeForce GTX 1060 features a very nice design scheme with black and silver textures across its shroud. The GTX 1060 naming is etched on the front and we can spot the “GeForce GTX” logo on the side which should feature LED lightning. The card features a blower style cooler than vents air into the internal chassis that comprises of a large titanium black covered aluminum heatsink.
The Founders Edition of the GTX 1060 will be available for $299 US on 19th July.
You can also see that the 6-Pin power connector is not part of the PCB and moved to the very rear of the shroud itself. Graphics cards that use extended coolers usually place the power connectors towards the middle of the card which hinders cable management required to reach the power connector. In such configuration, users will be able to manage cables with ease.
We can clearly see that the PCB is very short on the GeForce GTX 1060 which is similar to its older Kepler based predecessors such as the GTX 670. The reference PCB featurea a 3+1 phase design on a very compact PCB whichshould offer good power to the small GP106 core that is extremely efficient and allows overclocking up to 2 GHz.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 With GP106-400 GPU High-Resolution PCB Shot:
Custom additions from AIBs will allow even shorter design like the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 Mini ITX OC which is the fastest SFF gaming solution launching soon. The MSI GTX 1060 Gaming X model has already been revealed by Tomshardware which features an 8-Pin connector to provide more overclocking headroom on the card.
This indicates that the GeForce GTX 1060 will be readily available in both reference and custom flavors on the 19th July launch date, starting at a price of $249 US. Expect more info in a bit when NVIDIA releases more information on the GTX 1060 graphics card along with performance figures.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition Gallery:
