NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming Performance Results Leaked – Faster Than The RX 480 in DX12, DX11 and VR Official Tests

Hassan Mujtaba

The first official performance numbers of the GeForce GTX 1060 graphics card have been leaked over at Chinese forums. NVIDIA would be launching the GeForce GTX 1060 next week at a price point of $249 US which will be targeted at mainstream PC builders. The GeForce GTX 1060 is based on the GP106 GPU which we detailed with in our previous post that you can check out over here.

Faster performance at a decent price is the main goal of the GeForce GTX 1060 graphics card.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Performance Leaked - Faster in DirectX 12, DirectX 11 and VR Games Compared To RX 480

The GeForce GTX 1060 is based on a new Pascal chip known as GP106. This chip is built for wide applications and we first saw it inside the Drive PX 2 boards at GTC 2016. The first consumer product to feature this chip is the GeForce GTX 1060 which will be available in a couple of days at a starting price of $249 US for custom and $299 US for the reference (Founders Edition) variants. The GeForce GTX 1060 is built to tackle the Radeon RX 480 but so far, we have only known the specifications.

Chinese forums have leaked the first performance numbers of the graphics card but before getting into those, let's take a quick look at the specifications once more.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Graphics Card Specifications:

The GeForce GTX 1060 has 1280 CUDA cores, 80 TMUs and 48 ROPs. The GTX 1060 is clocked at speeds of 1506 MHz base and 1708 MHz boost clock which delivers a texture fill rate of 120.5 GTexels/s. The GeForce GTX 1060 also features a 6 GB GDDR5 VRAM buffer that runs across a 192-bit bus interface.

The memory is configured to run at 8000 MHz which is the fastest speed available for GDDR5 memory. GDDR5X is the next phase for GDDR5 memory but comes at a higher manufacturing costs which are not feasible for cards lined up in the budget market.

The GP106 GPU is a very efficient core and features a TDP of just 120W which is the same as its GM206 GPU based predecessor (GTX 960). The card is powered by a single 6-Pin connector while custom models with enhanced PCB and cooling will feature either single 8-Pin or dual 6-Pin connector configurations. The GTX 1060 also features three Display Port 1.4, a single HDMI 2.0b and DVI port for display outputs.

NVIDIA GeForce 10 Pascal Family

Graphics Card Name NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 2 GBNVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 3 GBNVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 TiNVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3 GBNVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 5 GBNVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GBNVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 TiNVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080NVIDIA Titan XNVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 TiNVIDIA Titan Xp
Graphics CoreGP107GP107GP107GP106 / GP104GP106GP106 / GP104GP104GP104GP104GP102GP102GP102
Process Node14nm FinFET14nm FinFET14nm FinFET16nm FinFET16nm FinFET16nm FinFET16nm FinFET16nm FinFET16nm FinFET16nm FinFET16nm FinFET16nm FinFET
Die Size132mm2132mm2132mm2200mm2200mm2200mm2314mm2314mm2314mm2471mm2471mm2471mm2
Transistors3.3 Billion3.3 Billion3.3 Billion4.4 Billion4.4 Billion4.4 Billion7.2 Billion7.2 Billion7.2 Billion12 Billion12 Billion12 Billion
CUDA Cores640 CUDA Cores768 CUDA Cores768 CUDA Cores1152 CUDA Cores1280 CUDA Cores1280 CUDA Cores1920 CUDA Cores2432 CUDA Cores2560 CUDA Cores3584 CUDA Cores3584 CUDA Cores3840 CUDA Cores
Base Clock1354 MHz1392 MHz1290 MHz1506 MHz1506 MHz1506 MHz1506 MHz1607 MHz1607 MHz1417 MHz1480 MHz1480 MHz
Boost Clock1455 MHz1518 MHz1392 MHz1708 MHz1708 MHz1708 MHz1683 MHz1683 MHz1733 MHz1530 MHz1583 MHz1582
FP32 Compute1.8 TFLOPs2,3 TFLOPs2.1 TFLOPs4.0 TFLOPs4.4 TFLOPs4.4 TFLOPs6.5 TFLOPs8.1 TFLOPs9.0 TFLOPs11 TFLOPs11.5 TFLOPs12.5 TFLOPs
VRAM2 GB GDDR53 GB GDDR54 GB GDDR53 GB GDDR56 GB GDDR56 GB GDDR5/X8 GB GDDR5/X8 GB GDDR58 GB GDDR5X12 GB GDDR5X11 GB GDDR5X12 GB GDDR5X
Memory Speed7 Gbps7 Gbps7 Gbps8 Gbps8 Gbps9 Gbps / 10 Gbps8 Gbps8 Gbps11 Gbps10 Gbps11 Gbps11.4 Gbps
Memory Bandwidth112 GB/s84 GB/s112 GB/s192 GB/s160 GB/s224 GB/s / 240 GB/s256 GB/s256 GB/s352 GB/s480 GB/s484 GB/s547 GB/s
Bus Interface 128-bit bus96-bit bus128-bit bus192-bit bus160-bit bus192-bit bus256-bit bus256-bit bus256-bit bus384-bit bus352-bit bus384-bit bus
Power ConnectorNoneNoneNoneSingle 6-Pin PowerSingle 6-Pin PowerSingle 6-Pin PowerSingle 8-Pin PowerSingle 8-Pin PowerSingle 8-Pin Power8+6 Pin Power8+6 Pin Power8+6 Pin Power
TDP75W75W75W120W120W120W150W180W180W250W250W250W
Display Outputs1x 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 DateOctober 2016May 2018October 2016September 2016August 2018July 2016June 2016October 2017May 2016August 2016March 2017April 2017
Launch Price$109 US$119 US-$129 US$139 US$199 USTBD$249 US$349 US$449 US$499 US$1200 US$699 US$1200 US

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Official Performance Figures

The GeForce 1060 official performance figures comprise of benchmark results in DirectX 12, DirectX 11 and VR gaming. There are a variety of games tested on both 1080p and 1440p which will be the ideal resolutions to test this card.  The card is not only compared to the Radeon RX 480 but also the GeForce GTX 960 since it uses a GM206 GPU core which the GP106 is succeeding.

Note: Both cards were tested at stock clocks for comparison. We would still advise to wait for independent reviews to hit the web on 19th June for a better look at performance.

First up, we have the DirectX 12 performance figures in three games. In Ashes of Singularity which is a title very optimized for AMD cards due to their enhanced Async compute architecture, the GeForce GTX 1060 is total 5% ahead of the RX 480 at 1080p and 4% ahead on 1440p. In Forza 6 Apex, the card is 21% faster at 1080p and 12% faster at 1440p. Rise of the Tomb Raider was also tested which uses a mix of AMD and NVIDIA optimizations. It has 24% better performance for the GTX 1060 at 1080p and 18% better performance than the RX 480 at 1440p. All games were tested on max settings with a combination of Antialiasing.

Next up, we have several DirectX 11 titles being tested. In Crysis 3, the GTX 1060 is 23% (1080p) and 19% (1440p) ahead of the RX 480, In Fallout 4, the GTX 1060 is 5% (1080p) ahead but shows no performance leverage over the Radeon card at 1440p which is a bit interesting. GTA V shows the biggest increase of 33% using max settings at 1080p and up to 30% increase at 1440p over the Radeon RX 480. Metro Last Light shows an average 23% gain, Shadow of Mordor shows an average 11% gain and Witcher 3 shows an average 12% gain in performance over the Radeon RX 480 at both resolutions.

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Tom Clancy's Division showed the minimum gains at both resolutions with 1% gain at 1080p and 3% gain at 1440p. Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark shows that NVIDIA still has the lead in geometry and tessellation performance ran on the GPU.

NVIDIA GeForce 1060 Has Better VR Capabilities Than RX 480

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Performance_SteamVR Performance Test

The SteamVR performance test was also shown off where the Radeon RX 480 score 6.6 points while the GTX 1060 scored 8.2 points which is a good increase over its competition. This means that the card offers faster VR performance than other $250 US based solutions coming in from competitors. Along with SMP support, the GTX 1060 could become a great budget solution for VR gamers. We also have a custom GTX 1060 model round up article coming in shortly so stay tuned.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Overclocked to 2126 MHz and Tested in 3DMark Firestrike

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 has also been tested in 3DMark Firestrike with an overclock of 2126 MHz which is a significant clock bump over the reference model. We are looking at more than 400 MHz clock bump but we can't tell if this is the custom model or the reference models. The card can also boost higher than its the original boost frequencies around 1911 MHz making it score better points than the Radeon RX 480 graphics card.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 2 GHz OC 3DMark Firestrike Test:

nvidia-geforce-gtx-1060-2-ghz-overclock-3dmark_1
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