NVIDIA has officially announced the 3GB version of the GTX 1060 graphics card, and it indeed contains fewer CUDA cores than the 6GB version.
The GTX 1060 Founders Edition
The product page on NVIDIA.com now reflects the 3GB model, and board partners have begun announcing their versions. The MSRP on this 3GB version is set at $199, and availablity of partner cards is expected in the next couple of weeks. The two versions will be designated only by their memory size, and no other capacities of either card are forthcoming.
GeForce GTX 1060 3GB | GeForce GTX 1060 6GB | |
---|---|---|
Architecture | Pascal | Pascal |
CUDA Cores | 1152 | 1280 |
Base Clock | 1506 MHz | 1506 MHz |
Boost Clock | 1708 MHz | 1708 MHz |
Memory Speed | 8 Gbps | 8 Gbps |
Memory Configuration | 3GB | 6GB |
Memory Interface | 192-bit | 192-bit |
Power Connector | 6-pin | 6-pin |
TDP | 120W | 120W |
As you can see from the above table, the only specification that has changed is the CUDA core count, with base/boost clocks, memory speed and interface, and TDP identical. As to performance, NVIDIA says the 6GB version holds a 5% performance advantage over this lower-cost version, which at $199 is 20% less expensive than the previous GTX 1060 6GB.
On paper it looks like a
On paper it looks like a goat, but that will not matter too much as it will probably be as fast as the 970 and outsell the 470 by quite a bit.
These should be $99 parts, sigh.
nVIDIA, please… just call
nVIDIA, please… just call it a 1050 so there won’t be any confusion….
I knew people would say
I knew people would say this.
Call it a 1050 or call the 1060 6gb a 1060ti to avoid confusion.
However, if they did it, they did it on purpose.
This was the first time they did something like this, right??? NOPE.
Remember the GTX 460?
It was offered in a variety of flavors, including the GTX 460 768mb, 1gb, and the 1GB SE.
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/geforce_gtx_460_se_review,2.html
All cards were GTX 460, but the 3 varied all across the board on ROP, Stream processors etc. I’m going to throw a wild guess out there. I’m going to guess this confusion of GTX 460’s was a success for Nvidia, so they are doing it again. On top of that, they may even have marketing data that sayd a large portion of those customers 5 years ago were on 5 year video card buying cycles, looking for a replacement this year, which could be the GTX 1060 3gb.
should of call the 6gb the
should of call the 6gb the 1060ti and the 3gb just the 1060.
5% with 10% less cores? I
5% with 10% less cores? I think Nvidia is a little generous to the 3GB version, probably because people are going bananas looking less cores but the same product name.
In a German site that I was looking it was selling from 219 to 239 euros. The 6GB version was starting from 268 euros, so the difference in price is significant. Of course going with only 3GB when people are thinking that even 4GBs could be soon a problem with some titles, it is a risk.
In the same site RX 480 is starting from 245 and RX470 from 203, so the 3GB GTX 1060 lands in the middle.
Nothing wrong with offering a
Nothing wrong with offering a cut down product for a lower price. If the benchmarks show great pefromance/$ it might even turn out to be a great card.
But really, someone in Nvidia marketing needs a paddling. It’s not a 3GB version of a GTX 1060. It’s a cutdown version of the 1060 (even if the cut seems modest). This is rubbish and should not be allowed a free pass. Call it a GTX 1050 or 1059 for all I care. But this is deceptive and indefensible.
I mean… it sounds like an obvious criticism… which is why it baffles me why would anyone at the company could think this is ok. Especially if it does turn out that it’s a great card for the price. Why tarnish a potentially good product with a whiff of unnecessary marketing bullshit?
Well Nvidia is doing it in
Well Nvidia is doing it in the low end market for years. And much worst than this. But because it is the low end market, people respond with a “who cares about that card”. But now that there is essentially no low end market, Nvidia is starting doing stuff like this in more expensive cards.
I keep giving the same example over and over again. GT 730. A card that comes at three different versions with completely different performance. Two different memory types, two different data buses, two different GPUs, different features and specifications, but the same name. You don’t know if the card you bought is a Fermi or a Kepler, comes with enough bandwidth to play games(40GB/sec), or just barely to see movies(12GB/sec), it supports DX12 fully(Kepler), or partially(Fermi), comes with enough CUDA cores to do some more stuff(384 Kepler) or just a few to send you to the processor(96 Fermi). A total mess.
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gt-730/specifications
Sounds like a different video
Sounds like a different video card to me…
*Shakes fist at Jen Hsun*
They should call the the
They should call the the GTX(Gimped To maXimize) Profits 1060 FE (F__K Everyone) SKU, now with even less compute! It will say GTX 1060 on the box, but the actual specifications are anyone’s guess! JHH cordially invites you to his game of 3 card monte!
Why don’t they just call this
Why don’t they just call this damn card the GTX 1060LE and be done with it????
Yawn…
Yawn…
I don’t get why they would
I don’t get why they would gimp the shader core count.
gotta sell those defective
gotta sell those defective dies somehow. not that it’s a bad thing. Same as the 1070, or the 970, 670, etc…
Why the **** have less cores
Why the **** have less cores and keep 1060 name other than to mislead people.
They should call it the
They should call it the 1060CE
Chump Edition.
A GeForce 1060MX you say?
A GeForce 1060MX you say?
Would this card sell better
Would this card sell better labeled as a 1060 or as a 1050ti, even if the specs were kept the same either way?
People want to buy the card with the higher model number(call it prestige, bragging rights, etc) and Nvidia wanted something that would steal the thunder from the 480 and ta-da, they now have a 1060 at that magical $199 pricepoint.
Yeah, but the $199 version
Yeah, but the $199 version isn’t that great, if you want a nice design with dual fans, quiet cooling etc they are ~$230, not $199.
And for that you can get a 4GB 480 Nitro+, which can be OC’d to within ~1-2% of the 8GB 480 anyway, has 33% more memory than the 3GB 1060, proper async compute, no G-Sync tax, Xfire, and will be much better at DX12/Vulkan…
If the ‘nice’ 3GB 1060s were ~$180 then they would have some sort of value. But at ~$230 they just don’t make sense. Not when you can buy a really nice custom OC 4GB 480 for the same price.
They should call it Titan.
They should call it Titan. This way only very few people would be confused as not many can afford 1200USD graphics card 😉