Nvidia 1060 details revealed

Nvidia have revealed the details of their brand new GTX 1060 card, which aims to compete at the mid-level PC tier.

The card is due out on 19th July and contains the same Pascal architecture as the recently released GTX 1080 and 1070. Like its big brothers, the GTX 1060 improves the technology at the price point of previous cards. It’s technically a direct replacement for the GTX960 but Nvidia are claiming that it’s actually nearer to the GTX 980.

The reference (or Founders, as Nvidia are calling it now) card will be available direct from Nvidia, as with the other cards, but all the usual third parties will be launching their cards at the same time with varying price points.

The specs do look surprisingly good for the potential price point. This is the card that needs to compete against the new AMD RX480 card at a similar price point, aiming at gamers and PC owners who want the power without the higher prices of the bigger cards. AMD has managed to grab the headlines in that respect but all eyes were on Nvidia to deliver their alternative, which they’ve now finally revealed.

The 6GB DDR5 running at 8Gbps as standard and a 192 bit memory bus should help here , as will the higher than expected Cuda Cores, 1280 of them to be precise. All this at a TDP of just 120W, meaning that there’s less likelyhood of needing a PSU upgrade.

As with the bigger cards, the new Ansel game-capture tool support gives you much more control over certain games that support it, such as Witcher 3, with the ability to pause and move around the game world, taking wonderful pictures. The art system also comes to EA’s Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, another stunning looking game which should benefit from this feature of the GTX software.

GTX 1060 custom boards will be available starting July 19 from NVIDIA GeForce partners, including ASUS, Colorful, EVGA, Gainward, Galaxy, Gigabyte, Innovision 3D, MSI, Palit, PNY and Zotac. NVIDIA GeForce partners represent a global network that will deliver GTX 1060 to gamers in 238 countries and territories. The MSRP will start at $249.

The GeForce GTX 1060 Founder’s Edition board – designed and built by NVIDIA – will be available starting July 19 for $299