NVIDIA has today announced the GTX 1060 GPU, their answer to AMD’s budget-oriented RX 480. The company says that when it comes to VR rendering the card is equal in performance to the former flagship GTX 980 but at twice the power efficiency.

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See Also: NVIDIA GTX 1080 Performance Review: Head to Head Against the 980 Ti

Following the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070, the GTX 1060 is the third member of Nvidia’s 10-series GPUs that are built on the ‘Pascal’ architecture. The 1060 aims to be the budget choice for VR gamers; priced starting at $249, it falls into the same class as AMD’s recently released RX 480 GPU which is priced at $199.

Third-party cards from companies like Asus and Evga will see the $249 MSRP, while Nvidia will also make available a premium “Founder’s Edition” for $299, available direct from the company. Both the Founder’s Edition and third-party GTX 1060 release date is July 19th.

While the GTX 1080 and 1070 are built on the GP104 chip, the 1060 is built on a new chip, the GP106. The GTX 1060 Founder’s Edition specs follow:

  • CUDA Cores: 1,280
  • Boost Clock: 1.7GHz
  • Memory Config: 6GB GDDR5
  • Memory Speed: 8 GBPS
  • Power Connectors: 6-pin
  • TDP: 120W
  • Display Connectors: 3x DP 1.4, 1x HDMI 2.0B, 1x DL-DVI
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See Also: How to Tell if Your PC is VR Ready

Nvidia says the VR-ready GTX 1060 can be “easily overclocked” to 2GHz, and claims that the card is “on average 15 percent faster and over 75 percent more power efficient than the closest competitive product,” which we take to mean AMD’s RX 480 GPU (we’ll be putting that claim to the test soon enough).

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As a Pascal card, the GTX 1060 benefits from Nvidia’s Simultaneous Multi-projection and Lens Matched Shading, which the company says can provide significant performance gains for VR rendering.

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Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • Zach Mauch

    I’m guessing this will be capable of the same VR based enhancements that the 1080 and 1070 are implementing? That was one of my big reasons for returning my 970 and planning to get a 1070. However, I might just get the 1060 instead if it makes me pretty future proof.

    Edit: I think that is what the last paragraph is saying.

    • Alex K.

      And here’s what first paragrpash is saying:

      “The company says that when it comes to VR rendering the card is equal in
      performance to the former flagship GTX 980 but at twice the power
      efficiency.”

      So VR performance for 1060= 980. And 980 doesn’t have all that new technology.

      • ZenInsight

        Yes. But if you want to change any of the “scaling”, meaning texture quality, in VR as has been discussed din a few of the articles around here….a 980 equivalent isn’t going to cut it. Might as well get a 1070 and if that isn’t enough double up. Or just save for the 1080 and in the future when the graphics are becoming to advanced for it, add another and the price will be lower then as well.

        Otherwise, we really need to see what two 480’s vs two 1060’s benchmark at. And also with both of them overclocked.

        Personally, I am going to wait until the 1080 is about $500 and get that…then wait again until it is about $350 and get another one.

  • Nifty! I build a VR machine in my former dining room area for the VIVE, but the new hardware requirements from Oculus have stopped me from plugging in the DK2 to my workstation. With a cheap, powerful card, I could use the DK2 on one machine and keep the other for purely VIVE stuff. Best of both worlds! :)

    Anyone else thinking of doing this? I know you ballers don’t sweat several GTX 980 Titans, but us poorer types likely only had the one (if that).