NVIDIA Launches GeForce GTX 1060 3GB For Gaming On A Tighter Budget

NVIDIA is still rolling out its Pascal launch with yet another GPU, this time with a more budget friendly GTX 1060 equipped with 3GB of GDDR5 instead of 6GB. The aim is to hit the sub $200 mark and to some extent, undercut AMD’s RX 480 by performing slightly better.

The main specs for the GTX 1060 3GB are listed in the table below, however, the amount of VRAM is not the only difference. The number of cores have been cut by 128, as well as reductions in the frame buffer and SM units. NVIDIA states that as a result, the card is about 5% slower than the 6GB version, however that is likely overall, and a few select titles may show much greater reductions in performance, especially those sensitive to memory.

With AMD in sights, NVIDIA is launching the 3GB GTX 1060 with an MSRP of $199, matching the price of the RX 480, and about $50 cheaper than the 6GB GTX 1060. The claim from team green is that the 3GB card will be 10% faster than the 480, but under what circumstances is anyone’s guess.

NVIDIA is not releasing review samples for the 3GB 1060, as is normal when it comes to budget releases, so in-depth reviews will have to wait while we fight with the general population to acquire samples from an already underprovisioned market.

Companies such as EVGA already have a number of designs ready to go, including a few pre-overclocked models and small form factor designs. Even if the 3GB card is not as fast as the bigger sibling, it’s still significantly faster than the last generation GTX 960 and GTX 970.