On July 7, 2016, NVIDIA announced the GTX 1060 which is the third one of its Pascal series. Not only is the younger of them all, but it is also the cheapest. It will cost $249, and it makes it official, the budget graphic cards are back in town.
The last series of graphic cards were very exciting. The developers wanted them to run the most critical games on the market at max resolutions, but they got carried away with it and totally forgot about the price. The cheapest cards cost more than $400, and even though they had a lot of improvements, most people decided to stick with their old hardware.
Two months ago, NVIDIA continued this trend by unveiling its top of the line video cards: the GTX 1080 and the GTX 1070, and again, they were incredible, especially the GPUs but very expensive. Fortunately, the company thinks of everybody and today.
With 6 GB DDR5 ram and a 1.7 GHZ GPU, the GTX 1060 sure can pack a punch. The GPU can be overclocked to reach 2.0 GHZ, and the developers worked very hard to ensure a better power usage. According to them, the graphic card only consumes 120 watts while running VR games. At $249, it looks like much more attractive than its older sister, the GTX 1080, that costs $600.
For the first time in a long time, NVIDIA is not the top dog
The GTX 1060 is going to run VR games with ease, or so the company says. It supports the Nvidia’s VRWorks platform which puts it on the list of hundreds of developers. Regarding the software, the company is deploying an all-out attack on the senses by boosting PhysX to deliver the best possible VR experience. In fact, the company developed an entire game database to test its cards capabilities called the VR Fun House.
NVIDIA clearly dominates the high-spec market with its monster GPUs, and people are still amazed by how well the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN GPU runs the Everest VR experience. Moreover, the Pascal series is going to keep the tech organization as the number one choice for people who need raw power. However, the budget market is a whole different thing, and AMD claimed the crown last month.
The R9 490 costs $200, and it’s by far the best option at the price range. All kinds of critics tested it, and they all have praised how well new gen games run including VR titles. Its new GPU structure, Polaris, allows it to break the 1080p barrier.
It is unclear who will win this battle mainly because the GTX 1060 is not available yet, so the only information on it is the one provided by the company. As it is custom now, there is going to be a more expensive version with aluminum body and a couple of tweaks, and it is going to cost additional $50. The NVIDIA GTX 1060 will hit the shelves on July 17th, 2016.
Source: PC Mag