Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 release date, specs: GPU has 3GB version for $199

Aside from the original GeForce GTX 1060, Nvidia has already released a version with 3GB of VRAM.NVIDIA

Nvidia has added a basic version of the GTX 1060 with a $199 price tag.

The new lineup addition is now listed in the GeForce series, and other tech makers such as MSI and Gigabyte are also confirmed to be launching their own lineups. As for the new GTX 1060, the 3GB version will place the new GPU in head-to-head competition with other cards on under-$200 range, particularly AMD's RX 470 and the 4GB version of the RX 480 cards.

Specs-wise, the new GPU is a cut-back version of the original GTX 1060 card, launched with a 6-GB VRAM and $249 price point recently. However, though the new lineup addition only manages 3-GB RAM, some industry followers are already positive with the new GPU.

According to TechSpot, one advantage that the new GeForce GTX 1060 card has over its AMD counterparts is that the 3GB version is readily available for both online and brick-and-mortar retailers. Reportedly, although the new GPU has just debuted, the 3-GB version for the GTX 1060 is already available at popular tech retailer Newegg for $199. Meanwhile, its direct competition, the basic RX 480 model from AMD, is still listed as out of stock.

Meanwhile, PC World mentions that since Nvidia decided to cut back on the VRAM, the new 3GB limit may also affect performance, so GTX users will readily distinguish between the new version and the original, 6GB model. The changes are reportedly apparent, though the same architecture is used. The new GPU has the same 192-bit memory bandwidth, as well as 8 Gbps memory speed.

However, Nvidia also decided to tweak the architecture for the new 3GB version, with the new card having a new configuration that drops core count from the original 1280 to 1152.