NVIDIA has a long history of playing Dr. Frankenstein on their graphics cards. The latest rumors from China suggest that NVIDIA is wheeling the GeForce GTX 1060 into the operating room for the fifth time. Currently, there are already four variants of the GeForce GTX 1060 in the wild: the original model with 6 GB of memory, the refreshed 6 GB model with slightly faster memory (9 Gbps), the cut-down model with 3 GB of memory, and finally, the Chinese-exclusive model with 5 GB of memory. However, NVIDIA's intentions are more ambitious this time. Apparently, their plan is to implement a variant of the existing high-performance GP104 GPU into the GeForce GTX 1060. As a reminder, the more powerful models like the GeForce GTX 1070, 1070 Ti, and 1080 all utilize the GP104 chip. Curiously, we've seen a variant of the GP104 (GP104-140) chip in a lower-end model before, specifically the GTX 1060 3GB.

On this occasion, NVIDIA is going to tailor the GP104-300, the silicon used in the GTX 1070, to the GTX 1060. This new SKU will carry the GP104-150 label. Despite the radical change, GP104-equipped GTX 1060 graphics cards share the same specifications as the original 6 GB model. Therefore, performance should be right in line as well. Although, we can expect some slight, unnoticeable differences in regards to thermals and power consumption. As usual, the new GTX 1060s will be exclusive to the Chinese market. With the next-generation of NVIDIA graphics cards almost among us, the company has been working diligently to clear their Pascal stock.