NVIDIA's GDDR5X-varnished GTX 1060 Only Ticks at 8.8 Gbps Over 192-bit

[btarunr]

NVIDIA is rushing in a new variant of its GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB graphics card to counter AMD's Radeon RX 590, in a bid to reinforce the $250 price-point ahead of the crucial Holiday season. According to specifications of the GTX 1060 6 GB GDDR5X put out by Palit, the GDDR5X version is a little more than a marketing stunt, with something in there for overclockers. The GTX 1060 GamingPro OC+ from Palit is by no means a "baseline" product. It features 6 GB of GDDR5X memory, which ticks at 8800 MHz (GDDR5X effective), and continues to have a 192-bit wide memory interface. At this speed, the GPU ends up with 211.2 GB/s of memory bandwidth.

Of course, this story is incomplete without context. Back in 2017, NVIDIA refreshed the GTX 1060 6 GB with 9 Gbps GDDR5 memory (216 GB/s). That variant, although available in some places, isn't the predominant GTX 1060 6 GB variant, as NVIDIA did not retire the original 8 Gbps GTX 1060 6 GB with its launch. This new GDDR5X variant comes with even lower memory clock and bandwidth than that 9 Gbps refresh. The card still only has 1,280 CUDA cores, and the GPU is factory-overclocked by Palit at 1531 MHz core, and 1746 MHz GPU Boost. At best, GDDR5X could vastly improve overclocking headroom, since NVIDIA's partners could be using 10 Gbps-rated GDDR5X chips, which are known to overclock well beyond 11 Gbps.



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[cdawall]

What a ridiculous setup.

 

[Durvelle27]

This is just utterly a waste of resources and time

And I bet once it’s launched the performance will be exactly the same as current GTX 1060 6GB variants while having a larger premium

 

[EarthDog]

Is it now cheaper to use than the outgoing?

 

[yotano211]

They might have had some extra memory chips lying around.

 

[Midland Dog]

biggest issue is that g5x has looser timings (from what ive heard refer to gtx 1080 in bitcoin mining), if it was clocked at 11gbps it would be slightly better at 1080p and kick arse at higher resolutions

 

[Paganstomp]

For reference. Dell OEM GTX 1060 6GB card overclocked. 218.6 GB/s. I don't see a need for GDDR5X on a 1060. Unless you are trying to beat 3D Mark Scores.

 

[Midland Dog]

For reference. Dell OEM GTX 1060 6GB card overclocked. 218.6 GB/s. I don't see a need for GDDR5X on a 1060. Unless you are trying to beat 3D Mark Scores.

View attachment 109534

g5x at 11gbps would give a decent advantage, most i got out of my 1060 strix was 9.818gbps

 

[Durvelle27]

g5x at 11gbps would give a decent advantage, most i got out of my 1060 strix was 9.818gbps

But memory bandwidth won’t increase game performance alone. You could actually get negative results

 

[Prima.Vera]

We are going now through probably THE WORST period since 2006 to buy new Video Cards, CPUs, RAMs, etc.
The physical limit of semiconductors it's approaching fast, and together with it the escalation of everything, including prices, low availability and specially common sense...

 

[Space Lynx]

We are going now through probably THE WORST period since 2006 to buy new Video Cards, CPUs, RAMs, etc.
The physical limit of semiconductors it's approaching fast, and together with it the escalation of everything, including prices, low availability and specially common sense...

yep exactly. the death of silicon approached faster than anyone anticipated I think, and these companies know it, so they are dragging it as long as possible. Also why nvidia keeps focusing on software features instead of performance growth.

contrary to what you say though, i am considering a 9700k and rtx 2080 ti build, I know it is bad value, but I honestly don't see anything beating its performance for 5 years... i mean noticeably beating its performance... might as well invest now and retire, until silicon is replaced.

i might wait one more generation... 3080 ti versus intel dedicated gpu in 2020... i have no hope left for AMD competing at the high end anymore... Intel prob won't be optimized enough for older games though, so prob will do a 10nm intel chip and a 3080 ti, regardless of price... should last me until silicon is replaced or not replaced, either way i won't be missing out on performance much

 

[WikiFM]

Wait what? Using an expensive memory to increase just 800 Mhz the clocks? It doesn't make any sense, let's see how much premium they will ask for such a little performace boost.

 

[GoldenX]

I hope the 590 destroys it.

 

[rtwjunkie]

Wait what? Using an expensive memory to increase just 800 Mhz the clocks? It doesn't make any sense, let's see how much premium they will ask for such a little performace boost.

What premium? Their purpose, as they said, was to compete against the RX590 at the $250 price point.

 

[ShurikN]

What premium? Their purpose, as they said, was to compete against the RX590 at the $250 price point.

There isn't going to be much competition tho if these specs stay. 590 will be a faster card hands down (only question is price). Shame that AMD didn't want to go the same G5X route for some extra boost.

 

[kastriot]

I loved those old times when we had 2-3 models top and that's was enough for us, now it's total f**up and they used 590 name reserved for dual gpu setup eh, and yes i will not even bother to mention GDDRX "variant"..

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

I love that term "factory over-clocked". It tells us that there are more magicians playing three card monte then we are lead to believe.

 

[R0H1T]

I'm thinking this move also deals with the excess/leftover inventory Micron may have had wrt GDDR5x & since SS or SK Hynix didn't board the GDDR5x hype train Micron needs all the help they can get, trying to get rid of it.

 

[XiGMAKiD]

If the GDDR5X have a leftover headroom then yes it's a nice addition for user who loves to tinker, and seeing that this is Nvidia's answer to RX 590 then it's safe to say that RX 590 is nothing exceptional

 

[Manu_PT]

yep exactly. the death of silicon approached faster than anyone anticipated I think, and these companies know it, so they are dragging it as long as possible. Also why nvidia keeps focusing on software features instead of performance growth.

contrary to what you say though, i am considering a 9700k and rtx 2080 ti build, I know it is bad value, but I honestly don't see anything beating its performance for 5 years... i mean noticeably beating its performance... might as well invest now and retire, until silicon is replaced.

i might wait one more generation... 3080 ti versus intel dedicated gpu in 2020... i have no hope left for AMD competing at the high end anymore... Intel prob won't be optimized enough for older games though, so prob will do a 10nm intel chip and a 3080 ti, regardless of price... should last me until silicon is replaced or not replaced, either way i won't be missing out on performance much

Tbh who got a 6700k + 1080ti in 2016 isnt missing a lot either.

 

[sutyi]

Considering the GP106 in its configuration isn't particularly bandwidth limited, and the already release 9Gbps version had like a whole 2-3% performance uplift compared to the regular versions, these news make this thing utterly pointless from a customer perspective.

Rumors say that these are GP104 based cards, so they should come with more SMs enabled and 10Gbps memory as stock, calling it GTX 1060 Ti or some such would make sense if they are releasing it to counter act the RX 590.
On the other hand nVIDIA might be sitting on a boatload of defective GP104s and they are just cleaning inventory...

 

[Midland Dog]

But memory bandwidth won’t increase game performance alone. You could actually get negative results

1060s love mem clock, mine runs 4909 mem and 2177 core. 2152 and 2177 are the same, its memory or rop bound there i think, but they must be confident that having more efficient dram would allow the core to run quicker under boost if what your saying is true

I hope the 590 destroys it.

swing 4 now by polaris, rx480 rx580 rx580x(oem) and now rx 590. still not gonna beat the standard 6gb 1060

 

[First Strike]

I didn't expect that Micron produced so much defects.

 

[Jism]

But memory bandwidth won’t increase game performance alone. You could actually get negative results

Based on what? When oc'ing GDDR5 in general and going too far, the memory will start producing errors and keeps on retrying untill the bit is 'correct'. The too high oc'ing is what causes this performance dip.

I have'nt seen one card in my life that would be negative affected by faster memory. Unless you OC it beyond stable.

I think alot of news sites are writing so much articles about the (anticipated) 590x, that the truth is, AMD has a contract with glofo or TSMC or so, and they happend to improve the node from 14nm to 12nm. There is nothing much special about it as technology improves over time. The 2nm save proberly lowers the power requirement and makes it possible to upp the clocks to 1500Mhz while staying within the 180W TDP.

For any RX580 to stay on 1500Mhz your looking at 200 to 220W of load easy when stressed to it's max.

 

[yotano211]

biggest issue is that g5x has looser timings (from what ive heard refer to gtx 1080 in bitcoin mining), if it was clocked at 11gbps it would be slightly better at 1080p and kick arse at higher resolutions

I dont think the 1080 ever did any bitcoin mining. Read up how and what graphics cards mined what coin.