A Closer Look

NVIDIA's thermal solution uses a copper core (not a vapochamber) without heatpipes. Rather, just a big finned metal heatsink sits in the fan's airflow path. You can also see several thermal pads which provide cooling to the voltage regulation circuitry and memory chips.


With the power connector integrated into the heatsink and not on the PCB, you now have soldered-on wires going from the board to where the power connector is located. This slightly complicates assembly and disassembly, but it looks very well engineered overall.


NVIDIA is using a single 6-pin power-input configuration, which, combined with bus power, is specified for up to 150 W of power draw.


NVIDIA's GTX 1060 is introducing a new voltage controller by uPI, the uP 9509P. Its exact feature set is currently unknown.


The GDDR5 memory chips are made by Samsung and carry the model number K4G80325FB-HC25. They are specified to run at 2000 MHz (8000 MHz GDDR5 effective).


NVIDIA's GP106 graphics processor is the second consumer chip using the Pascal architecture. It is produced on a 16 nm process at TSMC, Taiwan, with a transistor count of 4.4 billion and a die size of 200 mm².