When NVIDIA announced the GeForce GTX 1060, the company allowed its add-in card (AIC) partners to launch their custom-design cards right away. The company set the MSRP of this SKU at US$249 and is selling its reference-design "Founders Edition" SKU at $299, a $50 premium. This allows its partners to position their custom-design cards at either around the $249 baseline price or the $299 Founders Edition one.
The GeForce GTX 1060 is NVIDIA's response to the Radeon RX 480, which offers performance rivaling that of $350 products from the previous generation, at an attractive $229 price point. It is based on the newer 16 nm GP106 silicon, which is the third ASIC built on the "Pascal" architecture. This chip features half the SIMD machinery of the GP104 silicon on which the GTX 1080 is based, but has 75% of the raster operation machinery and memory configuration.
We recently reviewed the Palit GTX 1080 GameRock Premium, which comes with a triple-slot cooler that impressed both with excellent temperatures and amazing noise levels. Today, we have Palit's triple-slot version of the GTX 1060 in for review. The Palit GTX 1060 SuperJetStream is the company's highest clocked, but most expensive GTX 1060 variant at a retail price of €319, which matches the NVIDA Founders Edition price. A cheaper variant just called "JetStream" is available at €299; with the same cooler, it runs at the reference 1506 MHz base clock.
The Palit GTX 1060 SuperJetstream In this review is clocked at 1620 MHz base clock, making it the second-highest clocked GTX 1060 available at the moment. As mentioned before, the European price is €319, which we converted to $299 for our price/performance calculation.
GeForce GTX 1060 Market Segment Analysis
GeForce GTX 970
Radeon RX 480
Radeon R9 390X
GeForce GTX 980
GeForce GTX 1060
Palit GTX 1060 Super JetStream
Radeon R9 Fury
Radeon R9 Fury X
GeForce GTX 980 Ti
GeForce GTX Titan X
GeForce GTX 1070
Shader Units
1664
2304
2816
2048
1280
1280
3584
4096
2816
3072
1920
ROPs
56
32
64
64
48
48
64
64
96
96
64
Graphics Processor
GM204
Ellesmere
Hawaii
GM204
GP106
GP106
Fiji
Fiji
GM200
GM200
GP104
Transistors
5200M
5700M
6200M
5200M
4400M
4400M
8900M
8900M
8000M
8000M
7200M
Memory Size
4 GB
4 GB / 8 GB
8 GB
4 GB
6 GB
6 GB
4 GB
4 GB
6 GB
12 GB
8 GB
Memory Bus Width
256 bit
256 bit
512 bit
256 bit
192 bit
192 bit
4096 bit
4096 bit
384 bit
384 bit
256 bit
Core Clock
1051 MHz+
1120 - 1266 MHz
1050 MHz
1126 MHz+
1506 MHz+
1620 MHz+
1000 MHz
1050 MHz
1000 MHz+
1000 MHz+
1506 MHz+
Memory Clock
1750 MHz
2000 MHz
1500 MHz
1750 MHz
2002 MHz
2002 MHz
500 MHz
500 MHz
1750 MHz
1750 MHz
2002 MHz
Price
$265
$199 / $239
$310
$360
$249 / $299
€319
$530
$600
$440
$1150
$379 / $449
Packaging
You will receive:
Graphics card
Driver CD + documentation
PCIe power cable
The Card
Palit's thermal solution is a new design that shares the bulky look of the GameRock cooler that was introduced with the GTX 1080. On the back, you will find a sturdy metal backplate. Dimensions of the card are 12 cm x 25 cm.
The card offers an RGB-lit Palit logo, which defaults to green, but you can change it to follow GPU temperatures, customize the color, or turn it off completely.
Installation requires three slots in your system.
Display connectivity options include a DVI port, an HDMI port, and three DisplayPorts. Unlike previous NVIDIA cards, the DVI port no longer includes the analog signal, so you'll have to use an active adapter. NVIDIA also updated DisplayPort to be 1.2 certified and 1.3/1.4 ready, which enables support for 4K @ 120 Hz and 5K @ 60 Hz, or 8K @ 60 Hz with two cables.
The GPU also comes with an HDMI sound device. It is HDMI 2.0b compatible, which supports HD audio and Blu-ray 3D movies. The GPU video encoding unit has been updated to support HEVC at 10-bit and 12-bit.
The GeForce GTX 1060 does not support SLI.
Pictured above are the front and back, showing the disassembled board. High-res versions are also available (front, back).