GTX 1060

I remember the day clearly when I received what I considered my first “real” graphics card. I had recently graduated from school and now had money that didn’t need to be spent on food, rent or transportation.  It was time to update my computer. At that time the GTX 6xx chipset was the top of the line. I decided upon the GTX 660, which was leaps and bounds ahead of my current graphics card. This card served me well for many years, before I transitioned into a steady paycheck allowing me to update my graphics card regularly.

Despite my need to update and my move away from the 60 series, it still holds a special place in my heart. With the recent release of the GTX1060 I foresee it becoming the gateway card into low end VR gaming for many people. With a price point of around $250, it is very accessible to gamers who would like to get into the gaming space, but are unable due to the high initial cost of a gaming computer. Compared to the last generate the GTX 1060 posts some impressive stats, falling somewhere between the GTX 970 and 980, two giants of the previous generation of video cards.

Helping the GTX 1060 out is the new Pascal architecture with 1280 CUDA cores. Additionally, the card contains 6 GB of GDDR5 memory, which puts it comfortably above the required 4 GB for both Oculus and VIVE.

Far beyond the potential power of the card at an extremely reasonable price, the card boasts a plethora of I/O options, with MSI, gigabyte, PNY, and ZOTAC all delivering cards with 3 display ports, the need for splitters are greatly reduced, helping to calm the tangled rat’s nest behind most gaming PCs.

It’s not all roses and sunshine though. With its performance and price falling well within the historically less expensive AMD offerings there is a real possibility this level of card will face hard competition from the Greenland based offerings. Only time will tell where this card will fall amongst other competitors and whether it will achieve heartfelt nostalgia status like its predecessor the GTX 660, or if it will fail to achieve traction in the notoriously difficult mid-range graphics card market.