With AMD creating massive waves thanks to their new mid-range graphics card, the RX 480, especially the 8GB version, NVIDIA had to step it up in order to compete or risk losing the bulk of the PC gaming market. Well, NVIDIA have emerged from the shadows, and not with a piteous moan, but sounding the battle horns with their own mid-range Polaris offering, the GTX 1060.
Boasting a 192 bit memory interface, 80 TMUs, 6 GB of GDDR5 VRAM and a base and boost clock of 1508 and 1706 MHz respectively, no one can say that NVIDIA skimped out from a specs perspective on this one. It seems that NVIDIA as a company listened to all the feedback they received on the GTX 960, which was severely limited by its 128 bit memory interface and 2GB of VRAM, and went all out with the 1060. Moreover, the timing of the 1060 couldn’t have been better, with the RX being just a few weeks old, this announcement would put off a significant number of gamers who would have otherwise definitely gone with the RX 480 for lack of any other option. By announcing the 1060 now, NVIDIA have assured that gamers will hold off on any impulse GPU purchases, at least till July 19, 2016, when the review embargo for the 1060 lifts.
Timing and specs aside, the key area where NVIDIA has consistently struggled against AMD has been in the price department. However, that too seems to be a thing of the past. NVIDIA has significantly undercut AMD by listing the official starting MRP of the 1060 at Rs 22,999 for the Indian market. This means that cards from the likes of MSI, ASUS, Gigabyte, etc. will be more than the Rs 23,000 mark, somewhere around Rs 25,000 to Rs 27,000, close to the RX 480 price bracket. Regardless of how the 1060 performs, one thing is for certain, with AMD finally releasing some good new GPUs, NVIDIA is having to actually compete for the market space and that, as I have said before, will only end up benefitting us, the consumers.
