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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 5 GB

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 5 GB: Retrospective and Relevance in 2025

An overview of a graphics card that refuses to give up, despite its age

Introduction

Released in 2016, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 5 GB has become an iconic model for budget gamers. Even nearly a decade later, in 2025, this card is still found in PCs due to its reliability and affordability. But how relevant is it today? Let's delve into the details.

1. Architecture and Key Features

Pascal Architecture: Modest, yet Effective

The GTX 1060 5 GB is built on the Pascal architecture, created using a 16nm process. At its core are 1280 CUDA cores, with a base clock speed of 1506 MHz and a turbo mode up to 1708 MHz.

What can it do, and what can’t it?

- No RTX or DLSS: The card does not support ray tracing or NVIDIA's AI technologies, which have become standard in modern GPUs (e.g., RTX 3050).

- FidelityFX (AMD): Incompatible, as this is a competitor's option.

- ShadowPlay, Ansel: Basic support for recording and screenshot creation.

Summary of Architecture: Pascal provides stable performance in older and less demanding projects, but it lacks the power needed for modern games with advanced effects.

2. Memory: Size vs. Speed

GDDR5 and 5 GB: An Unconventional Choice

Most GTX 1060 cards were released with 3 GB or 6 GB of memory, but the 5 GB version (often for the Asian market) uses a 160-bit bus. The bandwidth is 192 GB/s.

How does this impact gaming?

- For games from 2016 to 2020 (e.g., The Witcher 3, GTA V), 5 GB was sufficient for ultra settings at 1080p.

- In 2025, many titles (Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, Starfield) require at least 6–8 GB of VRAM, leading to FPS drops and texture issues.

3. Game Performance: Numbers and Realities

1080p: Acceptable, but with Caveats

- CS2: 120–140 FPS at medium settings.

- Apex Legends: 60–70 FPS (medium settings, no anti-aliasing).

- Hogwarts Legacy: 25–35 FPS (low settings) — playability is difficult.

1440p and 4K: Not recommended. Even in older games (Overwatch, Rocket League), frame rates drop below 60 FPS.

Ray Tracing: Not available. In comparison, the RTX 3050 achieves 30–40 FPS in Minecraft RTX at 1080p.

4. Professional Tasks: Minimal CUDA Performance

Video Editing and Rendering

- Premiere Pro: Basic processing of 1080p videos is possible, but 4K timelines will lag.

- Blender: Rendering with CUDA is 3–4 times slower than on the RTX 3060.

Scientific Calculations: Suitable only for basic tasks (such as training simple ML models). For serious work, it's better to choose a card with Tensor Core support.

5. Power Consumption and Cooling

TDP 120W: Modest Appetite

- Power Supply: A 450W unit with an 80+ Bronze certification is sufficient.

- Cooling: Reference models can be noisy (up to 38 dB), but partner versions (MSI, ASUS) are quieter.

- Case: Minimum of 2 expansion slots and 1–2 exhaust fans required.

6. Comparison with Competitors

Positioning in 2025

- NVIDIA RTX 3050 (8 GB): 2–2.5 times faster, supports DLSS 3.5, priced at $200–230.

- AMD Radeon RX 6600 (8 GB): 50% more powerful, FSR 3.0, priced at $180–200.

- Intel Arc A580 (8 GB): Speed comparable to GTX 1060, but better optimized for DirectX 12 — $170.

Conclusion: The GTX 1060 5 GB falls short against even budget newcomers, but may serve as a temporary solution for budgets under $100.

7. Practical Tips

Power Supply: Don’t skimp — even for the GTX 1060, opt for models like Corsair CX450 or Be Quiet! System Power 9.

Compatibility:

- Platform: Compatible with PCIe 3.0 but also works on PCIe 4.0/5.0 (without performance loss).

- Drivers: NVIDIA ceased support in 2024 — no updates for new games will be provided.

8. Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Low price (if you find a new one — around $80–100).

- Energy efficiency.

- Quiet operation in non-gaming tasks.

Cons:

- No support for modern technologies (DLSS, RTX).

- Limited VRAM for 2025 games.

- Outdated drivers.

9. Final Conclusion: Who Should Consider the GTX 1060 5 GB?

This graphics card is suitable for:

1. Budget gamers playing older or less demanding projects (CS2, Dota 2, indie games).

2. Office PC owners needing an upgrade to speed up rendering or graphic work.

3. Enthusiasts building retro systems.

Why not to choose it? If you plan to play new releases in 2024–2025 or engage in professional tasks, it's better to pay extra for an RTX 3050 or RX 6600.

Conclusion

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 5 GB stands as a "long-liver" among graphics cards. It still handles basic tasks, but time is taking its toll. In 2025, it should only be considered as a temporary solution or a nod to nostalgia. For future upgrades, look into modern budget models — they will prove their worth in the long run.

Basic

Label Name

NVIDIA

Platform

Desktop

Launch Date

December 2017

Model Name

GeForce GTX 1060 5 GB

Generation

GeForce 10

Base Clock

1506MHz

Boost Clock

1709MHz

Bus Interface

PCIe 3.0 x16

Transistors

4,400 million

TMUs

Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) serve as components of the GPU, which are capable of rotating, scaling, and distorting binary images, and then placing them as textures onto any plane of a given 3D model. This process is called texture mapping.

Foundry

TSMC

Process Size

16 nm

Architecture

Pascal

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

5GB

Memory Type

GDDR5

Memory Bus

The memory bus width refers to the number of bits of data that the video memory can transfer within a single clock cycle. The larger the bus width, the greater the amount of data that can be transmitted instantaneously, making it one of the crucial parameters of video memory. The memory bandwidth is calculated as: Memory Bandwidth = Memory Frequency x Memory Bus Width / 8. Therefore, when the memory frequencies are similar, the memory bus width will determine the size of the memory bandwidth.

160bit

Memory Clock

2002MHz

Bandwidth

Memory bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate between the graphics chip and the video memory. It is measured in bytes per second, and the formula to calculate it is: memory bandwidth = working frequency × memory bus width / 8 bits.

160.2 GB/s

Theoretical Performance

Pixel Rate

Pixel fill rate refers to the number of pixels a graphics processing unit (GPU) can render per second, measured in MPixels/s (million pixels per second) or GPixels/s (billion pixels per second). It is the most commonly used metric to evaluate the pixel processing performance of a graphics card.

68.36 GPixel/s

Texture Rate

Texture fill rate refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) that a GPU can map to pixels in a single second.

136.7 GTexel/s

FP16 (half)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy.

68.36 GFLOPS

FP64 (double)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy, while single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

136.7 GFLOPS

FP32 (float)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

4.287 TFLOPS

Miscellaneous

SM Count

Multiple Streaming Processors (SPs), along with other resources, form a Streaming Multiprocessor (SM), which is also referred to as a GPU's major core. These additional resources include components such as warp schedulers, registers, and shared memory. The SM can be considered the heart of the GPU, similar to a CPU core, with registers and shared memory being scarce resources within the SM.

Shading Units

The most fundamental processing unit is the Streaming Processor (SP), where specific instructions and tasks are executed. GPUs perform parallel computing, which means multiple SPs work simultaneously to process tasks.

1280

L1 Cache

48 KB (per SM)

L2 Cache

1280KB

TDP

120W

Vulkan Version

Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics and compute API by Khronos Group, offering high performance and low CPU overhead. It lets developers control the GPU directly, reduces rendering overhead, and supports multi-threading and multi-core processors.

1.3

OpenCL Version

3.0

OpenGL

4.6

DirectX

12 (12_1)

CUDA

6.1

Power Connectors

1x 6-pin

Shader Model

6.4

ROPs

The Raster Operations Pipeline (ROPs) is primarily responsible for handling lighting and reflection calculations in games, as well as managing effects like anti-aliasing (AA), high resolution, smoke, and fire. The more demanding the anti-aliasing and lighting effects in a game, the higher the performance requirements for the ROPs; otherwise, it may result in a sharp drop in frame rate.

Suggested PSU

300W

Benchmarks

Shadow of the Tomb Raider 2160p

Score

16 fps

Shadow of the Tomb Raider 1440p

Score

41 fps

Shadow of the Tomb Raider 1080p

Score

51 fps

Battlefield 5 2160p

Score

31 fps

Battlefield 5 1440p

Score

53 fps

Battlefield 5 1080p

Score

74 fps

FP32 (float)

Score

4.287 TFLOPS

3DMark Time Spy

Score

3817

Compared to Other GPU

Shadow of the Tomb Raider 2160p / fps

GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER

47 +193.8%

Radeon RX 6600 XT

39 +143.8%

RTX A2000

26 +62.5%

GeForce GTX 1060 5 GB

GeForce GT 1030

1 -93.8%

Shadow of the Tomb Raider 1440p / fps

GeForce RTX 3060 Ti

95 +131.7%

Radeon RX 5700 XT

75 +82.9%

RTX A2000 12 GB

54 +31.7%

GeForce GTX 1060 5 GB

GeForce GT 1030 DDR4

7 -82.9%

Shadow of the Tomb Raider 1080p / fps

GeForce RTX 3070

141 +176.5%

Arc A770

107 +109.8%

GeForce RTX 2060

79 +54.9%

GeForce GTX 1060 5 GB

GeForce GT 1030 DDR4

12 -76.5%

Battlefield 5 2160p / fps

GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile

56 +80.6%

Radeon RX 5600 XT

46 +48.4%

Radeon RX 5500 XT

34 +9.7%

GeForce GTX 1060 5 GB

GeForce GT 1030 DDR4

1 -96.8%

Battlefield 5 1440p / fps

Radeon RX 6600

100 +88.7%

Radeon RX Vega 56

91 +71.7%

GeForce RTX 3050 8 GB

66 +24.5%

GeForce GTX 1060 5 GB

Radeon RX 550

14 -73.6%

Battlefield 5 1080p / fps

Radeon RX 5700 XT

139 +87.8%

Radeon RX 5600 XT

122 +64.9%

Radeon RX 5500 XT

90 +21.6%

GeForce GTX 1060 5 GB

Radeon RX 550

20 -73%

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

4.622 +7.8%

Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition

4.387 +2.3%

GeForce GTX 1060 5 GB

4.287

GeForce GTX 1060 Mobile

4.189 -2.3%

FirePro W8100

4.135 -3.5%

3DMark Time Spy

GeForce RTX 2060

7350 +92.6%

Radeon RX 6500 XT

5061 +32.6%

GeForce GTX 1060 5 GB

3817

Radeon Vega 8

2742 -28.2%

GeForce GTX 760

1705 -55.3%