Home / NVIDIA / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB 9Gbps: Performance and Specs

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB 9Gbps

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB 9Gbps in 2025: Budget Veteran or Obsolete Solution?

Analysis of Capabilities, Performance, and Relevance of the Legendary Graphics Card

Introduction

Despite being released nearly a decade ago, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB 9Gbps continues to be a topic of discussion among gamers and enthusiasts. By 2025, this model is no longer new but still captures interest due to its availability on the secondary market and modest system requirements. In this article, we will explore how relevant the GTX 1060 is today and who might find it useful.

Architecture and Key Features

Pascal: The Foundation of Stability

The graphics card is built on the Pascal architecture, which revolutionized energy efficiency in 2016. The 16nm manufacturing process allowed NVIDIA to achieve high performance with moderate heat output. However, by 2025, this technology appears outdated compared to the 5nm chips of the RTX 40 series.

Lack of Modern Features

The GTX 1060 does not support ray tracing (RTX) or DLSS—NVIDIA's key technologies for modern games. This limitation affects its performance in graphics-heavy titles like Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty or Alan Wake 2. On the upside, the card is compatible with AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), which can slightly improve FPS in games that support this technology.

Memory: Potential and Limitations

GDDR5: Time-Tested Classic

The GTX 1060 9Gbps is equipped with 6 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 192-bit bus. The updated version with a frequency of 9 GHz (compared to the 8 GHz of the base model) provides a bandwidth of 216 GB/s—12% higher than the original. However, for games in 2025, this is already insufficient; high-resolution textures and complex effects quickly fill the memory buffer, causing FPS drops.

Performance Impact Examples:

- In Hogwarts Legacy (High settings, 1080p), the 6 GB of memory is loaded to 90%, leading to micro-stutters.

- In Fortnite (Epic, FSR Quality), memory does not become a bottleneck, but the GPU struggles to keep up with rendering.

Gaming Performance: Realities of 2025

1080p: Acceptable, but Unrefined

The GTX 1060 6 GB 9Gbps performs well in games at medium settings at a resolution of 1920×1080:

- Apex Legends: 60–70 FPS (Medium).

- Elden Ring: 45–55 FPS (Medium, no Ray Tracing).

- Counter-Strike 2: 120–140 FPS (High).

1440p and 4K: Not Recommended

At Quad HD (2560×1440), the average FPS drops to 30–40 frames even in optimized titles like Rocket League. For 4K, the card is unsuitable—it lacks both computing power and memory capacity.

Ray Tracing: Technically Impossible

The absence of RT cores makes ray tracing unavailable. In games with hybrid rendering (e.g., Shadow of the Tomb Raider), enabling RT effects reduces FPS to 15–20 frames.

Professional Tasks: Modest Capabilities

CUDA: Basic Calculations

With 1280 CUDA cores, the GTX 1060 is suitable for simple tasks:

- Video editing in DaVinci Resolve: rendering 1080p videos takes 2–3 times longer than on an RTX 3060.

- 3D modeling in Blender: working with low-poly objects is comfortable, but rendering complex scenes requires patience.

OpenCL and Machine Learning

For scientific computations or neural networks, the card is weak—it lacks memory and support for modern APIs.

Power Consumption and Heat Output

TDP 120W: Minimal Requirements

Even in 2025, the GTX 1060 remains one of the most energy-efficient discrete graphics cards. A power supply of 450W (e.g., Corsair CX450) is sufficient for a build with it.

Cooling: Simple but Noisy

Reference models with turbine coolers heat up to 75–80°C under load. It is recommended to choose versions with two or three fans (e.g., MSI Gaming X) as their temperature is 10–15°C lower. Good case ventilation is essential: at least one intake and one exhaust fan.

Comparison with Competitors

Direct Competitors in 2025:

- AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT (4 GB): Newer, but only 4 GB of memory and a weak 64-bit bus. In games with HD textures, the GTX 1060 performs better. New price: $160.

- NVIDIA RTX 2050 (4 GB): Supports DLSS but falls short in raw performance. Costs $180.

Conclusion: The GTX 1060 9Gbps lags behind new budget models in technology support but excels in stability and memory capacity.

Practical Tips

Power Supply: 450W with an 80+ Bronze certification (e.g., EVGA 450 BR).

Compatibility:

- Motherboards with PCIe 3.0 x16 (backward compatible with PCIe 4.0/5.0).

- Processors like the Intel Core i5-10400F or AMD Ryzen 5 3600 for balance.

Drivers: Use NVIDIA Studio drivers for professional applications. In games, there might be issues with DirectStorage API—disable it in settings.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Low price on the secondary market ($50–80).

- Energy efficiency.

- FSR support for increased FPS.

Cons:

- No ray tracing or DLSS.

- 6 GB of memory is insufficient for 2025 games.

- Outdated drivers and limited support.

Final Conclusion: Who is the GTX 1060 9Gbps Suitable For?

This graphics card is a choice for:

1. Budget Gamers looking to play at medium settings in 1080p.

2. Owners of Old PCs needing a GPU upgrade without replacing the power supply.

3. Students and Enthusiasts learning the basics of video editing or 3D modeling.

However, if you plan to play the latest AAA titles or work with professional tools, it’s better to consider the RTX 3050 or RX 6600. The GTX 1060 9Gbps in 2025 is a symbol of a bygone era that can still impress but can no longer compete with modern solutions.

Note: Prices are indicated for a hypothetical scenario where the GTX 1060 9Gbps is officially sold in 2025. In reality, new units are unavailable—seek the card on the secondary market.

Basic

Label Name

NVIDIA

Platform

Desktop

Launch Date

April 2017

Model Name

GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB 9Gbps

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

6GB

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.

192bit

Memory Clock

2257MHz

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.

216.7 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.

82.03 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

1536KB

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

FP32 (float)

Score

4.287 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

Radeon Pro 575X

4.579 +6.8%

Radeon 760M

4.387 +2.3%

GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB 9Gbps

4.287

Radeon R9 285X

4.186 -2.4%

Playstation 4 Pro GPU

4.114 -4%