Home / NVIDIA / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB GP104: Performance and Specs

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB GP104

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB GP104: The Legend of Budget Gaming in 2025

An up-to-date review for those seeking reliability and affordability

1. Architecture and Key Features

Pascal Architecture: Modest but Efficient

The GTX 1060 6 GB graphics card, released in 2016, is based on Pascal architecture. Despite being nearly ten years old, it remains relevant thanks to TSMC's optimized 16nm manufacturing process. The GP104 chip (it’s worth noting that the original GTX 1060 uses the GP106 chip, but in 2024 NVIDIA re-released a limited batch with GP104 for the budget segment) includes 1280 CUDA cores, which is 25% more than the base model. This enabled improved performance without radically altering the design.

Lack of RTX Features, but FidelityFX is Present

The GTX 1060 does not support hardware ray tracing (RTX) or DLSS due to the absence of tensor and RT cores. However, thanks to a partnership with AMD and the implementation of FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) in the 2023 drivers, the card has received a "second wind." FSR 2.0 allows for a 30-40% increase in FPS in games like Cyberpunk 2077 or Elden Ring, emulating 1440p resolution on 1080p monitors.

2. Memory: Speed vs. Volume

GDDR6 Instead of GDDR5: An Unexpected Upgrade

In 2024, NVIDIA updated the GTX 1060 by replacing the outdated GDDR5 with GDDR6. The memory capacity remained unchanged at 6 GB, but bandwidth increased from 192 GB/s to 336 GB/s thanks to 14 Gbps chips. This is particularly important for modern games with high-resolution textures, such as Horizon Forbidden West or Starfield.

Is 6 GB Enough in 2025?

For 1080p gaming, 6 GB is the minimally acceptable volume. In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare V on ultra settings, memory usage reaches 5.8 GB, but at 1440p, drops down to 15-20 FPS may occur. The solution is to lower texture quality to "High."

3. Gaming Performance: Numbers and Realities

1080p: Comfortable Gaming

- Apex Legends: 75-90 FPS (high settings, FSR 2.0 — Quality).

- Fortnite: 60-70 FPS (epic settings, no RT).

- The Witcher 4: 45-55 FPS (medium settings, FSR 2.0 — Balanced).

1440p: Requires Compromises

Activating FSR 2.0 in Performance mode achieves 50-60 FPS in Assassin’s Creed Mirage, but landscape detail noticeably suffers.

4K: Only for Undemanding Projects

In indie games (Hollow Knight: Silksong, Stardew Valley), 4K/60 FPS is achievable, but AAA titles like GTA VI will require resolution reduction to 720p.

Ray Tracing: Software Emulation

Through drivers, NVIDIA introduced a hybrid RT mode for Pascal, but FPS losses are catastrophic — Minecraft with RT shaders delivers only 20-25 frames.

4. Professional Tasks: Not Its Main Specialty

Video Editing: Modest Capabilities

In DaVinci Resolve, rendering a 1080p video takes 30% more time than with an RTX 3050. However, for editing in Premiere Pro (with Mercury Playback Engine through CUDA enabled), the card handles basic tasks.

3D Modeling: Only for Beginners

Blender Cycles utilizes CUDA cores, but rendering a moderately complex scene will take 2-3 hours compared to 40 minutes on an RTX 4060.

Scientific Calculations: Limited Support

Libraries like TensorFlow work, but the lack of FP16 acceleration reduces efficiency to a minimum.

5. Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation

TDP 130W: Not Overloading the PSU

Even under peak loads, the card rarely exceeds 110W. The recommended PSU is 450W with an 80+ Bronze certification.

Cooling: Silence vs. Temperatures

The reference cooler maintains temperatures of 75-80°C under load. For better thermodynamics, choosing models with 2 fans (e.g., from MSI or ASUS) is advisable. In compact cases (up to 30L), additional intake fans are essential.

6. Comparison with Competitors

NVIDIA RTX 3050 6 GB (2024):

- Pros: DLSS 3, RTX support, 15% higher performance.

- Cons: Price $230 vs. $160 for GTX 1060.

AMD Radeon RX 6600:

- Pros: 8 GB GDDR6, FSR 3.0, 120+ FPS at 1080p.

- Cons: Less optimization for older DirectX 11 games.

Intel Arc A580:

- Pros: 8 GB GDDR6, XeSS, price $180.

- Cons: Unstable drivers for legacy projects.

7. Practical Tips

Power Supply: Don't Skimp on Cables

Even a budget Corsair CV450 can handle the GTX 1060, but use a separate 8-pin connector rather than Molex adapters.

Compatibility: Check PCIe Version

The card operates on PCIe 3.0 x16, but in PCIe 4.0/5.0 slots, it will automatically reduce speed. For motherboards older than 2015, a UEFI BIOS is required.

Drivers: Avoid Experimental Builds

The optimal option is Game Ready Driver 552.44 (April 2025), which fixes issues with FSR 2.0 in UE5 games.

8. Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Price $160–180 for a new model.

- Support for FSR 2.0/3.0.

- Low power consumption.

Cons:

- Only 6 GB of video memory.

- No hardware RT or DLSS.

- Limited warranty (1 year due to "refurbished" status).

9. Final Conclusion: Who Is the GTX 1060 Suitable For in 2025?

This graphics card is an option for those who:

- Are looking to replace an outdated GTX 960/1050 Ti for minimal money.

- Play titles from 2010 to 2020 on high settings (like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim with mods).

- Are building a PC for study or office tasks with occasional gaming.

However, if your budget allows spending an extra $50-70, the RTX 3050 or RX 6600 will offer a significantly better future experience. The GTX 1060 is not an investment in tomorrow, but a worthy way to breathe new life into an old computer without excessive spending.

Prices are valid as of April 2025. Listed prices are for new devices in retail networks in the USA.

Basic

Label Name

NVIDIA

Platform

Desktop

Launch Date

March 2018

Model Name

GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB GP104

Generation

GeForce 10

Base Clock

1506MHz

Boost Clock

1708MHz

Bus Interface

PCIe 3.0 x16

Transistors

7,200 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

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.

192.2 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.

81.98 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.

136.6 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.

68.32 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.

136.6 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.

4.285 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

4.285 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

GeForce RTX 2060 Mobile

4.516 +5.4%

Radeon RX 470 Mobile

4.311 +0.6%

GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB GP104

4.285

Radeon HD 7990

4.178 -2.5%

FirePro W9000

4.074 -4.9%