NVIDIA GTX 1060 specs & price review: A budget-friendly GPU for the economic gamer

NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1060 is a graphic processing unit (GPU) which is under the mid-range graphics card category. The GTX 1060, which was released globally on July 19, is said to be a powerful and at the same time budget-friendly GPU that caters to gamers who can't dish out a big wad of cash for the more powerful GTX 1080.

According to Ecumenical News, the graphics card is going up against other mid-range and high-end GPUs, like the GTX 1080. It will have an initial price of $250, and unlike the older GeForce series 10 cards, the 1060 is powered by the new GP106 chipset.

Compared to the GeForce GTX 980, the GTX 1060 is said to be more energy efficient, with the 980 consuming 165 watts of thermal design power (TDP) and the 1060 consuming only 120 watts of TDP.

The 1060 also boasts of having a huge RAM of 6 GB of double data rate type five (GDDR5), and a total of 1280 Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) cores. It will also feature 1,700 MHz of boost clock speed.

Though the 1060 does have those specs, it still holds no candle to the GTX 1080 which was released last May. The 1080 GPU boasts of having 2,560 CUDA cores and it has ANSEL capabilities which allow users to get only the clearest and cleanest of screen caps.

The GTX 1060, however, is said to target consumers who have a low budget and are looking for cards that don't compromise on graphics quality. The 1080, with all its power, is priced at $600 (the "Founder's Edition" is said to be worth $700), which is $350 more expensive than the 1060; so players who want to be a bit more economical can stick to the mid-range 1060.

The GTX 1060 is also said to be VR-ready, and NVIDIA plans to release a "Founders Edition" of the GPU as well.

The GTX 1060 is now available for purchase worldwide.