Nvidia Confirms GTX 1060 3GB Is Trimmed

Over the past several generations, Nvidia and AMD have taken up increasingly questionable naming practices. Due to the myriad number of GPUs possible for certain names and names that were too easily confused, it was hard at times for consumers to know what they were exactly getting. One recent example is the new Pascal Titan X, reusing the same name as the Maxwell Titan X. This time around, we have the two different variants of the GTX 1060 which Nvidia is now confirming, uses two different GPU cores.

With the Titan X, an uninformed buyer might purchase the Titan X Maxwell thinking it was the Titan X Pascal. Now with the GTX 1060, a buyer may mistakenly purchase a weaker than intended GPU with the GTX 1060 3GB. According to Nvidia, the GTX 1060 3GB will only feature 1152 CUDA cores instead of the usual 1280. Since both cards are clocked about the same, the GTX 1060 3GB will undoubtedly be slower, especially once you consider that the TMU count will be lower as well at 72 compared to 80. Thankfully, it seems that the ROP count, as well as memory bus width, stays the same, though some tricks like in the GTX 970 might be being used.

This means despite carrying the same title, the two 1060 graphics cards are using different GPUs. To an unsuspecting buyer, the 3GB moniker might simply designate a different VRAM configuration, and not a different GPU altogether. It seems that it would have been better off if Nvidia had differentiated the cards with either a Boost or Ti moniker as they’ve done in the past. While it is understandable that Nvidia wants to consolidate their naming scheme, this isn’t the right way to go about it. Hopefully, there won’t be too many people who buy the GTX 1060 3GB thinking they’re getting a GTX 1060.