A player tries out the ASUS G751JY G-SYNC laptop with the GTX 980M, not the GTX 1060 or the GTX 1050 Ti mobile version. (Photo : YouTube / Tech of Tomorrow)
NVIDIA has reportedly unveiled the GTX 1060 or GTX 1050 with a 3GB GDDR5 VRAM in China as photos of the presentation have surfaced revealing some specs for the lower-tiered video card.
The GeForce GTX 1060 6GB model was launched recently to take off the heat from AMD's Radeon RX 480 and RX 470 cards. While most are still choosing to buy the RX 480, others are still opting for the GTX 1060 because of its cheaper price.
Now that AMD has launched the Radeon RX 460 which can handle the latest multiplayer eSports games, NVIDIA could be scrambling to release something of their own to compete at the low price range. The RX 460 costs only about $99 and can handle the latest eSports games such as Overwatch, Dota 2, League of Legends, Counter Strike: Global Offensive and more.
NVIDIA may have really downgraded the GTX 1060 3GB model as it would also have fewer CUDA cores of 1152 compared to the 6GB model's 1280, Hexus has learned. It also means that the texture mapping units is also decreased down to 72 because the CUDA cores are now spread across just 9 streaming multiprocessors in the 3GB model which could still be named as the GTX 1050.
There is still no proof whether the GTX 1060 3GB model will actually be called GTX 1050 instead. However, the fact that there are other specs that have been downgraded too could mean NVIDIA is planning to launch a new Pascal-based video card to hit the low-end market and compete with the Radeon RX 460.
Rumors and speculations have claimed that NVIDIA will be unveiling the GTX 1050 3GB models or even the GTX 1050 Ti during their Gamescom 2016 presentation, Mobipicker reported. Unfortunately, neither of the two were actually revealed as the company just rolled out their mobile GTX 1080, GTX 1070 and GTX 1060 video cards for gaming laptops.
NVIDIA is still expected to officially unveil the GTX 1060 3GB model or the GTX 1050 variant for a worldwide release. The specs are confusing but it would seem NVIDIA has the last move considering AMD has already launched the Radeon RX 460.
