Nvidia GTX 1060 5GB Model rumored to be in Works for Internet cafés

Nvidia is allegedly preparing a new variant of GeForce GTX 1060 that will retain the full core count of the GP106 GPU, but has got a 1GB reduction to capacity and a cut down memory interface. The GTX 1060 5GB is an exclusive model for Asia Pacific market, where it will be sold in bulk to Internet cafés.

Nvidia GTX 1060 5GB to feature 1280 CUDA Cores and 160-bit bus interface

Presently, the GeForce GTX 1060 exists in 3GB and 6GB variants, with the former featuring 10% fewer CUDA cores. In addition, there is a lesser-known GTX 1060 6GB model, which was released as part of Nvidia’s refreshed effort back in March this year. This GTX 1060 refresh offered 9Gbps memory speeds, a step-up from the original 8Gbps, delivering a total bandwidth of 216 GB/s.

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According to China-based Expreview, the new GTX 1060 5GB variant is planned for release in Asian markets, primarily targeted for use in Internet/LAN cafés. The card is designed to provide a cost effective solution for such market while retaining similar level of performance.

If the source is to be believed, this particular GTX 1060 model will be based on a new variant of the GP106 GPU, known as the GP106-350-K3-A1. This graphics chip features the original 1280 CUDA cores on the 6GB model, but has one memory controller disabled. This leads to a 160-bit bus interface instead of the 192-bit bus.

So we’re looking at a GTX 1060 card with a 5GB GDDR5 VRAM that runs at 8Gbps speeds across a 160-bit bus interface. This should deliver a total bandwidth of 160 GB/s which is lower than the standard 192 GB/s. Other specifications remain the same.

GeForce GTX 1060 5GB Specs

• Graphics Core: GP106
• Process: 16nm FinFET
• CUDA Cores: 1280
• Base Clock: 1506MHz
• Boost Clock: 1708MHz
• FP32 Compute: 4.4 TFLOPs
• Memory Clock: 8Gbps
• Memory Bandwidth: 160 GB/s
• Connectors: 3x DisplayPort, 1x HDMI 2.0, 1x Dual-Link DVI
• TDP: 120W

The GeForce GTX 1060 5GB card is meant to be exclusively sold to Asia Pacific-based Internet cafés, so it’s unlikely for it to ever make it to Western markets. The decision to keep this model exclusive to cafés makes sense, because otherwise that would have made the 1060 series even more complicated.