Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 3GB equipped with fewer CUDA cores

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

For me it's just a little concerning that they're selling a slightly different card under the same name. The cut isn't massive but it's actually a bit bigger than e.g. 290 vs 290X; this '1060' has 90% of the proper 1060's shader count, the 290 has 90.9% of the 290X's shaders. I wonder what clock speeds will be like?

It just seems a bit sly/misleading to be selling two clearly different cards under the same name - people who don't follow the market closely will likely assume a 1060 is a 1060, look at 1060 6GB reviews and buy based on that, even though the card they assume they're getting a bargain is on is actually not the same GPU.

Its already happening - on HUKD people are thinking the GTX1060 3GB and 6GB are the same cores and are using GTX1060 6GB review numbers.

It makes me wonder whether AMD has missed a step here - they should have sold the RX470 as a RX480 4GB for £199 and they would have been quids in!

A £200 3GB "performance card" in 2016 - its almost like Nvidia and AMD are trying to upsell the cards in the £200 to £300 range now.

This whole new range of cards from AMD and Nvidia are slightly dissapointing and it makes me wonder whether I should have just picked up an R9 290 or GTX970 last year now,as they could be had for around £200.

[Rob_B]

I agree that it'd be better to call it a 1050 and don't get me wrong, these naming conventions are often confusing and useless but I think people are assuming the general public are idiots who need to be spoon fed every tiny bit of info and shouldn't do any investigation into their purchases.

If I went to my local Ford dealer and asked to buy 'a Ford Focus' I'd need to look into what size, how many doors, paint option, air con etc etc even though it's just a Focus. The headline product is 'Focus' and I'd look at the small print on the price sticker and ask the dealer to find the detail, why do people expect different with graphics cards?

Even if this 1060 is bought by some absolute novice they'd still see 6gb and 3gb and think the 3gb was worse because it is a lower number, well yes, it is, so what actual detriment was caused? How is this different to looking at a 1050 3gb and assuming it's lower spec than a 1060 6gb? It is, both names reflect this no matter how you look at it.

And price.... It's irrelevant, companies can charge whatever they want just like any other market so again it's up to buyers to understand their purchase just like when they go to buy their 2000 Focus with a zillion miles on the clock and see an RS sitting next to it for a higher cost.
I'm confused..

[watercooled]

I just think it's unnecessarily misleading. I'm not assuming anyone is an idiot, but nor am I assuming everyone will know to look out for things like this. There's no reason they had to do it like this that I can see, not unless their intention is to pretend it's a proper 1060 people will see in most reviews.

[Corky34]

If I went to my local Ford dealer and asked to buy 'a Ford Focus' I'd need to look into what size, how many doors, paint option, air con etc etc even though it's just a Focus. The headline product is 'Focus' and I'd look at the small print on the price sticker and ask the dealer to find the detail, why do people expect different with graphics cards?

Could it be because a Ford Focus cost upwards of £14k while the Graphics card in question costs around £200-250.

In the end i think it will come down to how prominent the differences are at the time a customer makes a purchase, if the differences are made clear then it probably won't be a problem.

[Rob_B]

For the item though the price is relative, I think companies certainly have a duty to not intentionally misinform however I can't say this case is any worse than hundred of others out there, not that it's an excuse of course and they will at least mention the specs on the packaging lime they always do so I think mainly it falls on the consumer to be aware in this case.

And you can actually buy a focus for less than a 1060 6GB

[watercooled]

they will at least mention the specs on the packaging

They will? I've just googled some images of Pascal packaging and I can't see any reference to shader count on any of the ones I found.

if the differences are made clear then it probably won't be a problem.

I rather suspect they won't be though, which is the problem.

At best you could argue it's negligent, but it's obviously not a mistake and the naming will have been discussed at length and the possibility of confusion will have been taken into consideration. They know exactly what they're doing and the confusion it will cause. People being a bit less interested in tech and not following tech news sites on a daily basis, and therefore quite easily missing articles stating the difference, is not a suitable excuse for poor naming. It's quite reasonable to assume a card with the exact same name but a different memory quantity, is the same card with a different memory quantity like, say, pretty much every card before it with different memory configurations available...

As CAT has shown, even people posting on tech websites are confusing the two.

It's not exclusive to Nvidia (looking at you, configurable performance ULV chips), but that doesn't mean you'll find me cutting them any slack on it.