Unlike the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 which are both based on GP104 , the GTX 1060 introduces the new Pascal GP106 GPU which, although smaller, shares many traits with GP104 including Simultaneous Multi-Projection, enhanced memory compression and support for new technologies, such as Ansel.
GP106 delivers up to 10 streaming multiprocessors compared to up to 20 on GP104, this means the total GTX 1060 CUDA core count is 1,280 rather than 2,560 (GTX 1080) or 1,920 (GTX 1070). That reduction in CUDA cores brings a respective drop in power consumption as the GTX 1060 has a 120-watt TDP, which is the same as the previous-gen GTX 960 but 30-watts lower than AMD’s RX 480.
At $249 the Nvidia GTX 1060 goes head to head with the AMD RX 480 8GB, though AMD also offers a 4GB variation starting at $199. However, it should be noted that, like with the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070, the Founders Edition is more expensive than entry pricing – $299 in the case of the GTX 1060.
