It seems Nvidia is planning to launch yet another GeForce GTX 1060 variant, one with 5GB of GDDR5 memory to go along with existing 6GB and 3GB models.
Nvidia has not officially announced the new card. Instead, Expreview yesterday posted an image of the card's GPU (GP106-350-K3-A1), claiming the GeForce GTX 1060 5GB would be destined for internet cafes in China.
Now a day later, Videocardz uploaded a handful of images showing an apparent Gigabyte SKU, the GeForce GTX 1060 5GB Windforce OC with a custom cooling solution. Assuming it's real, offering up an OC model suggests to us that Nvidia has a wider market in mind than just internet cafes and perhaps OEM system builders, though we doubt it will launch outside of Asia.
According to the leaked listing, Gigabyte's model has a 1,556MHz base clock and 1,771 boost clock in Gaming mode, and 1,582MHz base clock and 1,797MHz boost clock in OC mode. The memory runs at 8,008MHz on a 160-bit bus, giving it 160GB/s of memory bandwidth. That's 32GB/s less than the 6GB model, which has a 192-bit bus. Otherwise, it has the same number of CUDA cores at 1,280.
If the 5GB model comes to fruition, it would be the fourth consumer iteration of the GeForce GTX 1060. That's because there are actually two versions of the 6GB variant—the original one and a refreshed model with faster memory.
Adding yet another GeForce GTX 1060 model doesn't make a whole lot of sense to use, not unless Nvidia plans on dropping the 3GB variant in favor this new one. That seems unlikely though, especially if this card does up only shipping in Asia.
