NVIDIA Announces GeForce GTX 1060: Starting at $249, Available July 19th
by Ryan Smith on July 7, 2016 9:00 AM ESTNVIIDA Ansel, Simultaneous Multi-Projection, & VR Funhouse Status Updates
Along with today’s news about the GeForce GTX 1060 launch, NVIDIA is also offering updated news on a few of their technologies and related software projects.
We’ll start with Ansel, NVIDIA’s 360 degree high-resolution screenshot composition and capture technology. After initially announcing it alongside the GTX 1080 as part of their Pascal technology briefing, the company is announcing that it will finally be shipping in select games this month, with the first of those shipping today. The first two games to get Ansel-enabled will be DICE’s Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst and CD Projekt Red’s The Witcher 3. Ansel support for Mirror’s Edge is launching today (or as NVIDIA’s press release puts it, “immediate availability”), meanwhile The Witcher 3 will get support added later this month.
As the tech requires vendors to integrate it into games and game engines on a case-by-case basis, this is a gradual rollout, but one NVIDIA is hoping to accelerate over time. The company has already lined up a half dozen additional games that will support the technology, including Unreal Tournament and No Man’s Sky, but they are not announcing an availability date at this time.
Meanwhile, in a more general status update on their Simultaneous Multi-Projection technology, NVIDIA is announcing that they have lined up both Unity and Epic Games to add support for the technology to their respective Unity and Unreal Engine 4 game engines. To that end the company is also confirming that over 30 games are now in development to implement the technology, including Epic’s Unreal Tournament.
Besides being a marquee feature of the Pascal architecture, simultaneous multi-projection is seen by NVIDIA as a key element in establishing a lead in the VR market. Though the full benefits of the technology remain to be seen, any potential performance advantage would be in their favor, and we should expect to see it significantly promoted alongside the GTX 1060, which will be NVIIDA’s entry-level VR card. Of course as developers need to implement the technology first, which is why for NVIDIA is it so important to get developers on-board and to make sure potential customers are aware.
Finally, speaking of VR, NVIDIA is also announcing that their big tech demo for Pascal, VR Funhouse, will be shipping this month. Unveiled alongside Ansel and SMP at the Pascal launch, VR Funhouse is built on Unreal Engine 4 and is meant to serve as a testbed for NVIDIA’s latest GameWorks/VRWorks technologies, including SMP and VRWorks Audio. The tech demo will be released on Steam later this month and will support the GTX 1060 and above. Though Pascal owners will want to take note that as this is a VR demo, it will require a VR headset – specifically, the HTC Vive – in order to use it.
Meanwhile NVIDIA has also confirmed that the source code to VR Funhouse will be opened up to developers. Though the primarily goal here is to allow developers to add additional attractions/modules to the tech demo, more broadly speaking it’s another means to help encourage developer adoption of GameWorks/VRWorks, giving developers a starting point for using the various technologies in NVIDIA’s libraries.
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R0H1T - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
At this point in time, I'm fairly certain there were a few that launched at or near that price point, the gouging is all retailers fault IMO. As for the current situation, after unlocking extra VRAM was revealed, it's clear that the retailers don't want to sell 8GB cards, 4GB officially, anywhere close to 200$ so the artificial scarcity & gouging is again not AMD's fault.For the latter part, I'd say that the actual sales of 1060 will determine whether AMD has to lower their price point; however I doubt they'd be forced in doing so anytime before the end of the year.
versesuvius - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
Whatever the performance of this card is which is certainly going to be within + or - %5 of RX 480, with a TDP of 120 watts as compared to 150 for RX 480, one thing is also certain which is that AMD is not going to have the $200 VGA card market to itself for any period of time. That was the high point of AMD marketing strategy which while it clearly was aimed at hiding the fact that their Vega is six months behind 1080 even assuming that Vega is any match for 1080, still had some flare to it. So, this opportunity is blown away as usual.There are things that AMD can do (which AMD being AMD is certainly not going to do). Regardless, AMD can lower the prices of RX480 by 10% immediately. AMD can rush out the RX 480 x 2 at $350 (armed with their new driver! :) ), which is going to put a serious dent in the sales of 1080 and 1070. Given AMD's claims that some lower power draw cannot decrease the performance of RX 480, that card should be able to operate around a TDP of 200 watts which would be very good for its price and performance.
FMinus - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
the things that AMD should do, is take care of all their market not just a segment one, regardless if this segment is 80% of total. Frankly I'm happy for them if they rake in cash with the RX 400 series, but as a consumer, I'm pretty pissed that I'll have to wait another half a year to get a high-end card.And since I'm not a share holder, this move by AMD to completely ignore their high end customers for this long, makes me quite angry.
Audiophizile - Saturday, July 9, 2016 - link
Agreed. I want competition in the market I belong to. That market is currently and will be controlled by nvidia for 6+ months. Sad times to like nice stuff.tipoo - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
SMS and SMP seem like real game changers for VR, I'm shocked Polaris doesn't seem to have an answer to them.fanofanand - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
Considering nobody has experienced SMS and SMP, it's quite bold for you to consider them game changers with nothing similar or exclusive from AMD.DrKlahn - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
Let's look at things realistically. The AIB cards in the 1070/1080 cards have not been significantly cheaper than the FE cards (or cheaper period). I don't see that changing for the 1060. The 480 has not had any cases of killing a motherboard that I have found and we're talking about a ~40-50w difference vs. 1060. That won't be noticed on the electric bill nor will it result in a huge amount of heat comparatively. I'm guessing availability for the 1060 will be low considering that their higher margin parts still aren't able to meet demand. No way will a much lower margin part get wafer allocation over these. The rumors of it being a salvage part may solve that, but that would make it a costly long term mainstream proposition.Performance wise I expect them to trade blows. The AIB 480's with better power delivery and cooling may give that card a bit more headroom. But reference vs. FE I do expect them to be in the same ballpark. But I think the 1060 FE will be in short supply and likely be above MSRP for some time. The rushed launch just smacks of Nvidia's normal tactic of trying to rain on the competitors parade. It will probably keep the faithful mashing F5 trying to find one, but anyone even slightly impartial will probably still grab the less expensive and available 480.
cocochanel - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
Finally, an intelligent comment !eddman - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
Do not presume to know what every single buyer thinks.I, personally, do like to have a less power consuming card in my computer. I have an old mainboard and I'd rather not put extra, non-standard pressure on it (although a custom 480 with two 6-pin connectors would solve this issue). Also, I have no air conditioning in my house, so a card with less wattage is preferable to me.
I have no interest in the 4GB version of 480. The 8GB version is $240, just $10 below 1060. Obviously no 1060 can be bought for that amount for a while, but I can wait. 6GB will be more than enough at 1920x1080 for quite a while for me.
Writing all that, the main factor would still be performance and we have no numbers yet, so there is no point in passing judgment yet.
DrKlahn - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
The founders edition, which is what will ship initially, is $60 more. And judging by the current market, there's really no compelling evidence to suggest the 1060 will see AIB be significantly cheaper. Nvidia gave the same forecast with their current chips and it has yet to be anywhere close to reality.There have been no cases of any motherboard damage and the 480 seems to be selling quite well. So if this was really an issue, we would start seeing reports. It would obviously be better if it was closer to the specs, but even the Tom's followup conclusion is that in reality it isn't likely to be an issue.
The wattage delta will cause the room to heat up more, that's physics. Realistically with any sort of airflow it won't be a drastic difference. We're talking a couple low wattage bulbs worth of heat.
Not passing any judgement performance wise. The 1060 could dominate the 480. But from what I'm seeing I don't expect that to happen. But that's simply my speculation. I do agree that performance will weigh heavily on which product shifts price point and volume sold.