NVIDIA’s GTX 1060 promises VR-ready performance at $249

Two months and a day after launching its impressive GeForce GTX 1080 (along with the GTX 1070) at the DreamHack gaming event in Austin, NVIDIA is back with a slightly less flashy, but no less interesting new Pascal-powered card. Most notable here is the price, which starts at $249.

The GTX 1060 graphics card effectively replaces the more expensive GTX 980, promising the same performance as its $500 predecessor, along with added energy efficiency, all in a VR-ready package that should work nicely with both the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift.

The 1060 offers 6GB of GDDR5, a 1.7GHz boosted clock speed and 1,280 CUDA cores, with a posted power consumption of 120 watts when running VR titles. Things look pretty solid on the spec front, but until the card is more readily available, we’ll have to take NVIDIA’s word on performance claims.

And as with the 1080 and 1070, the more budget-minded board will be getting a Founder’s Edition, featuring higher end components, like a die-cast aluminum body and an even more efficient power supply. That will run an additional $50.

Both versions of the card will hit retail July 19th, with the Founder’s Edition available only through NVIDIA’s site.