Is my 1060 a 3GB or 6GB card? How can I test?

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mnewxcv

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Hey guys, I bought a Zotac GTX 1060 from microcenter the other week, the 3gb version, the last one they had. Upon building my new rig though, the graphics properties and GPU-Z show it as a 6GB card. The sticker on the card clearly says 3GB, as does the box. How can I confirm or deny if this is a 6GB card? 3dmark didn't even max out 3GB.
 
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Check the shading units and TMUs reported by GPU-Z, 1060 6GB should have 1280/80 respectively.

1060 is one of the few cards where different VRAM versions also use different cores, so technically they are different GPUs (the 1060 6GB should really be called 1060ti).
 
this is what gpu-z shows:

ngu.png
 
well thats pretty awesome. a 6gb 1060 is something I am okay with :D I guess the two cards look identical and got mislabeled at the factory.
 
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not a bad card at all. overclocked from 1506/8000mhz to 1706/9400mhz....
 
mnewxcv said:
not a bad card at all. overclocked from 1506/8000mhz to 1706/9400mhz....
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check your numbers again, that's base clock, factory boost it's already at 1709mhz, so real boost clock in-games should be well over 1900mhz and 2000mhz.
 
Araxie said:
check your numbers again, that's base clock, factory boost it's already at 1709mhz, so real boost clock in-games should be well over 1900mhz and 2000mhz.
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yeah, OCed from 1506/1709/8008 to 1706/1909/9400.
 
mnewxcv said:
yeah, OCed from 1506/1709/8008 to 1706/1909/9400.
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yeah but those are GPU-Z numbers, in-games clocks should be still higher, you can check it in the sensor tab while the background or enable any OSD via MSI Afterburner or EVGA Precision X. that's a typical feature of Nvidia cards Since Kepler. in-game boost clock it's generally higher than what it's factory labeled, it's the nature of GPU boost 1.0/2.0 and 3.0. best way to check it's always with an OSD so you check in realtime while gaming.

This is a good example

14825822190hbGze5NJ0_4_6_l.png


14825822190hbGze5NJ0_4_7_l.png


14825822190hbGze5NJ0_4_8_l.png



if you look boost clock is stated as 2008mhz however ingame max boost clock achieved 2177mhz stable.
 
Yes, 1060 can use 6 GB of RAM depending on what you are using it for. For example, heavily modded Skyrim easily exceeds 4 GB but is not too demanding for a 1060 to run on 3 monitors at 60 fps.

EDIT: Also the number of SM on the 3GB version is actually less. You only get 1152 CUDA cores vs 1280 on the 6GB. I personally feel that the 3GB is deceptively named since its not only the memory that was cut but also processing cores. If you didn't know better you would think that the 3 GB version was only different by the amount of memory.
 
MrGuvernment said:
can a 1060 even use 6G of vram or was it a marketing ploy?
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Forza Apex was using over 4GB when I was testing earlier. That's maxed out 1440p, and the 1060 actually did great (100+ fps average on nurburgring). Was expecting to be disappointed coming from a 780Ti with a ton of cuda cores, but this little card makes me happy.

Also, the 6GB may come in handy for the video editing I do, though not sure if the cuda cores will limit me more there.
 
mnewxcv said:
Forza Apex was using over 4GB when I was testing earlier. That's maxed out 1440p, and the 1060 actually did great (100+ fps average on nurburgring). Was expecting to be disappointed coming from a 780Ti with a ton of cuda cores, but this little card makes me happy.

Also, the 6GB may come in handy for the video editing I do, though not sure if the cuda cores will limit me more there.
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From what understand cuda cores themselves are different from generation to generation. Yes the 780ti might have more but the 1060 has faster more efficient.
 
some people were getting 1080's instead of 1070's as well. It can happen.

Congrats.
 
wowza I wonder how often this happens. My store's got a few 3gbs left
 
You could also just simply use afterburner and see how much vram it shows you have there while you're playing a game.
 
Was curious, with the AMD Rx570 shortage was wondering if i spend more and get a 1060....but for $40-$50 more CAD it seems with what appears to be the same performance and less vram (3G v 4G)
 
MrGuvernment said:
Was curious, with the AMD Rx570 shortage was wondering if i spend more and get a 1060....but for $40-$50 more CAD it seems with what appears to be the same performance and less vram (3G v 4G)
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is the 1060 slower even after an OC? My futuremark scores all went up about 12% after OC.
 
Nice score OP! I paid something like $250 usd for my 6GB :( boooo lol
 
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