NVIDIA Updating GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB With GP104 GPU – GTX 1050 Series For Notebooks Launching at CES 2017

NVIDIA is rumored to be updating their GeForce GTX 1060 graphics cards with GP104 class GPUs. There are also indications that NVIDIA is planning to launch their GTX 1050 notebook products at CES 2017.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB To Be Updated With GP104 GPU

First of all, there are rumors that NVIDIA will be shipping some units of the GeForce GTX 1060 with GP104 class GPUs. The reason stated is that NVIDIA wants to use as many defective GP104 chips that could not meet the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 specifications. This would allow NVIDIA to use the chips elsewhere rather than disposing of them. The new GP104 chip will be known as GP104-140.

The GP104-140 GPU will be the full chip with many SM units disabled. A full GP104 chip has 20 SM units, the GTX 1060 3 GB models only use 9 SM units on the GP106 GPU. This means that 11 SM units are disabled on the newer core. Both GP104 and GP106 do have similarities in terms of architectural hierarchy compared to GP107 but we could see some benefits in clock speeds. Suggested clock speeds are expected to remain the same but operating clock speeds may be different. The NVIDIA_DEV.1B84 “NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB device ID also appears in the latest driver which pretty much confirms this. (Source: Videocardz)

The newer cards can also yield higher power requirements but that remains to be seen. Another interesting thing is that the cards could possibly be exclusive to the APAC region. This means that consumers outside the Chinese region won't have to worry about the different SKUs.

NVIDIA GeForce 10 Pascal Family

Graphics Card Name	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 2 GB	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 3 GB	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 5 GB	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080	NVIDIA Titan X	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti	NVIDIA Titan Xp
Graphics Core	GP107	GP107	GP107	GP106 / GP104	GP106	GP106 / GP104	GP104	GP104	GP104	GP102	GP102	GP102
Process Node	14nm FinFET	14nm FinFET	14nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET
Die Size	132mm2	132mm2	132mm2	200mm2	200mm2	200mm2	314mm2	314mm2	314mm2	471mm2	471mm2	471mm2
Transistors	3.3 Billion	3.3 Billion	3.3 Billion	4.4 Billion	4.4 Billion	4.4 Billion	7.2 Billion	7.2 Billion	7.2 Billion	12 Billion	12 Billion	12 Billion
CUDA Cores	640 CUDA Cores	768 CUDA Cores	768 CUDA Cores	1152 CUDA Cores	1280 CUDA Cores	1280 CUDA Cores	1920 CUDA Cores	2432 CUDA Cores	2560 CUDA Cores	3584 CUDA Cores	3584 CUDA Cores	3840 CUDA Cores
Base Clock	1354 MHz	1392 MHz	1290 MHz	1506 MHz	1506 MHz	1506 MHz	1506 MHz	1607 MHz	1607 MHz	1417 MHz	1480 MHz	1480 MHz
Boost Clock	1455 MHz	1518 MHz	1392 MHz	1708 MHz	1708 MHz	1708 MHz	1683 MHz	1683 MHz	1733 MHz	1530 MHz	1583 MHz	1582
FP32 Compute	1.8 TFLOPs	2,3 TFLOPs	2.1 TFLOPs	4.0 TFLOPs	4.4 TFLOPs	4.4 TFLOPs	6.5 TFLOPs	8.1 TFLOPs	9.0 TFLOPs	11 TFLOPs	11.5 TFLOPs	12.5 TFLOPs
VRAM	2 GB GDDR5	3 GB GDDR5	4 GB GDDR5	3 GB GDDR5	6 GB GDDR5	6 GB GDDR5/X	8 GB GDDR5/X	8 GB GDDR5	8 GB GDDR5X	12 GB GDDR5X	11 GB GDDR5X	12 GB GDDR5X
Memory Speed	7 Gbps	7 Gbps	7 Gbps	8 Gbps	8 Gbps	9 Gbps / 10 Gbps	8 Gbps	8 Gbps	11 Gbps	10 Gbps	11 Gbps	11.4 Gbps
Memory Bandwidth	112 GB/s	84 GB/s	112 GB/s	192 GB/s	160 GB/s	224 GB/s / 240 GB/s	256 GB/s	256 GB/s	352 GB/s	480 GB/s	484 GB/s	547 GB/s
Bus Interface	128-bit bus	96-bit bus	128-bit bus	192-bit bus	160-bit bus	192-bit bus	256-bit bus	256-bit bus	256-bit bus	384-bit bus	352-bit bus	384-bit bus
Power Connector	None	None	None	Single 6-Pin Power	Single 6-Pin Power	Single 6-Pin Power	Single 8-Pin Power	Single 8-Pin Power	Single 8-Pin Power	8+6 Pin Power	8+6 Pin Power	8+6 Pin Power
TDP	75W	75W	75W	120W	120W	120W	150W	180W	180W	250W	250W	250W
Display Outputs	1x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	1x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	1x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x DVI	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b	3x Display Port 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0b
Launch Date	October 2016	May 2018	October 2016	September 2016	August 2018	July 2016	June 2016	October 2017	May 2016	August 2016	March 2017	April 2017
Launch Price	$109 US	$119 US-$129 US	$139 US	$199 US	TBD	$249 US	$349 US	$449 US	$499 US	$1200 US	$699 US	$1200 US

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti For Notebooks at CES 2017

The second rumor is pretty interesting as NVIDIA is prepping more budget oriented chips for the notebook market. NVIDIA already launched their sub-$150 GTX 1050 series for desktop PCs and are now moving to the notebook side of things.

We are not sure if NVIDIA will have both GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti options in the notebook segment but they will be based on the GP107 GPU. These graphics chips will replace GTX 960M and GTX 950M class GPUs from the previous generation. NVIDIA plans to showcase the new chips at CES 2017 in several notebooks that would utilize Intel's 7th generation Kaby Lake processors. Prices for the new notebooks are expected in the $900-$1300 US range.

Nvidia GTX 1060 GPU-equipped notebooks are currently enjoying strong demand from China and Southeast Asia and the release of the GTX 1050 is expected to further increase sales.

Asustek Computer, Gigabyte Technology, Micro-Star International (MSI) and Lenovo are all planning to showcase their latest gaming notebooks using Intel's new processors and Nvidia's new GPUs at CES 2017. Motherboard players are also expected to unveil their 200 series motherboards and mini PC products during the show.

However, the vendors' aggressive moves are expected to trigger a new wave of price war in the gaming notebook market in 2017. via Digitimes

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Notebook Specifications and Performance

The specifications for the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (notebook) include a GP107 core that is built on the Samsung 14nm process node. The chip houses 768 CUDA cores, 48 texture mapping units and 32 raster operation units. The package would feature 4 GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 7 GHz that would operate around a 128-bit bus interface, leading to 112 GB/s bandwidth.

Clock speeds are rated at 1490 MHz base and 1624 MHz boost which are higher than the desktop variants. We aren’t sure if these are the actual clock speeds, but we will wait for confirmation as these are the clocks that were used while testing the GTX 1050 Ti GPU on the notebook. Last but not least, the GPU would feature a TDP of less than 100W. I think NVIDIA would aim for the same 75W range as the desktop parts, however an MXM module can go beyond that and that’s one reason why the chip is clocked higher compared to desktop models that require no external power connectors.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Notebook Performance Comparison:

GPU Name	3DMark Cloud Gate (Graphics)	3DMark Fire Strike (Graphics)	Unigine Heaven 4
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (Laptop)	49976 (+10%)	7757 (+7%)	1836 (+9%)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M (ASUS GL502)	45541	7271	1691
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 965M (HP Omen 2016)	38125	6063	1260
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M (Lenovo Y700)	31097	4451	989

It will be great to see cheaper notebooks with Intel's and NVIDIA's latest chips. The GTX 1050 series handles 1080P gaming pretty well and leaked benchmarks of the GTX 1050 Ti (notebook) show impressive performance that edges the GTX 970M by 10%. Expect to learn more about these cards as CES closes in.

NVIDIA GeForce Pascal Mobility Family Comparison:

Specification	GeForce GTX 980 Notebook	GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Notebook	GeForce GTX 1060 Notebook	GeForce GTX 1070 Notebook	GeForce GTX 1080 Notebook
Graphics Core	GM204	GP107	GP106	GP104	GP104
Manufacturing process	28nm	14nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET	16nm FinFET
CUDA Cores	2048	768	1280	2048	2560
Transistors	5.2 Billion	3.3 Billion	4.4 Billion	7.2 Billion	7.2 Billion
ROP units	64	32	48	64	64
TMUs	128	48	80	128	160
Core clock speed	1064 MHz	1490 MHz	1404 Mhz	1442 MHz	1566 MHz
Max-Q Base Clock	N/A	N/A	1063 - 1265MHz	1101 - 1215MHz	1101 - 1290MHz
Boost clock speed	1228 MHz	1624 MHz	1670 Mhz	1645 MHz	1733 MHz
Max-Q Boost Clock	N/A	N/A	1341 - 1480MHz	1265 - 1379MHz	1278 - 1468MHz
Memory clock	7004 MHz	7,008 MHz	8,008 MHz	8,008 MHz	10,000 MHz
Memory interface	256-bit	128-bit	192-bit	256-bit	256-bit
Total memory bandwidth	224 GB/s	112 GB/s	192GB/s	256GB/s	320 GB/s
Total dedicated GPU memory	8 GB	4 GB	6 GB	8 GB	8 GB
VRAM Type	GDDR5	GDDR5	GDDR5	GDDR5	GDDR5X
TDP	~150W	~60W	~80W	~120W	~150W
Max-Q Design TDP	N/A	N/A	60 - 70W	80 - 90W	90 - 110W