A little over a month ago, the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB graphics card with GDDR5X memory popped up on Nvidia's website. Today, MSI has pulled the wraps off its iteration of the new SKU, the MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Armor 6GD5X OC.
In order to outfit the GeForce GTX 1060 with GDDR5X, Nvidia had to rewarm its GP104 graphics processor, which is found inside the company's higher tier models, such as the GeForce GTX 1070, GTX 1070 Ti, and GTX 1080. Therefore, the GeForce GTX 1060 GDDR5X is built on a gimped down GP104 silicon instead of the GP106 die used in the other GeForce GTX 1060 variants. So don't be shocked if the MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Armor 6GD5X OC resembles the MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Armor 8G OC.
With dimensions of 276 x 140 x 41 mm, the MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Armor 6GD5X OC occupies two PCI slots. Unfortunately, MSI doesn't include a backplate. The graphics card features MSI's black-and-white Armor cooler (making it a great candidate for white PC builds). Heat from the GPU is dissipated via copper heat pipes into the massive heat sink with multiple aluminum fins. Two large fans with the brand's patented Torx design take care of active cooling duties. The fans are also equipped with MSI's Zero Frozr technology, which makes the fans spin up when the GPU temperature surpasses the 60 degrees Celsius (140 degrees Fahrenheit) mark.
In terms of specifications, the MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Armor 6GD5X OC retains the 1,280 CUDA cores, but now sports 6GB of GDDR5X memory. The graphics card ticks at 1,544MHz with a boost clock that eclipses 1,759MHz--51MHz higher than Nvidia's reference specification. Meanwhile, the memory operates at 2,002MHz (8,008MHz effective) across a 192-bit memory interface.
The MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Armor 6GD5X OC is listed with a 120W TDP (thermal design power) rating. It draws power through a 6-pin and a 8-pin PCIe power connectors.
The original GeForce GTX 1060 doesn't support SLI configurations. Even though the MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Armor 6GD5X OC possesses two SLI connectors, there is no mention of support for SLI.
Video outputs on the graphics card include three DisplayPort 1.4 outputs, one HDMI 2.0 port and one DVI-D Dual Link port.
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MSI didn't reveal pricing or availability for the GeForce GTX 1060 Armor 6GD5X OC.
Zhiye Liu is a news editor, memory reviewer, and SSD tester at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.