Nvidia’s GTX 1060 is yet to be launched with a price tag of $249 on the 19th July 2016. The GTX 1060 was supposed to play a very strong card for the green team. On the other hand, AMD’s RX 480 starts from $199. However, critics raised the question of why the GTX 1060 is priced higher than the last-gen GTX 960. The GTX 960 was priced at $199. Yes, we could take the performance increase into consideration, but there’s a bit more to the story than that.

One of the major reasons for the price increase is the GPU chip itself. The GTX 960 chip was manufactured at TSMC (Taiwanese Semi-Conductor Manufacturing Company). According to a study by semiconductor industry analyst, Dr.Handel Jones, he learned that the price of a 16nm wafer has increased exponentially, $7779.22 in 2016 from $4557.25 last year. That is about 70% higher. The GTX 1060 rocks a smaller 200mm² compared to the GTX 960’s 228mm². According to the estimation, the new GTX 1060 chip costs $33.3 compared to the GTX 960’s $19.9. Source

Moreover, another reason is the higher VRAM capacity on the GTX 1060. Comparing the VRAM to the GTX 960, we could find that the GTX 1060 has 6GB of VRAM at 8GB/s compared to the last-gen GTX 960 with 2GB at 7GB/s.

Over here it seems like Nvidia it really squeezing the profits here. There’s not much profit to make now. But the competition from the Red Camp is hard as well. Considering what you are getting for the $50 extra, it’s completely worth it.