Nvidia Pascal GeForce GTX 1070 release date, price: Cheaper GTX 1080 variant lands this week

The Nvidia Pascal GeForce GTX 1070 arrives later this week.GeForce.com

The long-awaited Nvidia Pascal GeForce GTX 1070 will be here in a matter of days, ready to push the envelope in PC gaming. Nvidia bills the GPU as high-performance gaming's next big thing in a smaller price tag.

"Take on today's most challenging, graphics-intensive games without missing a beat," the company writes on its website, boasting what the GeForce GTX 1070 could offer.

The GeForce GTX 1070 is the cheaper option for gamers who want to pick up the new and powerful Nvidia Pascal GPUs, which are touted to be three times faster and powerful than the one that came before it.

The high-end version of the Pascal GPU from Nvidia is the GeForce GTX 1080, which was already released. That being said, the specs of the GeForce GTX 1070 will be lower than the GTX 1080, but they are powerful enough for the graphic card's price.

The GeForce GTX 1070 is based on the GP104 Pascal GPU that boasts 16nm FinFET transistors (7.2 million) that are designed in a way that they give extra room for more chips, translating into increased power but reduced consumption.

Comparing the GeForce GTX 1070 to its direct predecessor, the GeForce GTX 970, users will know that Nvidia made some massive upgrades.

Not only does it double the frame buffer from 4GB GDDR5 to 8GB GDDR5, it also bumps up the memory speed to 8 Gbps, much greater than the 970's 6 Gbps.

The clock speed of the Pascal GPU is at 1683 MHz while its older Maxwell predecessor is only at 1178 MHz. The newly-introduced SLI Bridge on the GeForce GTX 1070 boasts double the transfer speed of the GTX 970.

The GeForce GTX 1070 also features multi-projection and enhanced delta color compression as well as "innovative new gaming technologies and breakthrough VR experiences."

The GeForce GTX 1070 will be available on June 10 with starting price of $449.