Geforce 16 Series
Powered by the revolutionary NVIDIA Turing architecture and next-gen GDDR6 memory, visuals will have unprecedented realism and graphics settings can be set to drive the most impactful actions. Everything is super with the all-new ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 20 Series SUPER graphics cards. Based on the NVIDIA Turing architecture, it’s packed with more cores and ultra-fast GDDR6 memory. Integrated with more smart and optimized technologies, get ready to GET FAST and GAME STRONG. There’s one more thing to cover before we begin a more detailed performance analysis. There is a reference specification for the GTX 1660 Ti, but there are no reference cards, so you should expect a small degree of variance in frame-rate between different models as board manufacturers add their own factory overclocks.
And that level of efficiency explains the form-factor seen in many of the GTX 1660 Ti models available, including the PNY XLR8 model we’re reviewing today. Our review card is a small form-factor offering, with a lightweight heatsink and just a single fan. There’s no real premium finish here – there’s a basic plastic shroud, for starters – so there’s a distinct lack of higher-end features like RGB lighting, but this is what I like to see from a value-orientated release. The XLR8 is a basic, honest design that delivers performance and saves money. In the case of the XLR8, the only issue I have with it is the slightly loud fan noise.
With just a $10 price gap between it and the GTX 1660 Super, the Super card is the obvious choice right now, as 12% more performance is more than worth the $10. Despite all of this, NVIDIA insists that they and their partners are going to keep selling the vanilla GTX 1660. So it will be interesting to see what NVIDIA actual does here, both in terms of card supply and pricing. The GTX 1660 has to come down in price to have any future; and if that were to happen, then it might make for a decent sub-$200 spoiler. At this point, the partners have been shipping TU116-based cards for over 6 months, so they have been able to hone their GTX 1660 family designs.
We mentioned this a couple of times before, but initially, when the first rumors on the GeForce GTX surfaced, speculation was everywhere and we had doubts NVIDIA would actually release a new GTX while moving forward towards it’s RTX branding. But yes, NVIDIA is now injecting a Turing based GPU into the mainstream called TU116. To make it more affordable NVIDIA stripped away the RTX and DLSS features, that means there are no RT and Tensor cores on this GPU.
It’s the kind of quality product you’ll have to pay a pretty penny for, and we know that it might be out of your reach if you’re on a modest budget. It still blows the Turing product competition out of the water and provides far better value for the price. Over time, it’s worth the investment for the RTX 2060 — even if you have to spend some time saving up to buy it. There are tons to choose from when it comes to all of these Turing cards, offering different clock speeds, cooling options, and lighting features. Some are a better value than others, but the cheapest offer the best return on investment in terms of performance, as we’ll see below.
But the Radeon’s appeal is on pricing and that will determine which way you should go. If Nvidia does offer the 1660 Super at $230 then we’d purchase it over a $200 RX 590 and that was probably their intention all along. At the intended $230 MSRP, the gtx 1090 Super would cost just 2% more per frame than the RX 590 and that makes it the better choice given the greatly reduced power consumption. At $240 it may still be the right choice for most, but anything more than that and you could argue strongly for the RX 590 at $200.
At the end of the day, 1080p is the most popular resolution for PC gaming, and graphics cards in this price range are where most people will end up spending their money. And, until the AMD Radeon RX 5500 comes out in November, Nvidia is kind of dominating this part of the landscape, and it’s not hard to see why. The Nvidia GeForce gigabyte gtx 1060 3gb Super stands somewhere between the GTX 1660 and GTX 1660 Ti in terms of performance and price. Considering what it offers in terms of overall value, it might just be the best graphics card for you.
Solid performance gains can also be seen when testing with Sniper Elite 4, the 1660 Super was 14% faster than the base model and just 4% slower than the Ti model, so another excellent result. Nvidia did claim up to 20% performance gains and we have our first example of that here with Monster Hunter World. The 1660 Super was good for 67 fps on average and that makes it 20% faster than the standard 1660 and just 7% slower than the 1660 Ti. We see another solid performance uplift, this time when testing with Battlefield V. A 13% increase over the base model is the best result we’ve seen yet.
As you move from extreme to high-end to mainstream and budget GPUs, prices became far more attractive almost in proportion to the drop in performance. If you already have a high-end graphics card, even a card that’s several years old like a GTX 980, the GTX 1660 isn’t going to excite. Testing is conducted at 1080p ‘medium’ quality, along with ‘ultra’ quality at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k. In most games the ultra preset maxes out all the options, while in games that don’t include presets I’ve manually maxed out the settings (eg, GTA5’s advanced graphics menu, other than superscaling). Some games punish cards with less than 6GB or even 8GB of VRAM at these settings, but in general the GTX 1660 should be fine.
They can also be notably cheaper in some cases, especially when you factor in AMD’s incredible game bundles. This is where the availability and packaging options can make or break a deal. It’s important gtx 1090 to note that availability can also factor into the equation and impact pricing. If you are looking for something a little more affordable with a similar speed, check out the RX 5500 XT.