Gigabyte Gtx 1660 Review
When NVIDIA went about cutting down the GTX 1660 Ti to create the original GTX 1660, the single biggest change there was swapping out GDDR6 for cheaper GDDR5. Now that they’ve effectively undone this – and then some – most of the performance that NVIDIA shaved off for the GTX 1660 has come back in the lower-priced Super card. Overall, the RTX 2060 is the best buy of the three because of its impressive performance capabilities.
So while it’s around 35-40% faster than a GTX GB, GTX 1660 Super is going to be much more enticing to GTX 960 owners and the like, where the new card delivers more than twice the performance. Unsurprisingly, the GTX 1660 Super occupies the same general slot within NVIDIA’s product stacks as the easier GTX 1660 cards. Which means that for system builders and upgraders alike, NVIDIA is pitching the card at the same general audience as before. That the GTX 1660 Super offers better performance for the price is definitely an improvement here, and it will presumably ensure NVIDIA gets to stay ahead of AMD’s impending cards. If it feels like NVIDIA has launched a lot of GeForce video cards over the past year, that’s because they have.
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.
For a mere $10 extra over the base 1660, we see this as a worthwhile update. Here’s a quick look at total system consumption and as you can see the 1660 Super sucks down a little gtx 1090 more power than even the Ti model. Clearly that higher clocked GDDR6 memory is power hungry and here we see an increase on total system draw by 9% over the standard 1660.
With faster memory, it is much closer in performance to the 1660 Ti than its other specifications might suggest. In fact, even a $180/£160 GTX GB doesn’t make much sense when for an extra $40/£40, you’re getting up to 30% more performance. It’s a good time for the consumer then as we’re likely going to see cut-price Pascal cards, but as it stands the GTX 1660 is definitely worth the cash and if you’re a 1080p gamer, it offers plenty of headroom too. Both cards look set to retail at similar prices once the GTX 1660 hits the shelves. Overall the Nvidia card is faster, but there are some titles where the difference is negligible and others where the AMD card is faster.
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 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.
Although the RTX 2060 has hardware-accelerated ray tracing support, the other cards do support it too, albeit in a limited capacity. Thanks to a driver update from Nvidia, all GTX cards from the 16 and 10-series can render ray tracing in-game, but without hardware acceleration using RT cores, performance isn’t great, even on high-end last-gen cards like the GTX 1080 Ti. These differences play out like you might expect in games, although there is some variation depending on your desired quality settings and resolution. In all tests the RTX 2060 comes out well ahead of its GTX Turing counterparts, offering performance comparable to a GTX 1070 Ti, if not sometimes higher. The 1660 Ti follows up with between 15 and 25 percent lower frame rates, though it does beat important AMD competitors like the RX 590.
It’s about 12 percent faster than the outgoing GTX GB, so nothing major, but at least it’s both faster and less expensive. It’s also 20 percent faster than the GB, 35 percent faster than a GTX 970, and over twice as fast as a GTX 1050. Note that when the 1050 came out, performance was also nearly identical to the GTX 960 2GB, so if you’re holding onto an older GPU there’s definitely potential for a good performance boost.