Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Review: Going for 200

The latest penis of the Turing GTX syndicate is making its introduction in the shape of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660. An expect secrete after the recent launching of the GTX 1660 Ti, at $ 280 this mid-range GPU proved to be a capital bargain. immediately the vanilla GTX 1660 has been set at $ 220, and at least on wallpaper it looks to provide capital value for your money .
The standard 1660 is 21 % cheaper but packs entirely 8 % fewer CUDA cores. Going off by that alone you ’ d expect it to be ~5 % slower on average, as the base and promote clocks are very similar. however, there ’ s one other major change. Whereas the 1660 Ti features a 192-bit wide memory bus using 12Gbps GDDR6 memory for a bandwidth of 288 GB/s, the fresh vanilla model has been downgraded with GDDR5 memory .
It still sports a 192-bit memory bus, but the slower GDDR5 memory means the bandwidth has been reduced by 33 % down to 192 GB/s. That ’ s going to produce some interest results and we don ’ metric ton expect the GTX 1660 and 1660 Ti to scale evenly .

Reading: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Review: Going for 200

overall Nvidia says the GTX 1660 is 30 % faster than the GTX 1060 3GB and 15 % faster than the GTX 1060 6GB at 1080p, a call we ’ ll surely put to the test today .
Nvidia besides told us that on average the GTX 1660 is 68 % faster than the GTX 970 and 113 % faster than the GTX 960. prospective upgrades for those coming from older GPUs is one of the primary targets at this price point. a long as you have an 8-pin PCIe ability connection you ’ re good to go, though you can get 4-pin molex adapters, excessively .
On hand for testing we have the MSI GTX 1660 Gaming X. This comes handy because our 1660 Ti results are based on the lapp MSI Gaming X model, and the lapp is true for the RTX 2060. Shout out to MSI for looking after us on these releases. accuracy be told without their support this day-one content wouldn ’ triiodothyronine be possible. On that same bill, Nvidia has besides been helpful with these holocene Turing GTX releases, promptly providing the necessary drivers so we can get on with examination .

For this review we ’ ll be looking at performance in a twelve bet on titles, then erstwhile adjacent workweek we ’ ll follow up with one of our mega benchmarks comprising over 30 games .
Before we begin, a few promptly notes on our screen system. We tested with a Core i9-9900K clocked at 5 GHz with 32GB of DDR4-3200 memory. We used using Adrenalin 2019 Edition 19.2.3 drivers for the Radeon GPUs and Game Ready 419.35 WHQL for the GeForce GPUs. Our focus will be on 1080p performance .

Benchmarks

Kickstarting the benchmark we have Shadow of the Tomb Raider and here the new GTX 1660 performs exceptionally well. It blows the GTX 1060 6GB out of the water by about 40 % and it ’ s fair 4 % slower than the GTX 1070 and 13 % slower than the 1660 Ti .
not only that, but with 76 fps on average at 1080p using the highest graphics settings, it provided a super politic and enjoyable gambling experience. We ’ re off to a good begin .

The GTX 1660 international relations and security network ’ t quite as impressive in Forza Horizon 4, where it matched the RX 590 and was lone slenderly slower than the GTX 1070. When compared to the GTX 1060 6GB it was 16 % faster which is not bad, but not great either .

The GTX 1660 averages 65 federal protective service in Just Cause 4 at 1080p, placing it roughly on equality with the Radeon RX 590 and placing it 18 % ahead than the GTX 1060 6GB in this title. It was ~11 % slower than the 1660 Ti, indeed overall not a bad leave .

Testing with Resident Evil 2 we find another championship where the GTX 1660 is on par with the RX 590, though in this case it is about 30 % faster than the GTX 1060 6GB, a solid improvement .
At 94 federal protective service on median at 1080p with the game maxed out, it ‘s nothing to sneeze at .

Hitman 2 is a CPU limited game at 1080p when using the GTX 1660 Ti or better. We see the 1660 international relations and security network ’ t quite at the limits of the CPU but even so it ’ s still 16 % faster than the RX 590 and 29 % faster than the GTX 1060 6GB. Hitman 2 is a reasonably odd title, but the 1660 performs well here regardless .

The GTX 1660 does OK in Fortnite, not amazing but it surely gets the job done. It was 11 % faster than the GTX 1060 6GB, 16 % slower than the GTX 1070, and 18 % slower than the GTX 1660 Ti. With 113 fps on median using the ‘Epic ‘ quality preset at 1080p, it ’ s not what you ’ d shout slow .

operation in Metro Exodus is good, here the GTX 1660 was only 8 % slower than the Ti model. It was 16 % faster than the GTX 1060 and that meant the difference between decent legato performance and perceptibly lower inning rates.

We ’ ve seen it before that Turing loves Rainbow Six Siege, or Rainbow Six Siege loves Turing. Either way, it ’ s good newsworthiness for prospective GTX 1660 owners. here the fresh budget GPU spat out an incredible 118 federal protective service on average at 1080p using 100 % render scale. That ’ s a whack 36 % performance boost over the GTX 1060 6GB .

Testing with Battlefield V sees the 1660 trailing the Ti exemplary by a 16 % margin, and it only managed to match the RX 580. Radeon GPUs do perform very well in this claim. When compared to the GTX 1060 6GB we ’ rhenium looking at a smaller 12 % operation elate .

The new GPU does n’t do so well in World of Tanks. here the 1660 is down 17 % on the 1660 Ti, putting it basically on par with the GTX 1060 6GB .

Testing with Apex Legends shows the GTX 1660 providing a courteous 28 % performance boost over the 1060 6GB with a noteworthy 106 federal protective service on average at 1080p. The card was 6 % slower than the GTX 1070 and 14 % slower than the GTX 1660 Ti which are relatively constrict margins .

When testing with Far Cry New Dawn the GTX 1660 once again matched the RX 590. With 87 fps on average, performance at 1080p was excellent though true it was merely 14 % faster than the 1060 6GB. The older Pascal GPU spit out 76 fps on average, so the remainder wasn ’ triiodothyronine that detectable .

Power and Overclocking

When it comes to might consumption we can observe the new GTX 1660 is extremely fuel effective, not unlike its Ti sibling. The calling card pushed full system consumption to the lapp levels as the already very effective GTX 1060 6GB, doing so while delivering more performance. In terms of efficiency, there ’ s no question about it, the GTX 1660 is excellent .
As for temperatures, the MSI GTX 1660 Gaming X ran cool and hushed. Under load we couldn ’ t hear it above the test system and after an hour of the F1 2018 benchmark on a loop it peaked at merely 63 degrees in a 21 degree room. impressive thrust from this new budget graphics card .

Overclocking the MSI GTX 1660 Gaming X went smoothly. Firing up the MSI Afterburner utility program we arrived at +110 for the core and +900 for the GDDR5 memory. This resulted in a typical operate clock accelerate of 2070 MHz, though that ’ s a mere 5 % bump over what you get out of the box .

By increasing the GDDR5 memory speed by 22 % this helped to boost frame rates by 11 % in Apex Legends. not bad considering how small the core overclock was. clearly the GTX 1660 is memory limited and squeezing the most you can out of the GDDR5 is an easy means to boost frame rates .

Cost per Frame and Closing Remarks

overall Nvidia ’ s modern $ 220 mid-range Turing offer is an all-around excellent option. We can get a better idea of just how effective the GTX 1660 in terms of value by looking at the price per frame graph below. At a cost of $ 2.44 per inning based on our testing, it ’ s actually 9 % better prize than the GTX 1660 Ti overall and impressively it even managed to edge out the Radeon RX 580 .

This is a very good value offer from Nvidia that completely wipes out the GTX 1060 serial along with the Radeon RX 580 and 590, though the GTX 1660 Ti has already taken dear worry of the never-good RX 590 .
This leaves AMD ’ s $ 140 RX 570 as the cost per skeleton chomp, but as you can see the GTX 1660 was 36 % faster on average, so paying a bit more for all that extra performance will probable be worth it for most.

Bang for your tear the GTX 1660 can ’ metric ton be tick. The exponent efficiency is there, and the MSI Gaming X model we used for testing worked like a charm, running cool and quietly with a fair sum of overclocking headroom on offer .
By the time you read this we hope adequate cards show up in stores concisely afterwards, so if you ‘re cook to take the dive you can do so at the suggest $ 220 retail price .