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NVIDIA GTX 1660 Review - The Best GTX 960 Replacement Yet?

2019-03-14
so a few weeks ago we were all introduced to Nvidia's first non rtx GPU for 2019 gtx 1660 TI i said that right this time by the way now even though this thing can't run AI or ray-tracing operations it still offers some great value for gamers who don't see a point in paying a premium for the features that aren't just being used yet so that brings us to today's review which was almost late because of ups damn and I hate UPS I just I just I just really do but anyways it's finally here this my friends is the gtx 1660 non TI that is and it's starting price is at $220 which is pretty affordable if you think about it considering the gtx 1060 was launched at around $200 and the older gtx 960 was launched at $200 since its release day it's also interesting to note that Nvidia's GTX 1060 and cards around this price point are the most popular right now on steams Hardware serwe so this is a very important launch so why don't we get into the review but first a quick message from our sponsor the new Animax slick tech TR for AI a liquid CPU cooler now features this beautifully diffused RGB lining around the CPU block that can be customized via this control box or through your motherboard it covers 100% of the IHS plus it comes in two forty to eighty and three sixty millimeter variants learn more in the description down below now before I get to the benchmarks let's actually get into what the gtx 1660 is but at the same time if you just want to skip directly into performance I'll actually leave timestamps down in the comments also if you want to check out our GTX 1660 TI review and learn a little bit more about the architecture you can actually check that up right over here like I said in the GTX 1660 and 1660 TI video these new gtx cards use the 1290 meter tu1 1:6 core which incorporates all of the turin architectures improvements except the RT and tensor units that means RTX has been crossed out the spec sheet but performance in standard games gets a big post and media did this because AI and ray-tracing operations to be backed up by a huge amount of rendering power and that's something these lower price options just don't have so if you want rtx you'll need to spend a little bit more money and buy an RTX 2060 or a higher-end GPU the GTX 1660 specs are pretty interesting too it uses a cut-down version of the gtx 1660 ti score with a little over 1400 cuda cores and slightly higher clock speeds while the TDP remains at 120 watts the real difference here is with memory the 1660 still has six gigabytes and 192 bit wide interface but it uses gddr5 modules operating at 8 gigahertz instead of 12 gigahertz of GDD are 6 well that could cause memory bandwidth bottlenecks in some games I wouldn't be surprised if a bit of overclocking brings a stock GTX 1660 close to a GTX 1660 Ti unfortunately due to some other shipping issues I wasn't able to get a stock GTX 1660 in time for this video but EVGA ended up sending their XE ultra version personally I have mixed feelings about this card in terms of design but it's a lot better than the triple slot version that I looked at in our GTX 1660 and 1660 TI video even though the length is about 10.5 inches or 268 millimeters it'll fit into more small form factor cases - other than that turning the card over shows that EVGA has used a shorter PCB and then attached a massive cooler the overhang is protected by a small backplate but the design also means the power connector gets popped into an interesting location the rear i/o area is pretty straightforward with single outputs for DVI HDMI and DisplayPort it's nice to see DVI here since a lot of gamers looking for more affordable cards might not have a newer monitor and the last thing anyone wants to buy is another adapter the XC ultra version has also been pre overclocked by EVGA and its core runs about 60 mega is higher than the stock version that likely won't result in all that much performance especially since the memory sticks to a gigahertz the price is what might rip a few people up since this card will hit $250 but EVGA will be offering a limited $10 rebate at large bringing it to 240 one thing I did notice during testing was that the boos clock constantly sat at nineteen sixty-five megahertz that's almost 100 megahertz higher than what a reference back 1660 TI hit so let's cut this short right here and get right on to the benchmarks as we run through these charts you'll basically see the same thing repeated over and over again the gtx 1660 outperforms the gtx ten succeed by a pretty big margin at both resolutions sometimes by over 25% but does that mean that he should be replacing the 1060 if you have one absolutely not but if you have a gtx 960 or an earlier GPU this will be a huge step up at a price that's really close to what you paid a few years ago another thing that's important to mention again is the EVGA card I'm using over here is pre overclocked but not by a huge amount I'm going to say that the increased clock speeds add between two or three percent at most to the scores versus a stock 1660 now when you compared to the 1660 TI performance is really variable at times they're pretty close with this new card in some other times it even comes close to the gtx 1070 performance levels but frame rates really aren't consistent across and retail in a few games the non TI models falls way too behind but that actually happens a lot more often at 1440p so the gap is likely due to the 1660s lower memory clock speeds you can actually see that situation pretty clearly in hell-blade rainbow 6 and witcher at 1080p then again at 1440p games like far cry 5 battlefield and even overwatch can be added to that list too particularly with the lower 1% of frame times against AMD cards the GTX 1660 is roughly equal to performance of an Rx 590 but that card almost consumes a ton more power and even costs a bit more right now I would be surprised if AMD further lowers prices on the RX 580 and rx 590 quickly moving on to power consumption this pre overclocked EVGA gtx 1660 XC ultra actually consumes a bit less than the gtx 1060 superclocked and that just goes to show you how much Nvidia's new architecture and the 1290 meter manufacturing process are able to improve performance per watt so I guess it's time to wrap things up and I have to say I'm pretty impressed with Nvidia's new GTX series even though almost every one of the rtx cards felt overpriced the gtx 1660 ti and now the gtx 1660 really do feel like good values for their price points I wouldn't run out to replace a 10 series card with them but if you're coming from an older generation GPU they could be an awesome choice however I can say that the 1660 is perfect I mean if you look at the XE Ultra from EVGA in this case it's a $30 premium over these stock GPU and that almost gets closer to what you would pay for a reference SPECT gtx 1660 ti also the gddr5 memory modules may cause some bottlenecks in some situations but from an overall perspective I think this is a pretty solid choice for the price so that pretty much wraps us up guys so let me know what you guys think about the gtx 1660 I mean if you're rocking a gtx 960 or perhaps a 760 would this be an upgrade in the pipeline for you guys let me know in the comments down below an e bar with harbor connects thank you so much for watching make sure to check out some relevant content over here subscribe to our boot sequence Channel I'm signing off and I'll see you guys in the next one
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