Zotac GeForce GTX 1660 Super Twin Fan Review. How good is a 1660 graphics card

Although the GTX 1660 Super beat the GTX 1660 other than the Super GTX 1660 at 1440p, it seems to have gotten a bit worse at 1080p. Given that Shadow and Rise run on the same engine, I imagine some of the driver quirks that mess with Shadow of the Tomb Raider might have been carried over here.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Review: Going for 200

The newest member of the Turing GTX family makes its debut as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660. Expected to launch following the recent launch of the GTX 1660 Ti, at $ 280, this mid-range GPU has proven to be a great buy. Now the vanilla GTX 1660 has been set at $ 220, and at least on paper, it looks like it’s offering great value for money.

The standard 1660 is 21% cheaper, but only contains 8% fewer CUDA cores. Proceeding from the same, you’d expect it to be ~ 5% slower on average as the base and boost clocks are very similar. However, there is one more major change. While the 1660 Ti is equipped with a 192-bit wide memory bus, using GDDR6 12 Gb / s memory, providing 288 GB / s bandwidth, the new vanilla model has been replaced with GDDR5 memory.

It still has a 192-bit memory bus, but the slower GDDR5 memory means that bandwidth has been cut by 33% to 192 GB / s. This gives interesting results, and we don’t expect the GTX 1660 and 1660 Ti to scale evenly.

Overall, Nvidia says the GTX 1660 is 30% faster than the GTX 1060 3GB and 15% faster than the GTX 1060 6GB at 1080p, which we’ll definitely check out today.

Nvidia also informed us that the GTX 1660 is on average 68% faster than the GTX 970 and 113% faster than the GTX 960. Future improvements for older GPUs are one of the prime targets in this price range. As long as you have an 8 pin PCIe power connector you can go, but you can also get 4 pin Molex adapters.

We have the MSI GTX 1660 Gaming X tab on hand for testing. This comes in handy as our 1660 Ti results are based on the same MSI Gaming X model and the same is true for the RTX 2060. Call out to MSI for looking after us for these releases. In fact, without their support that day, the content would not be possible. In the same vein, Nvidia has also been helpful with the recent Turing GTX releases, quickly delivering the necessary drivers for us to proceed with our testing.

In this review, we’ll look at performance across a dozen game titles, and next week we’ll be introducing one of our mega benchmarks spanning over 30 games.

Before we start, a few quick notes on our test system. We tested with a Core i9-9900K clocked at 5 GHz with 32 GB of DDR4-3200 memory. We used the Adrenalin 2019 Edition 19.2.3 drivers for Radeon and Game Ready 419.35 WHQL GPUs for GeForce GPUs. Our focus is on 1080p performance.

Benchmarks

To start with, we have the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmarks and here the new GTX 1660 performs exceptionally well. It blows the GTX 1060 6GB out of the water by almost 40% and is only 4% slower than the GTX 1070 and 13% slower than the 1660 Ti.

Not only that, but with an average of 76 fps at 1080p at the highest graphics settings, it provided a super smooth and enjoyable gameplay. We have a good start.

The GTX 1660 is not that impressive in Forza Horizon 4 where it matched the RX 590 and was only slightly slower than the GTX 1070. Compared to the GTX 1060 6GB it was 16% faster, which isn’t bad, but not great either.

The GTX 1660 achieves an average of 65 fps in Just Cause 4 at 1080p, which places it roughly on par with the Radeon RX 590 and is 18% ahead of the GTX 1060 6 GB in this title. It was about 11% slower than the 1660 Ti so overall not a bad result.

Testing with Resident Evil 2 we find another title where the GTX 1660 matches the RX 590, though in this case it is almost 30% faster than the GTX 1060 6GB, a significant improvement.

With an average of 94fps at 1080p with maximum play, there’s nothing to sneeze at.

Hitman 2 is a CPU limitation game at 1080p using the GTX 1660 Ti or better. We can see that the 1660 does not quite meet the CPU requirements, but nonetheless is 16% faster than the RX 590 and 29% faster than the GTX 1060 6GB. Hitman 2 is a slightly strange title, but the 1660 works well here.

The GTX 1660 is doing well in Fortnite, it’s not amazing, but it certainly 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. At an average of 113 frames per second with the quality setting of “Epic” in 1080p, this is not what can be called slow.

The performance on Metro Exodus is good, here the GTX 1660 was only 8% slower than the Ti model. It was 16% faster than the GTX 1060, which meant the difference between a nice smooth running experience and a noticeably lower frame rate.

We’ve seen before that Turing loves Rainbow Six Siege, and Rainbow Six Siege loves Turing. Either way, that’s good news for future GTX 1660 owners. Here, the new budget GPU threw an unbelievable average of 118fps at 1080p at 100% rendering scale. This is a huge performance increase of 36% over the GTX 1060 6GB.

Tests from Battlefield V show that the 1660 is ahead of the Ti model by 16% and managed to match only the RX 580. Radeon graphics cards are doing very well in this title. Compared to the GTX 1060 6GB, this is a 12% smaller increase in performance.

The new GPU is not doing so well in World of Tanks. Here, the 1660 is down 17% over the 1660 Ti, which basically puts it on a par with the GTX 1060 6GB.

A boom for its money, the GTX 1660 is unbeatable. Power efficiency is available, and the MSI Gaming X model we used for testing worked like a charm, running cool and quiet, with a reasonable amount of overclocking headroom available.

Zotac GeForce GTX 1660 Super Twin Fan Specs

Graphics processor	Nvidia Turing TU116
GPU Base Clock	1530 MHz
GPU boost clock	1785 MHz
Graphics memory type	GDDR6
The amount of graphics memory	6 GB
DVI outputs	0
HDMI outputs	1
DisplayPort outputs	2
VirtualLink outputs	No
Number of fans	2
Card width	double
Card length	6.83 inches
Plate power or TDP	125 watts
Power connector (s	1 8-pin

The GeForce GTX 1660 family of graphics cards hasn’t even been released in a year, but it looks like Nvidia’s tendency to “super-dimension” all of its cards has given her its turn for a super-barrel. As a cost-effective graphics card built for 1080p gaming, the new GeForce GTX 1660 Super is a tactically priced addition to Nvidia’s expanding range of major graphics options. We looked at it in Zotac’s guise as the $ 239 GeForce GTX 1660 Super Twin Fan, and while it’s only a modest step over the non-Super GTX 1660, it still has enough power to keep esports and 1080p AAA gamers playing long overnight. It’s close enough to the next GeForce GTX 1660 Ti at a price that beats our Editors’ Choice award for 1080p gaming cards – for now.

Let’s ‘Super’ All the Things!

First, the question we’re probably all asking: Why? With both the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti and GeForce GTX 1660 already on the market, many potential mid-priced graphics card buyers in late 2019 may be wondering where this new GTX 1660 Super card might fit.

Since 1982, PCMag has tested and evaluated thousands of products to help you make better purchasing decisions. (See how we test.)

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From a price perspective alone, the GTX 1660 Super line will start at $ 229 ($ 10 more than the original GeForce GTX 1660 $ 219), although the specific Zotac Super Twin Fan we’ve tested will hit the shelves for $ 10 more.

The GTX 1660 Super is also the first Super variant we’ve seen from Nvidia in its GTX line of graphics cards (as opposed to RTX), cards that don’t come with the ray tracing and DLSS features of RTX’s flagship cards. This could open the door to more supercars that will start hitting the mid-range budget GPU market in the near future. Nvidia has already confirmed one: the GeForce GTX 1650 Super, coming in late November.

All three cards – the GeForce GTX 1660, GTX 1660 Ti and GTX 1660 Super – are based on Nvidia’s “Turing” TU116 architecture. Some of the subtle differences in memory clocks, bandwidth, and memory types set it apart from the top two lines of the standard GTX 1660.

The fourth and fifth installments of the Far Cry series are based on DirectX 11, but still require. We loop the comparison charts together because they are similar.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 review: Faster than a GTX 1060 for the same price

Well it didn’t take long, did it? Just three weeks ago, Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1660 Ti hit our list of the best graphics cards as our new champion of flawless 1080p gaming, and today premieres its non-Ti brother, the regular GTX 1660. £ 200 / $ 220, Nvidia says, that this graphics card is prepared and ready to replace their 3GB GTX 1060. Fortunately my results are more optimistic as I would say this is the card you should buy instead of the 6GB GTX 1060. Is this your new best budget graphics card we have been waiting for? Let’s find out.

Now, if you look at the name of the GTX 1660 and think, “Wait a minute, what the hell is it?”, Here’s a quick reminder of what Nvidia’s new GTX 16 series really is and how it differs from their RTX 20 series. GTX 1660 Ti reviews, the GTX 16 series uses the same Turing-based GPU architecture as their more exclusive RTX cousins, but doesn’t have any of the RTX components that make them RTX cards – so no rays-tracking and no performance-enhancing DLSS magic. Hence, they are GTX cards, not RTX cards.

As for why Nvidia went with the number 16 instead of just calling them GTX 20 cards well, the less 16 is said to be closer to 20 than 10 the better, really, because yes, that’s really Nvidia’s logic when choosing that particular number.

The only important Turing feature that the GTX 16 series has is its Swish Shader technology, which enables other performance-enhancing techniques such as content-adaptive, variable-speed, and motion-adaptive shading. For more information on how they work, see my RTX guide. The bad news is that, like ray tracing and DLSS, they all need to be backed by the developers themselves before you can begin to see any benefits – and right now the only game that actually supports any of them is Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus.

As with the GTX 1660 Ti, you need an 8-pin power connector to run the GTX 1660.

All in all, it’s not a very good selling point, but as I said with the GTX 1660 Ti, I really don’t think it matters a lot here, as the GTX 1660’s raw performance is still better than what you can get by spending the same amount if in some cases not more, 6 GB GTX 1060.

Specifications Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660 OC:
VRAM: 6 GB GDDR5
CUDA Cores: 1408
Base clock speed: 1530 MHz
Increase the clock speed: 1830 MHz

For example, in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660 model that I was sent for review was able to hit an average of 52fps as I fiddled around his busy day of the market festival dead-end in Cozumel on Ultra settings at 1920×1080 with the demanding x4 SMAA anti-aliasing enabled, which is a huge improvement over my Asus GeForce GTX 1060 OC average, which is just 38fps under the same conditions.

We saw a similar jump in performance in Monster Hunter: World when I set it to Highest in 1080p, where the GTX 1660 average was 51fps, far outperforming the GTX 1060’s 40fps. That’s pretty impressive for a £ 200 card, especially when it’s more expensive by The £ 60 / $ 60 GTX 1660 Ti will only raise it to 58fps.

Tagged With

Katharine is the editor-in-chief of the RPS, which means she is now to blame for it all. After joining the team in 2017, she spent a lot of time in the mines of RPS gear testing all the components that are in our computers, but now she can write about all the cute games we play as well. She will play pretty much anything she can get her hands on and is very biased in JRPG games and quest downloads.

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In our testing, we wanted to focus some of our efforts on the esports aspect of the GTX 1660 Super’s capabilities as most of the press from Nvidia focused on its ability to push 1080p multiplayer games to the highest frame rates possible.

Our test system

Our dedicated graphics card testing system is equipped with some of the fastest complementary components available to put any potential performance bottlenecks directly on the GPU. Most of the equipment was provided by the manufacturers, but we purchased the refrigerator and storage ourselves.

• Intel Core i7-8700K processor ($ 360 on Amazon)
• EVGA CLC 240 liquid cooler with closed loop ($ 120 on Amazon)
• Asus Maximus X Hero Motherboard ($ 260 on Amazon)
• 64GB HyperX Predator RGB DDR4 / 2933 ($ 318 for 32GB at Amazon)
• 1200W EVGA SuperNova P2 power supply ($ 180 on Amazon)
• Corsair Crystal 570X RGB case, with front and top panels removed and additional rear fan installed for better airflow ($ 160 on Amazon)
• 2 Samsung 860 EVO SSDs with a capacity of 500GB ($ 78 each on Amazon)

We compare the $ 250 EVGA GeForce GTX 1660 XC Ultra with its big sibling, the $ 310 EVGA GTX 1660 Ti XC Ultra as well as its predecessor, the overclocked version of the EVGA 6GB GTX 1060 also includes the GTX 1070 Founders Edition and ray tracing GeForce RTX card 2060 Founders Edition for $ 350.

We got our review sample very close to the deadline and didn’t have time to retest the $ 200 GTX 1060 with 3GB, but since the new GPU outclasses the 6GB GTX 1060 we can safely skip the slower 3GB variant in our results. (Which is worth it, Nvidia says the GTX 1660 is “on average 30 percent faster” than the 3GB GTX 1060 at reference clock rates.)

Then, to test the Zotac GeForce GTX 1660 Super Twin Fan thermals, I ran the Fire Strike Ultra Benchmark load test for 10 minutes and saved the results to GPU-Z.

How We Test

At WePC, we always test components to make sure they work well, and graphics cards are one of our main goals.

When we test something, performance and clock speed are key to us. However, we know that many other important elements need to be considered, such as the cooling solution, design and price. We look at the full package from different perspectives.

Only when we are sure that the components we are looking at are working exceptionally well will we recommend them to our readers.

Things To Consider

If you need a quick guide on what to consider and what to look for when buying a graphics card, there are a few key points to keep in mind. Price, performance, cooling, and size are perhaps the most important elements when it comes to comparing graphics cards. However, even that is not the complete picture.

Another thing you need to consider is how your graphics card will perform in conjunction with other computer components, such as the CPU and installed RAM. If you plan to invest in a graphics card, you need to make sure your CPU is solid and has a similar level of performance so that both can work together at an optimal level.

Price

This is usually the first thing customers want to know about any product. How much does it cost and can I afford it? It’s always a good idea to have a clear budget in mind before starting your search.

There are many monstrous GPUs out there, all of which offer tons of features, overclocking power, and shiny new designs. However, it’s easy to get lost in hours of GPU research when you can save a lot of time and have a close look at the cards within your set budget.

Overall, more expensive cards will have better performance, but that doesn’t mean anything at a low price is worth it. You can still get great performance from the budget card.

Performance

Considering the price, performance is key, but what you need is completely relative. Some people need high clock speeds and overclocking capabilities, but many don’t.

After establishing a budget, the best thing you can do is define exactly what you’ll be using this graphics card for. Now that you know what games you play the most, take the time to read the system requirements to see what GPU performance you need to run them.

System requirements can vary a lot for games, so if you’re playing low-end titles, there’s simply no need to invest hundreds in a GPU, which is a bit overkill for your needs.

Cooling

Any type of computer build requires some degree of cooling to keep things stable at temperature. However, players should always pay attention to the temperature. The built-in cooling system for each card should be enough to keep it cool, but things get a bit more precarious when it comes to overclocking.

We’ll talk more about overclocking later, but for now, if you’re going beyond your usual limits, it’ll increase the overall temperature. This may mean that the built-in cooling system is not enough.

In that case, you may need to spend some time researching and investing in alternative cooling methods such as additional fans or even water cooling.

This is perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of choosing a graphics card. You can, like many, assume your PC case will be able to fit any size graphics card – or even assume they’re all the same size.

However, when it comes to high-performance graphics cards, they tend to be larger in size. This means that you may need to measure the space inside the case before purchasing. The last thing you want to do is buy it and return it as it doesn’t match, only to start your GPU search again.

In general, graphics cards with many fans and ports will be slightly larger than the standard ones. This could unfortunately be the price of a better cooling system or a more powerful GPU.

If you’ve been holding off on a popular 1080p gaming graphics card, the GeForce GTX 1660 Super might be your impetus for buying: it’s a solid landmark at the popular price point between the GTX 1660 and GTX 1660 Ti.

Performance

Dan Baker / digital trends

Nvidia has made concerted efforts to dazzle the performance of their graphics cards, and the RTX 2060, GTX 1660 Ti and 1660 are in different price and performance ranges. A look at their strict specs reveals the true performance of these cards just as much as benchmarks were able to do.

RTX 2060	GTX 1660 Ti	GTX 1660 Super	GTX 1660
GPU	TU106	TU116	TU116	TU116
CUDA cores	1920	1536	1408	1408
RT cores	thirty	0	0	0
Tensor Cores	240	0	0	0
Core clock	1365 MHz	1500 MHz	1530 MHz	1530 MHz
The boost clock	1680 MHz	1.770 MHz	1.785 MHz	1.785 MHz
Memory	6 GB of GDDR6 memory	6 GB of GDDR6 memory	6 GB of GDDR6 memory	6 GB of GDDR5 memory
Memory speed	12 Gb / s	12 Gb / s	14 Gb / s	8 Gb / s
Memory bus width	192-bit	192-bit	192-bit	192-bit
Memory bandwidth	336 GB / s	288 GB / s	336 GB / s	192 GB / s
TDP	160W	120W	125W	120W

Ray tracing and DLSS

While the RTX 2060 supports hardware ray tracing acceleration, other cards do as well, albeit with limited capacity. Thanks to the driver update from Nvidia, all GTX 16 and 10 series cards can render ray tracing in-game, but without hardware acceleration using RT cores, performance is not great, even on the latest generation of high-end cards such as the GTX 1080 Ti.

The problem with ray traced lighting effects is that it requires an excessive amount of GPU to render. This is why RT cores are required and they make such a difference to RTX cards; especially the high-end ones. If you want to play ray tracing games at a comfortable frame rate, the RTX 2060 is the only card you can opt for in this case, though it will still be limited to 1080p in most games. The GTX 16 series cards will let you see what ray tracing looks like, but won’t be able to play many ray traced games at anything close to your comfortable frame rate.

With that in mind, it’s a shame that deep learning super sampling (DLSS) support is limited to RTX graphics cards. It requires Tensor cores to run, and the GTX 1660, 1660 Super, and 1660 Ti just don’t have them, so they won’t be able to use DLSS. The RTX 2060 may and may give it an extra edge when it comes to ray tracing, although the very limited number of games supported make it a bit negligible. Moreover, our experience with the combination of both functions has not been great so far.

The GTX 1660 Super managed to beat the GTX 1660 Ti in the FFXV in the 4K test, which suggests that this game in particular makes better use of the higher memory clock offered (14 Gb / s in the GTX 1660 Super, compared to just 12 Gb / s in the GTX 1660 Ti).

GTX 1660 super benchmark :

The following pictures you can see are the reference for the following games :

1. Overwatch – Low settings, 100% texture filter (competitive settings)
2. CSGO – Low Settings (Competitive Settings)
3. Division 2 – Default settings
4. Call of duty: Modern Warfare (Low to Mid settings: Competitive settings)
5. GTA 5 (default settings)
6. Apex Legends (default settings)

The reason for choosing the competitive settings is that when playing competitive games you will not use up any extra CPU, you will get more frames per second and smoother gameplay when playing on a 144Hz monitor.

The specifications used for game testing are :

Processor – Ryzen 5 3600 @ 4GHz
Motherboard – MSI B450 Tomahawk Max
RAM – Adata XPG D60 8×2 @ 3600Mhz
Power supply – Cooler Master 750w 80+ Gold fully modular
Cabinet – Corsair 110R
GPU – Inno 3D GTX 1660 super (Inno 3D RTX 2070 super iChill x3 ultra)
Hard Drive – WD Green 1 TB
SSD – Kingston 120GB boot drive and 240GB Samsung gaming drive
Monitor – Samsung 24 inch CFG73 144 Hz main monitor and BenQ 24 inch auxiliary monitor

Streaming with the GTX 1660 super :

GTX 1660 super is in my opinion a beast not only in games, but also in streaming. Now that you’ve seen the specs of my PC, which is 2020’s favorite build for most gamers and the most recommended in the PCMR community.

The settings I use are as follows :

Mode – Advanced
Streaming mode – Nvidia nvenc h.264
CBR – 4000-6000 on Twitch and 8000-10000 on YouTube
Basic resolution – 1080p
Output resolution – 1080p
Key interval – 2 seconds
Profile – Main

With these settings, the CPU load does not exceed 1-2%, as in the case of the GPU load. This does not mean that you will have to face huge drops in FPS, but very small drops in FPS i.e. 10-15 from the normal FPS you get. This card can support 1080p streaming like a charm, bringing you the best audience experience. Who would like to watch an unstable stream with a lot of dropping frames and buffering? Definitely not me. This card is a little beast that can handle anything I can eject it with and still pushes out the results.

What I feel about the 1660 Super after using it for a month – FInal verdict :

Honestly, I’ve been testing the GTX 1660 super from Inno 3D for over a month, and used the RTX 2070 super before. In games like CSGO, Overwatch, League of Legends etc, the FPS impact was very little. Thus, it was quite difficult to notice the changes between the two cards. The games I felt a difference were new titles like COD and GTA 5’s evergreen games. This is because these games are resource intensive. Even though the difference is noticed, when playing 1080p they are very negligible and will not change. Aesthetically, this card even has a backplate. Which brand actually provides the backplate in this segment?!

Branding speaking, Inno 3D is a less dominant brand in the graphics card community, but is one brand that has consistently supported many newcomers, ensuring the best value for money you can get. Not only on the GTX 1660 super, but also on many other graphics cards from 10 to 20 series and from GTX to RTX. They were the best choice for buck card when I was looking for a GPU for my own build.

Resource-intensive games like Apex Legends have been treated like a charm and have never let me down below 144fps. I tried a few other budget cards in this range, but the performance I got with the 1660 Super was way better than expected. The only downside is that the card doesn’t come with the RT (ray tracing) and tensor cores found in the latest RTX series graphics card. But honestly, ray tracing is still in development, and not many games support ray tracing. It would just be another feature every gamer is waiting for, but technically I would prefer non-ray traced games to ray traced games due to resource consumption and the visual part. In competitive games, graphics are the least disturbing. The main element is maintaining a consistent FPS &Load less CPU to get smooth 144+ FPS on 144Hz monitor.

Moving on to the streaming section of this tab, you can expect frames per second to drop while streaming. On this tab, the drop was around 10 to 15 FPS when streaming. Again, this card has crushed the FPS in a lot of the games I’ve played regularly, which is why I didn’t notice a difference in streaming either. The 1660 super is the perfect addition to any budget version, not only for gaming but also for streaming. I really enjoyed the card during the review period and would highly recommend this card to those looking to get a budget card below Rs. 20,000 in India and for someone who wants to play 1080p. This card can handle 2K and 4K for sure, but with FPS compensation.