The GTX 1660 is the second GTX card to appear in Nvidia’s Turing line-up, stripping away the specialized hardware of RTX cards to deliver solid gaming performance at a lower price – in this case just £200/$220. The GTX 1660 Ti proved to be a worthy alternative to the RTX 2060, offering around 85 percent of the performance at 75 percent of the price, so will we see similar value in the even cheaper card? That’s what this article aims to find out, as we examine the GTX 1660’s in-game performance compared to its closest competitors.
Before getting into the results, it’s worth briefly covering the features of the new card. While you don’t get hardware-accelerated RTX or deep learning supersampling (DLSS), the GTX 1660 still includes some of the other benefits of the new Turing architecture, including support for variable rate shading (VRS), which can significantly increase the performance in games that support it, a list that contains only one entry at the moment: Wolfenstein 2.
When looking at the GTX 1660’s specs, it’s easy to see where Nvidia has made cuts to achieve a lower price. The modern GDDR6 video memory used in all other Turing cards so far has been swapped out for previous-generation GDDR5, meaning we see a 33 percent reduction in memory speeds compared to the GTX 1660 Ti despite a 192-bit bus of the same size. There are also fewer CUDA cores on the new card, although the frequencies have been increased slightly to compensate. So we’d expect the GTX 1660 to have mid-range performance between the GTX 1060 and GTX 1660 Ti, but where does it sit exactly?
To answer this question, we tested the GTX 1660 in nine recent games, from Assassin’s Creed Odyssey to The Witcher 3. Given the power provided by this caliber of hardware, our tests will focus on 1080p and 1440p resolutions; You shouldn’t expect playable 4K frame rates even at reduced graphics settings in modern games.
The Gigabyte GTX 1660 card we tested offers a small 45MHz overclock in exchange for a small premium over the RRP.
| GTX 1060 | GTX 1660 | GTX 1660Ti | RX580 | RX590 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU cores | 1280 | 1408 | 1536 | 2304 | 2304 |
| VRAM | 6GB GDDR5 | 6GB GDDR5 | 6GB GDDR6 | 8GB GDDR5 | 8GB GDDR5 |
| memory bus | 192 bits | 192 bits | 192 bits | 256 bit | 256 bit |
| Broadband | 192GB/s | 192GB/s | 288GB/s | 256GB/s | 256GB/s |
| impulse clock | 1708MHz | 1785MHz | 1770MHz | 1340MHz | 1545MHz |
| Processor | GP106 | TU116 | TU116 | Polaris 20 | Polaris 30 |
Our benchmark results are shown below for each of the games and resolutions we tested. We’ve selected some interesting comparisons by default, but you can use the controls to the right of each video to add or remove data points yourself. Press play on the video and you’ll see how each card handles the test scene as it unfolds. If you prefer a single, viewable summary, we also have more traditional bar charts, and this is all you’ll see on mobile. If you’re on a desktop, these bar charts get a few extra features: you can mouse over to see the worst, best, and average performance for each card, and you can click on the chart to switch between absolute frame rates and percentages. Now that this has been explained, let’s get into the results.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
Our first game is one of the most challenging in our arsenal: the latest Assassin’s Creed title, Odyssey. This game’s ultra-high preset is truly exhausting, with tranquil views and detailed textures providing an intense workout even for modern graphics hardware. The GTX 1060 averages 40fps at 1080p, dropping to 29fps at 1440; the GTX 1660 improves on this with averages of 46 fps and 36 fps, respectively. That equates to an advantage of about 15 percent at 1080p and 25 percent at 1440p. Meanwhile, the GTX 1660 remains comfortably ahead of the RX 580 and RX 590 at all resolutions tested by at least 20 percent.
AC Odyssey: Ultra High, TAA
Assassin’s Creed Unity
Assassin’s Creed Unity may be four years older than its little brother, but it’s still a challenging test thanks to the depth of field effect used almost constantly in this opening scene overlooking the Notre Dame Cathedral. The GTX 1660 is consistently around 15 percent ahead of its predecessor, the GTX 1060. Considering AMD cards, the lead the GTX 1660 has over the RX 590 is 10 percent at 1080p, although this reduces to only six percent. at 1440p, where the higher CPU utilization of the AMD card becomes less of a concern.
Assassin’s Creed Unity: Ultra High, FXAA
Battlefield 1
Battlefield 1 on DirectX 12 is a game that has always favored AMD hardware, and that trend continues with the recently released RX 590 facing the even newer GTX 1660. The AMD card is in a tie with Nvidia’s latest, just by behind at 1080p, but squeaking an imperceptible advantage at 1440p. The GTX 1660 shows a big improvement over the GTX 1060 here, measured at 17 percent at 1080p and close to 20 percent at 1440p.
Battlefield 1: Ultra, TAA
Crisis 3
As games and their engines evolve, developers tend to add support for new tricks and features to get extra performance from newer graphics hardware. That means older games tend to be relatively tougher tests for new graphics hardware, particularly entry-level cards like the GTX 1660, and that’s what we see with Crysis 3. This game, released almost six years ago, still It runs faster on the GTX 1660 than the GTX 1060, but the margin between the two cards is much smaller than in more modern titles. Specifically, we’re seeing only an eight percent gap at 1080p and even less at 1440p. Once again, the GTX 1660 and RX 590 are tied.
Crysis 3: Very high, SMAA T2X
Very far away 5
As we return to a newer title in Far Cry 5, you can see a wider gap opening up between the GTX 1060 and its replacement, the GTX 1660. We measured it at around 15 percent at 1080p and a few percentage points more at 1440p. Meanwhile, the RX 590 takes the first significant win against the GTX 1660, pulling ahead by a few percentage points at 1440p despite being level at 1080p.
Far Cry 5: Ultra, TAA
Ghost Recon Wildlands
Ghost Recon Wildlands is a fairly easy game to run and enjoy at its high preset settings, but cranking things up to ultra and even high-end graphics cards start to seriously struggle. We’re using those ultra graphics settings here, and you can see it does a number on the GTX 1660 with averages of just 45fps at 1080p and 35fps at 1440p. That’s still 14 percent faster than the GTX 1060 6GB in the same test, mind you.
Ghost Recon Wildlands: Ultra, TAA
The Rise of the Tomb Raider
It’s a similar story in Rise of the Tomb Raider, where the GTX 1660 manages a 13 percent lead over the GTX 1060 6GB at both 1080p and 1440p. However, the RX 590 remains a close rival for the new Nvidia GeForce card, with a one percent deficit at 1080p but a three percent lead at 1440p.
Rise of the Tomb Raider: Very high, SMAA
The shadow of the Tomb Raider
The GTX 1660 shows its poise in modern titles well in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the final part of the Tomb Raider remake trilogy. The GTX 1660 has a 27 percent lead at 1080p over the GTX 1060, the largest differential we’ve seen so far. At 1440p, things are more even, with a 12 percent advantage for the newer card.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Taller, TAA
The Witcher 3
The Witcher 3 is one of the best RPGs released this decade, although its AI sometimes stops our testing scene. It’s also a good test for mainstream GPUs, which should be able to hit 60fps at maximum settings (aside from Hairworks disabled) at 1080p and close to that figure at 1440p. The GTX 1660 improves 17 percent over the GTX 1060 in Full HD, achieving a comfortable 77 fps on average, but only hits 52 fps at 1440p. The Witcher is another game where AMD’s RX 580 and RX 590 perform competitively, with the RX 580 nearly outperforming the new Nvidia card and the RX 590 proving to be the better performer overall.
Witcher 3: Ultra, Post-AA, no hairstyles
This closes our look at the performance of the GTX 1660. In the meantime, why not check out the full GTX 1660 Digital Foundry review on YouTube?
Categories: Guides
Source: ptivs2.edu.vn