GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1660 1080p & 1440p Gaming Performance

[PAGETITLE=A Look At GeForce GTX 1660 & Our Test Suite][Top Ad] NVIDIA has been pretty aggressive with its GPU launches this year. Fall 2018 saw the release of the first three GeForce Turings, branded as RTX cards, with the RTX 2060 releasing alongside CES this January. Since then, we've seen the first non-RTX Turing, GTX 1660 Ti, a card that struck us as being a great deal, and a definite thorn in AMD's side. NVIDIA apparently didn't think it was enough to counter the Radeon RX 590 with an equal-priced competitor that performs a lot better. Now, we have the GTX 1660, a $219 USD GPU that again considers the RX 590 its main competitor. Despite the drop from $279 to $219, the 1660 retains the 6GB framebuffer. Aside from the basics, like core counts, the GTX 1660 differs from the 1660 Ti because it sticks to GDDR5, rather than the newer GDDR6. The change results in a card with lower overall memory bandwidth, an effective drop from 288 GB/s to 192 GB/s. This review comes at a time when we're working on many other things, and as it's being written, we've already missed embargo, so let's hop on board the express train to get to some conclusions quicker. NVIDIA's GeForce Gaming GPU Lineup Cores Base MHz Peak FP32 Memory Bandwidth TDP SRP TITAN RTX 4608 1770 16.3 TFLOPS 24GB 1 672 GB/s 280W $1,199 RTX 2080 Ti 4352 1350 13.4 TFLOPS 11GB 1 616 GB/s 250W $999 RTX 2080 2944 1515 10.0 TFLOPS 8GB 1 448 GB/s 215W $699 RTX 2070 2304 1410 7.4 TFLOPS 8GB 1 448 GB/s 175W $499 RTX 2060 1920 1680 6.4 TFLOPS 6GB 1 336 GB/s 160W $349 GTX 1660 Ti 1536 1500 5.5 TFLOPS 6GB 1 288 GB/s 120W $279 GTX 1660 1408 1530 5 TFLOPS 6GB 4 192 GB/s 120W $219 TITAN Xp 3840 1480 12.1 TFLOPS 12GB 2 548 GB/s 250W $1,199 GTX 1080 Ti 3584 1480 11.3 TFLOPS 11GB 2 484 GB/s 250W $699 GTX 1080 2560 1607 8.8 TFLOPS 8GB 2 320 GB/s 180W $499 GTX 1070 Ti 2432 1607 8.1 TFLOPS 8GB 3 256 GB/s 180W $449 GTX 1070 1920 1506 6.4 TFLOPS 8GB 3 256 GB/s 150W $379 GTX 1060 1280 1700 4.3 TFLOPS 6GB 3 192 GB/s 120W $299 GTX 1050 Ti 768 1392 2.1 TFLOPS 4GB 3 112 GB/s 75W $139 GTX 1050 640 1455 1.8 TFLOPS 2GB 3 112 GB/s 75W $109 Notes 1 GDDR6; 2 GDDR5X; 3 GDDR5; 4 HBM2 Architecture: GTX & TITAN = Pascal; RTX = Turing Like the 1660 Ti, NVIDIA didn't sample the 1660 to reviewers. Instead, its poor partners had to scramble to figure out who cards could be sent out to. GIGABYTE was kind enough to fulfill our request, so a big thanks goes out to our friends there. Admittedly, we had expected to have a lot more time than we did with the 1660, though it wasn't as bad as the "less than 24 hours" we had with the 1660 Ti. Usually when that happens, it means market availability might not be so hot out-of-the-gate, but fortunately, availability seems "OK" for the time-being. We see many models at Newegg, but... nothing seems to be available Amazon's US site yet. The memory bandwidth might be lower, but the GTX 1660 is an incredibly attractive card in comparison to the Ti, which costs $60 more. The Ti has 9% more cores, with NVIDIA itself saying it's about 10% faster, based on the FP32 TFLOPS spec. NVIDIA says that the GTX 1660 is an ideal card for those running a similarly targeted GPU from a few generations ago - eg: GTX 960 or 970. But, looking at the table above, it's even a notable upgrade over the GTX 1060, by about 1.2 TFLOPS. In reality, the performance gains are likely to be even higher than that boost implies, thanks to Turing's general optimizations (concurrent FP/INT helps at times). Both GPUs are included in the benchmark results, so we can soon put these assumptions to the test. A Look At Test Methodology. Techgage Gaming GPU Test PC Processor Intel Core i9-9900K (3.6GHz Base, 5.0GHz Turbo, 8C/16T) Motherboard ASUS ROG STRIX Z390-E GAMING CPU tested with BIOS 0602 (October 19, 2018) Memory G.SKILL TridentZ (F4-3400C16-8GSXW) 8GB x 2 Operates at DDR4-3400 16-16-16 (1.35V) AMD Graphics AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 (8GB; Radeon 18.12.3) AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 (8GB; Radeon 18.12.3) AMD Radeon RX 590 (8GB; Radeon 18.12.3) AMD Radeon RX 580 (8GB; Radeon 18.12.3) * AMD Radeon RX 570 (4GB; Radeon 18.12.3) * AMD Radeon RX 550 (2GB; Radeon 18.12.3) * NVIDIA Graphics NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti (11GB; GeForce 417.35) NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 (8GB; GeForce 417.35) NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 (8GB; GeForce 417.35) NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (6GB; GeForce 417.35) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti (6GB; GeForce 418.91) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 (6GB; GeForce 419.35) NVIDIA TITAN Xp (12GB; GeForce 417.35) * NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti (11GB; GeForce 417.35) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (8GB; GeForce 417.35) * NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti (8GB; GeForce 417.35) * NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (8GB; GeForce 417.35) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB; GeForce 417.35) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (4GB; GeForce 417.35) * NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 (2GB; GeForce 417.35) * Storage Kingston SSDNow V310 960GB (SATA 6Gbps) Power Supply Corsair RM650x (650W) Chassis NZXT S340 Elite Mid-tower Cooling Corsair Hydro H100i V2 AIO Liquid Cooler (240mm) Et cetera Windows 10 Pro (64-bit; build 17763) Notes * Synthetic tests only. Games Tested & Vendor Neutrality. A total of eight games are included in our current test suite. Recent additions include Battlefield V, Forza Horizon 4, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Beyond these eight titles, UL's 3DMark and VRMark, as well as Unigine's Superposition, are used for some quick and dirty tests that you may be able to run at home. Here's the full list of tested synthetic benchmarks, games, and developer allegiances: Battlefield V Deus Ex: Mankind Divided - AMD partner F1 2018 Far Cry 5 - AMD partner Forza Horizon 4 Monster Hunter World Shadow of the Tomb Raider - NVIDIA partner Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands - NVIDIA partner UL 3DMark & VRMark Unigine Superposition For our apples-to-apples testing, the graphics settings seen above apply to every one of our tested resolutions so as to deliver easily comparable results. In most cases, each configuration is tested twice, with more runs added if the initial results make the extra testing necessary (which isn't required too often). Note that VSync is disabled at the driver level to prevent games from enabling it without us noticing. [PAGEBREAK][PAGETITLE=Gaming: Battlefield V, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, F1 2018 & Far Cry 5] Battlefield V. Battlefield V kicks things off with results close to equal between the RX 590 and GTX 1660. The Radeon card managed to score an extra two frames on the minimum at 1440p, but that's not enough to set the cards apart. The 1660 Ti, meanwhile, performs better than we even expected against the 1660. The last-gen GTX 1070 remains safe against the 1660. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. AMD's Radeon RX 590 strikes hard in Deus Ex, placing comfortably ahead of NVIDIA's new GTX 1660. That's fair enough since the RX 590 retails for more, but if that card were to drop to GTX 1660 levels, the competition would be fierce. Once again, the 1660 beats out the last-gen GTX 1060, though not to as notable a degree as we saw with BF V. F1 2018. We're starting to see the RX 590 and GTX 1660 flip-flop quite a bit. The Radeon came ahead in Deus Ex, but NVIDIA redeemed itself in F1 2018, keeping a fair bit ahead of both the 590 and GTX 1060. The 1660 Ti continues to separate itself enough from the 1660 to warrant its price difference. Far Cry 5. Wrapping up our first page of tests, the RX 590 and GTX 1660 are once again neck and neck in Far Cry 5, with both delivering suitable enough performance at both resolutions. If the 55~57 FPS at 1440p isn't satisfactory enough, there are myriad options that can be dropped to make a notable difference, quickly. [PAGEBREAK][PAGETITLE=Gaming: Forza Horizon 4, Monster Hunter, SotTR & Ghost Recon Wildlands] Forza Horizon 4. The Forza series is one that Radeon has excelled at delivering top-rate frame rates for in recent years, but Horizon 4 seems to be a little different. Here, the RX 590 falls a fair bit behind the GTX 1660, which results in "well behind" the Ti version of the 1660. Ultimately, all cards deliver good performance here, but it won't be hard to boost the FPS by another 10 FPS or so by adjusting one of the many graphics options available within the game. At 1080p, the game runs great on every single one of these cards. Monster Hunter World. At 1080p, even the old-as-dirt GTX 1060 (I'm kidding!) powers MHW at 60 FPS at high detail. For the same frame rate at 1440p, the 1660 Ti would be the better choice. Overall, this is one title where there RX 590 and 1660 perform about the same. Shadow of the Tomb Raider. SotTR is a title that highlights well how today's mid-range GPUs fare a bit better than the last-gen models. The 1660 in this game really leaps ahead of the GTX 1060. At 1440p, the going really gets tough, forcing you to go with a higher-end GPU, or a mid-range one like the 1660, and then tweak a setting or two to break through 60 FPS average, and increase the minimum. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands. Rounding out our real-world performance, the GTX 1660 places ahead of the more expensive RX 590, so it's easy to draw a conclusion here. This is one game where the Ti version of the card will really bump performance, with that card able to hit 60 FPS at 1440p. That's not to say the 50 FPS at 1440p for the non-Ti is by any stretch "poor". For the card's intended resolution of 1080p, there is a lot of breathing room. [PAGEBREAK][PAGETITLE=Synthetic: 3DMark, VRMark & Superposition] UL 3DMark. The DirectX 11-driven Fire Strike test gives us some odd results, such as the RX 590 placing a good distance ahead of the GTX 1660, despite failing to topple that card in more than one of our eight real-world gaming tests. Oddly, the 4K version of this test even had the 1660 Ti fall behind the RX 590. Meanwhile, the Time Spy test gives its own odd scaling, or at least interesting scaling. The kind of scaling that puts the RTX 2080 Ti well ahead of the RTX 2080. The final chart actually scales more to our expectations, based...

GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1660 1080p & 1440p Gaming Performance

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Rob Williams