Nvidia’s mid-range graphics lineup is much stronger in 2020 than it was last year, with a much wider range of options for gamers on a budget. However, having many options has its drawbacks, namely that it is much more difficult to choose the right graphics card for you.
To see how these cards stack up, we’ve benchmarked the GTX 1660 against the GTX 1660 Super, GTX 1660 Ti, and RTX 2060, comparing their specs and features. Which will offer more for the money invested?
Availability and prices
All four cards we’re comparing are available to buy right now in a dizzying array of options. The RTX 2060 is the simplest of the three with Nvidia’s Founders Edition as a solid foundation. When available, it starts at $300 for the KO edition, while overclocked cards or those with fancy cooling solutions can cost as much as $370.
There are no Founders Editions for the GTX 1660 Ti and 1660 Super, but those cards debuted with a bewildering number of third-party alternatives. The former retails for between $280 and $320, while the latter starts at $230, with the most expensive versions priced around $270. The standard 1660 is the most affordable with a starting price of $ 220, but as you’ll see below, it’s a hard sell given how far off-priced the Super version is.
There are plenty of options when it comes to all of these Turing cards, offering different clock speeds, cooling options, and lighting features. Some are better value than others, but the cheapest offer the best ROI in terms of performance, as we’ll discuss below.
Performance
Dan Baker/Digital Trends
Nvidia has put a lot of effort into improving the performance of its graphics card, and the RTX 2060, GTX 1660 Ti, and 1660 occupy different price and performance ranges. A look at their raw specs reveals the actual performance of these cards almost as well as the benchmarks.
| RTX 2060 | GTX 1660Ti | GTX 1660 Cool | gtx1660 | |
| GPUs | TU106 | TU116 | TU116 | TU116 |
| CUDA cores | 1,920 | 1,536 | 1,408 | 1,408 |
| RT core | 30 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| tensor nuclei | 240 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| core clock | 1.365MHz | 1500MHz | 1530MHz | 1530MHz |
| turn up the clock | 1680MHz | 1770MHz | 1785MHz | 1785MHz |
| Memory | 6GB GDDR6 | 6GB GDDR6 | 6GB GDDR6 | 6GB GDDR5 |
| memory speed | 12Gb/s | 12Gb/s | 14Gb/s | 8Gb/s |
| memory bus width | 192 bit | 192 bit | 192 bit | 192 bit |
| memory bandwidth | 336GB/s | 288GB/s | 336GB/s | 192GB/s |
| TDP | 160w | 120w | 125w | 120w |
Based on the specs alone, we can assume that the strongest of the three cards is the RTX 2060, followed by the GTX 1660 Ti, then the GTX 1660 Super, with the GTX 1660 trailing behind. However, the steps for each card are slightly different. While clock speeds are relatively comparable across all four cards (and actually a bit higher on lower-end cards), the drop in CUDA cores from the RTX 2060 to the 1660 Ti is the main differentiating factor on the performance. While the 1660 also takes a step down in terms of CUDA cores, its use of GDDR5 memory results in a 33 percent reduction in memory bandwidth.
It’s also where the GTX 1660 Super makes its smaller CUDA core count. With faster memory, it’s much closer in performance to the 1660 Ti than its other specs might suggest.
These differences show up as you’d expect in games, though there are some variations depending on your preferred quality and resolution settings. In all tests, the RTX 2060 is well ahead of its GTX Turing counterparts, offering performance comparable to, if not better than, the GTX 1070 Ti. The 1660 Ti follows suit with 15 to 25 percent lower fps, though it beats out major AMD competitors like the RX 590. In some cases, it even presents a real challenge to the Vega 56.
The GTX 1660 Super typically sits within a few frames per second of the 1660 Ti, making it the most competitive buy among the 1660s. Especially since it’s priced so close to the stock 1660.
The GTX 1660 is a great performer against a variety of cards, providing a 10-20 percent improvement over the 6GB GTX 1060 in most cases. And it challenges or outperforms the RX 590 and 580 in a wide variety of games at 1080p and 1440p, but falls behind the 1660 Ti by 10 to 25 percent depending on the game being tested.
Lightning tracing and DLSS
Although the RTX 2060 supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing, other cards support it as well, albeit to a limited capacity. Thanks to Nvidia’s driver update, all 16-series and 10-series GTX cards can render in-game ray tracing, but without hardware acceleration with RT cores, performance isn’t great, even on cards of the latest generation of high-end like the GTX. 1080 Ti.
The difficulty with ray-traced lighting effects is that they require an extremely intensive GPU to render. That’s why RT cores are necessary and make such a difference on RTX cards; especially the upper class. If you want to play ray-traced games at a comfortable frame rate, the RTX 2060 is the only card to choose in this case, although you’ll still be limited to 1080p in most games. The GTX 16 series cards will let you see what ray tracing looks like, but you won’t be able to play many ray tracing games at close to comfortable frame rates.
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 work, and the GTX 1660, 1660 Super, and 1660 Ti simply don’t have them, so they won’t be able to use DLSS. The RTX 2060 can, and that could give it an added edge when it comes to ray tracing, although the very limited number of games supported makes it somewhat of a negligible thing right now. Also, our experience with both features in combination has not been great so far.
you get as much as you pay
If $300 – $350 is too much of a price for you, then the GTX 1660 Super is the best option of the bunch. The 1660 Ti is a worthwhile investment only if you can find it at a comparable price. The level of performance is so similar between the two cards that the Super, at a typical savings of $50 to $100, is a much better buy. It pretty much cancels out AMD’s RX 590, though we do occasionally see some heavily discounted RX 590s, making it an attractive alternative.
While the GTX 1660 is a solid choice, we wouldn’t put it at the top of our list. We believe that AMD offers the best performance for the same price. Still, the GTX 1660 is a significant improvement over the previous model, the GTX 1060. The RX 580 and RX 590 are viable alternatives. They can also be significantly cheaper in some cases, especially when AMD’s amazing gaming bundles are factored in. This is where availability and packaging options can make or break the deal. Bundles are almost always a smarter choice (and a better deal) than individual cards. It’s important to note that availability (and retail sales) can also factor into the equation and affect pricing. If you’re looking for something more affordable with similar speed, check out the RX 5500 XT.
These days, we do not recommend tuning factory overclocked versions. Factory overclocked items and stock currently work the same way, so overclocked items no longer have the superiority they did in past generations. The price difference between factory overclocked products and the 1660 Super is too close to be worth it.
Overall, the RTX 2060 is the best buy of the three due to its impressive performance. It also received the most five-star reviews. It’s the kind of quality product you’ll have to pay a penny for, and we know it may be out of reach if you’re on a tight budget. It still beats the competition from Turing products and offers much better value for money. Investing in an RTX 2060 pays off over time, even if you have to spend some time saving up to buy it.
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Categories: GAMING
Source: newstars.edu.vn