Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super Review: Ti-Like Performance for Less

[harlan4096]

Our Verdict

The factory-overclocked EVGA GTX 1660 Super SC Ultra brings performance close to the more-expensive GTX 1660 Ti, while the cooling solution allows for quiet operation while gaming.

For

Factory overclock
Relatively quiet
Better value than vanilla GTX 1660 at similar price

Against

Only 3 display outputs

Nvidia first released Turing based consumer GPUs in September of 2018 with the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2080. Since that time, the lineup has filled out down to the budget-friendly GTX 1650. More recently, we’ve seen Nvidia launch the Super series of cards (RTX 2080 Super/RTX 2070 Super/RTX 2060 Super), offering more performance at a better price point, as well as filling the gaps on the mid-range to high-end SKUs.

Now Nvidia has released the GTX 1660 Super with an MSRP of $229 (and a street price after launch that matches for entry level models), slotting between the GTX 1660 and 1660 Ti. Along with the GTX 1660 Super, Nvidia also announced a lesser GTX 1650 Super, which we're in the process of testing. One of the best graphics cards for 1080p gaming on a budget, the GTX 1660 Super went on sale on October 29, while the GTX 1650 Super will arrive November 22. These cards, like the mid-range and high-end Super cards that preceded them, are also designed to improve performance and offer a better price-to-performance ratio than the non-super cards that preceded them.

Neither the GTX 1660 Super nor the 1650 Super will have reference or FE models from Nvidia. Precisely for that reason, we have an EVGA GTX 1660 Super SC Ultra card on hand for testing and this review. The SC Ultra includes a dual-fan cooling solution as well as increased boost clocks over the non-Super version. Between this and its faster GDDR6 memory, this card should be easily faster than the GTX 1660 and land within striking distance of the 1660 Ti out of the box.

Features

Both new Super cards are based on the Turing architecture and will use a variant of the TU116 silicon present in the 1660 and 1660 Ti. Like the other GTX Turing-based video cards, they do not include RTX support. The TU116 die is manufactured on the 12nm FFN (FinFET Nvidia) process by TSMC, consists of 6.6 billion transistors, and measures in at 284 mm². Underneath is the same compliment of 1408 cores, 88 TMUs, and 48 ROPS found in the GTX 1660.

The GTX 1660 Super sits on a 192-bit bus fed by six 32-bit memory controllers. The Super's GDDR6 video memory is the main differentiator between it and the original GTX 1660 that uses GDDR5. This change significantly improves memory bandwidth from 192.1 GBps to 336 GBps and serves as the primary source of the performance improvement. Memory capacity remains the same at 6GB, which is plenty for 1080p gaming.

The EVGA GTX 1660 Super SC we have for review sports a 1,530 MHz base clock and 1,750 MHz memory clock. EVGA lists the boost clock at 1,830 MHz, which is 45 Mhz above the reference clock speed of 1,785 MHz. The bumped-up specifications on the 1660 Super yield a small TDP increase from 120W to 125W. Most card partners recommend this card be partnered with a 500W or greater power supply.

Nvidia’s GTX 1650 Super will also use a TU116 variant and includes the Turing NVENC encoder, rather than the Volta encoder included in the original GTX 1650. The GTX 1650 Super sports 1,280 stream processors (up from 896), along with 80 TMUs and 32 ROPs. Base clocks are reported to be 1,530 MHz, with a boost clock of 1,725 MHz, all fitting in a 100W TDP. With the specification bump, we expect the GTX 1650 Super to be a much more capable 1080p card than the vanilla version.

n addition to the hardware alterations, Nvidia also made some existing features more readily available. The first example is Nvidia’s Ultra Low Latency (NULL) mode. In a nutshell, NULL mode activates when the frames per second (fps) go above the refresh rate of the monitor, which Nvidia says prevents screen tearing without adding latency. Nvidia says that using NULL with G-Sync (these features working together is the new bit) improves latency significantly compared to only using V-Sync, which the company feels offers a good balance between image quality (preventing screen tearing) and latency.
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