Nvidia GTX 1660 evaluation: the highest $200-level graphics card, rendering AMD’s RX 590 out of date

Put in your shocked faces, folks, the Nvidia GTX 1660 has arrived and we’re all meant to behave shocked {that a} month after the Ti card launched we’re getting a brand new model. Don’t look it sq. within the eyes and I reckon we are able to pull this off. If the GTX 1660 Ti was the worst stored secret in tech then the existence of the GTX 1660 makes it maybe the obvious graphics card ever made.

But that’s to not say there aren’t some little surprises available with the brand new Nvidia GeForce GPU. Well, I say ‘surprises’ however a lot of the precise specs had been leaked effectively earlier than launch, so even that little static shock of pleasure has been stolen from us. Still, the specs not less than aren’t as apparent as the cardboard’s look on the cabinets of your favorite retailer.

The GTX 1660 has squeezed itself into the tightest of spots within the mainstream graphics card market, a spot that’s getting extra populous with each passing second. Nuzzling itself in between the GTX 1660 Ti, RX 590 and RX 580, the brand new GeForce has bought a superb value/efficiency juggling act on its palms. Sorry, did I not point out the brand new GPU additionally has palms?

Because of the pricing unfold between the primary 16-series card and the highest two AMD Polaris GPUs, choosing the precise specs of the non-Ti model of the GTX 1660 will need to have felt a bit of like making an attempt to nail a free bowel motion to the wall. On the one hand the GTX 1660 can’t be specced out to cannibalise the 1660 Ti, and which means it must be tangibly slower than its barely older sibling. But it additionally must nonetheless be quicker than the RX 590 and the RX 580 from AMD, whereas not costing as a lot as both.

Read extra: The best gaming monitors to match your GPU

That doesn’t depart it quite a lot of wiggle room on the market and the alternatives that Nvidia’s engineers and execs have made by way of the make up of this model of the Turing TU116 GPU bear that out.

Yes, it’s nonetheless the 12nm TU116 graphics silicon, however Nvidia has reduce out a pair of streaming multiprocessors from the package deal to take it from 24 SMs right down to 22 SMs. That means the CUDA core rely has dropped from 1,536 to 1,408… which isn’t truly all that a lot. In truth with a drop of simply 8% in CUDA core rely that makes it the smallest slice Nvidia has ever eliminated to make the non-Ti model of a GPU.

Between the GTX 1050 Ti and the 1050, for instance, there’s a 16% delta, whereas for the GTX 1080 Ti and GTX 1070 Ti playing cards it’s a 20% and 21% distinction respectively. The closest comparability actually is the reduce Nvidia made when making the 3GB model of the GTX 1060. When reducing the GP106 GPU right down to dimension it misplaced 10% of its CUDA cores, from 1,280 to 1,152. It’s no shock then to see Nvidia making that comparability within the reviewer’s information for the brand new card.

But then Nvidia couldn’t reduce an excessive amount of out of the chip or else you’d be taking a look at GTX 1060-level gaming efficiency and that simply wouldn’t reduce it within the face of the mixed Polaris competitors. And which means it’s needed to be slightly extra beneficiant than perhaps it might in any other case need.

Where it has been capable of make an enormous change, nonetheless, is within the reminiscence design of the lower-caste GPU. Instead of the GDDR6 reminiscence used all through the remainder of the Turing graphics card vary, Nvidia has switched again to GDDR5 for the underside rungs of the 16-series ladder. That means a change from 12Gbps to 8Gbps, and a 33% drop in reminiscence bandwidth, from 288.1GB/s to 192.1GB/s.

That received’t make a large distinction by way of general gaming efficiency, however does change the entire invoice of supplies for the brand new card. GDDR6 could not essentially be within the HBM2 realms of super-expensive reminiscence tech, however switching to GDDR5 will probably characterize a fairly vital money saving.

In phrases of the clock pace there isn’t loads between the GTX 1660 and its Ti brethren. The reference frequencies have the increase clock of the newer GPU at 1,785MHz and the Ti operating at 1,770MHz. That stated, the Gigabyte GTX 1660 we’re testing is an overclocked model and that offers it a hefty 1,830MHz increase clock.

So, lightspeed gaming then, proper? Well, the GTX 1660 is certainly quicker than the now defunct GTX 1060, so any fears that it would simply launch on the identical degree have fortunately been salved.

Its actual goal, nonetheless, is the RX 590 from AMD. That’s the cardboard accountable for Nvidia having to chop near the Ti bone by way of the GTX 1660’s specs, and it’s truly a slightly close-fought battle between the 2.

On the entire the Nvidia card, on this Gigabyte overclocked trim, does outperform the highest AMD Polaris GPU. There aren’t any Founders Editions on this Nvidia accomplice launch, so I’d anticipate a very good variety of the GTX 1660 playing cards you discover on the cabinets might be overclocked to some extent.

And which means the GTX 1660 is doubling down on the Ti model’s efforts to make the RX 590 fully out of date. With Deus Ex and Battlefield V, two historically AMD-favouring titles, you’re going to get extra out of the Polaris GPU, however for almost all of our gaming suite the GTX 1660 is both operating on the identical pace or barely forward. And doing it with a cheaper price tag too.

I’d say that this Gigabyte GTX 1660 card is kind of closely overclocked in contrast with the reference clocked GPUs, regardless of it sharing the identical MSRP at launch. That means reference variations could be a good bit slower, and there’s the prospect that the $219 (£199) launch value of this OC card may not stick round lengthy after launch day gross sales have handed.

But for this nominally cheaper Nvidia card its present gaming efficiency makes it a much more worthy buy than the RX 590 for a gamer on a price range. There is, nonetheless, nonetheless the purpose that the RX 580 isn’t that far off the efficiency of both the RX 590 or GTX 1660, and nearly undercuts each playing cards by way of its pricing.

The 8GB RX 580 playing cards are sometimes effectively below $200 and nonetheless make for an amazing gaming improve for anybody rocking an older GPU who isn’t capable of stretch over that $200 value level. Again that’s why Nvidia has so particularly focused the worth of the GTX 1660, even this overclocked Gigabyte card, at $219 (£199).

Specs-wise it’s there to compete with the RX 590 and priced in opposition to the RX 580. And at this level I doubt there’s loads AMD or its companions can do about dropping the Polaris pricing any decrease than it presently is.

With the AMD Navi mainstream GPUs arriving across the summertime manufacturing of Polaris chips will inevitably gradual to make means for them. That means the overstuffed Radeon stock will skinny out, costs will probably begin to rise, leaving the mainstream Turing GPUs as doubtlessly the one present on the town till Navi does launch.

There remains to be the battle with the GTX 1660 that we’ve bought a model new technology of graphics playing cards that isn’t actually providing a complete lot that’s new. It’s successfully providing the same value level for related ranges of gaming efficiency in contrast with the playing cards we’ve got now.

At this value the Nvidia GTX 1660 is the cardboard somebody coming in recent, or upgrading from a 3 year-old mainstream GPU, must be taking a look at. But anybody presently sitting on an RX 580, or perhaps a GTX 1060, in all probability shouldn’t be desirous about this as a real improve and should be wanting increased up the GPU ladder, in all probability in direction of the $300-ish Ti model.