Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 - Gaming without the grand prize

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 is a new card at the crucial price point of around 229 euros. It promises to be the new video card for everyone who wants to play fanatically without paying the top prize. We tested him.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660

Price From € 229,-

Clock speed gpu 1530MHz (1785MHz boost)

Memory 6GB gddr5

Connections DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI-DL

Recommended nutrition 450 watts

Website www.nvidia.com

8 Score 80

  • Pros
  • G-Sync and FreeSync
  • Very good 1080p performance
  • Best price-performance ratio (around 250 euros)
  • Negatives
  • Falling short for 1440p and 4K gaming
  • GTX 1660 Ti beckons strong

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 follows immediately after the launch of the slightly more expensive GTX 1660 Ti (from 279 euros). Internally, the GTX 1660 uses the exact same chip as its Ti counterpart with a small piece, about 10 percent, disabled. The GTX 1660 uses the same Turing architecture as the Ti and GeForce RTX cards, making it the first video card around this price point in roughly three years to feature a truly new architecture. High time, and the new architecture will bring great benefits. For example, with this Nvidia card you can also use adaptive sync screens with FreeSync, which are cheaper than screens with Nvidia's G-Sync.

Slow memory sometimes hurts

On paper, the GTX 1660 seems only 10 percent less powerful than its approximately 20 percent more expensive brother, but this model uses cheaper and slower GDDR5 memory where the more luxurious models use GDDR6. As a result, we sometimes see the performance differences between the two models fluctuate between 10 and 25 percent. In any case, with 6 Gigabytes of memory you will not soon be short of something, not even next year.

Score where it counts

If you already own an AMD Radeon RX 580 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060, then you don't have to buy this card for the performance. On average, you improve by about 10 percent compared to those models. For example, if you currently have a video card from the 700 or 900 series such as the GTX 960 and if you notice that recent games run less smoothly, then this is a major upgrade. Every game runs smoothly at 1080p resolution on the highest or near highest settings, especially popular titles like Apex Legends or Fortnite run perfectly. However, gaming on 1440p or 4K panels is not ideal.

Conclusion: maybe the Ti?

The performance improvements over the GTX 1060 and RX 580, plus the lower power consumption, make the new GTX 1660 the new card in its price range and, as expected, the GPU that many gamers on a tight budget will rightly focus on. Although we would like to point out that the GTX 1660 Ti is on average 20 percent faster for a few tens more, which simply can't hurt for future major titles. If you can find the budget for that, the upgrade is definitely worth it, especially at the total cost of a completely new gaming PC.

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