Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super Review: Huge Memory Bandwidth Jump

[Julio Franco]

Just in time for the holiday shopping season, we have not one but two new Super graphics cards from Nvidia. So what's new on the GTX 1660 Super? Not a lot on the GPU front, but Nvidia has upgraded the GDDR5 memory with a massive 75% increase in memory bandwidth. In fact, this provides the 1660 Super with even more memory bandwidth than the Ti model.

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/review/1935-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1660-super/

 

[amstech]

Great article Steve.
Wonder who at Nvidia really thinks they need so many damn GPU's.
Are they really selling all of these things?

 

[grumblguts]

Be nice to know where he gets the vega 64 price from because where im from the vega 64 is a lot cheaper than he thinks.
Fix it......

https://imgur.com/3836dIU

 

[wiyosaya]

We can surely count on nVidia to do one thing after releasing new GPUs: release speed-bump GPUs that performs better for the same, or less, cost a few months down the road.

 

[grumblguts]

There is a reason AMD image sharpening dont work on dx11 right now because their sharpening tool actually works and takes time to implement where NVIDIA is just a simple image post process across the hole screen. Yet people are blind.
The difference with AMD image sharpening is the contrast algorithm, where NVIDIA does the hole image AMD only does the sharpening in a much clever way and sharpens where its needed and avoids washing out the image like NVIDIA does.
Reshade in the Nvidia drivers is nvidia trying to make it a proprietary tech when its free for all. The same with freesync another example of nvidia robbing us end users. Prices for these screens will go up now.

 

[moobg]

Be nice to know where he gets the vega 64 price from because where im from the vega 64 is a lot cheaper than he thinks.
Fix it......

https://imgur.com/3836dIU

Vega 56 doesn't make any sense either. Literally the first card that pops up for me on Amazon is the Red Dragon for $300: https://www.amazon.com/PowerColor-56-DisplayPort-AXRX-8GBHBM2-2D2HD/dp/B07BRCZG3M

 

[Shadowboxer]

Who in their right mind would pick an RX590 over this just to save $30!? You get 13% worse performance, way more noise, way more heat, a larger power bill and you’re at the mercy of AMDs awful Radeon driver support.

 

[Vulcanproject]

Looks like a real sweet 1080p card right there. Just over 70FPS on minimums when averaged across all those games, with the best settings enabled.

It's closer to the GTX1070 than the RX590. No doubt you can boost up the core speeds a bit and end up with 1070 performance. I bet all that extra memory bandwidth will make it age fairly well too.

 

[bluetooth fairy]

Looks like a real sweet 1080p card right there. Just over 70FPS on minimums when averaged across all those games, with the best settings enabled.

It depends. It really depends on what you are playing in. I'd look at worst case scenario if we consider that we buy a videocard not every year. 55-57 1% lows is a common thing for 1660s at 1080p, while if we want it to be little more future-proof we'd better look at 1440p numbers, where 1660s usually sits at middle 40s. Moreover there's no new titles in this test, eg BL3 or Control. From other sources we can find out that 1660s gets 40-60 fps on average. Average. It won't last through 2020 with eye-candy visuals, we can suppose...

 

[Steve]

Be nice to know where he gets the vega 64 price from because where im from the vega 64 is a lot cheaper than he thinks.
Fix it......

https://imgur.com/3836dIU

We don't recommend blower cards, in fact we strongly recommend avoiding them. Use the Sapphire or Gigabyte cards for pricing guides, the blower card would almost need to be free before we recommended it.

 

[grumblguts]

Pick the one above steve its still cheaper than the cheapest 2070 gtx
I think Australia prices are all messed up. I dont think you would deliberately lie to us.

 

[grumblguts]

I think prices of cards all depend on where you live because here in the UK you can pick up a top end vega64 for under 380.
I dont recommend running it stock, Drop power target down 10% and save 100 watts.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/sapp...hbm2-pci-express-graphics-card-gx-38j-sp.html

 

[Steve]

Pick the one above steve its still cheaper than the cheapest 2070 gtx
I think Australia prices are all messed up. I dont think you would deliberately lie to us.

We're obviously using US prices, newegg.com/amazon.com.

 

[Lew Zealand]

When you look at the cost per frame graph, there are only 3 cards to consider:

$130 RX 570
$240 GTX 1660S
$350 RX 5700

Conspicuously missing as a viable price point in those graphs is the 5700XT (considering that the Vegas were included) but IIRC its cost per frame is similar to the 5700, so you could pop it on the bottom of that stack.

 

[grumblguts]

Reshade Nvidia put in drivers to try to take what is free into some kind of proprietary tech
AMD anti Lag nvidia copy (again)
AMD freesync nvidia stole so now prices will increase thx to stupid comparable branding.
AMD Image sharpening Nvidia stole because it works.

Im so sick of this Nvidia spreading their cancer all over what makes free pc tech great.
Nothing is safe when Nvidia is around they try to make everything their own.
Eveney good thing AMD does Nvidia trashes its such a depressing thing to watch.

 

[PEnnn]

After reading the intro and the following:
"... and this sees a massive 75% increase in memory bandwidth. In fact, this provides the 1660 Super with even more memory bandwidth than the Ti model".......and then the screaming headline in mid article: "This means the GTX 1660 Super comes with the same spec GDDR6 memory that you’ll find on the RTX 2060, 2060 Super, 2070, 2070 Super, 2080, 2080 Ti and even the Titan RTX."....I was expecting to see real fireworks!

What a let-down!! All I see is that it was able to beat (an earlier version of) itself by a tiny margin!

And at the end we have this summary: "The 75% increase in memory bandwidth is huge, but ultimately if the GPU wasn’t memory starved to begin with, that would just end up being a big number on paper that wouldn’t translate into meaningful gains in the real world."

Alrighty then. I guess don't have to change my mind about my next card: The 1660TI.
Good article, nevertheless. Carry on.

 

[treetops]

To bad the Vega 56 didn't stay at 260$. Guessing whatever lower navi comes out will outshine a vega 56 at below $250. Then what this time next year will have the new nvidia cards /pwn. Then AMD will drop their prices. Then AMD will come out with better cards. Then Nvidia, then AMD will drop price on and on.

Little and maybe big Navi are to likely arrive by the end of 2019? I don't have much doubt that they will take over the $500 and under market unless Nvidia goes below MSRP for the first time ever. Save us Stadia ^^.

 

[NightAntilli]

Who in their right mind would pick an RX590 over this just to save $30!? You get 13% worse performance, way more noise, way more heat, a larger power bill and you’re at the mercy of AMDs awful Radeon driver support.

Even though you're right that it doesn't make sense to pick an RX 590 up right now, there really is nothing wrong with the Radeon driver support. And once again I have to leave this here;

https://www.techradar.com/news/amd-beats-nvidia-in-the-battle-for-the-most-stable-drivers

 

[Shadowboxer]

Even though you're right that it doesn't make sense to pick an RX 590 up right now, there really is nothing wrong with the Radeon driver support. And once again I have to leave this here;

https://www.techradar.com/news/amd-beats-nvidia-in-the-battle-for-the-most-stable-drivers

I’m sorry but you are just wrong. I’m so fed up of hearing this guff that AMD equal Nvidia in driver support. This article demonstrates the stability of the drivers. Fine, AMD drivers are perfectly stable in games. But they have way way more bugs and glitches than Nvidia. The amount of time I have spent in my life that AMD drivers have cost me to perform windows reinstalls because the driver install corrupted because of something stupid like having an open programme in the background.

The Nvidia driver experience is far superior. Not only are they easy to install, they have less bugs and come out more often and more promptly after game releases. I deeply pity anyone who thinks AMD has parity with Nvidia in this department.

 

[Luay]

Great article Steve.
Wonder who at Nvidia really thinks they need so many damn GPU's.
Are they really selling all of these things?

Business is very good. Competition is miniscule.

Two reasons for a refresh instead of a new release. Nvidia's next gen Ampere will take a while to come.

 

[Luay]

I’m sorry but you are just wrong. I’m so fed up of hearing this guff that AMD equal Nvidia in driver support. This article demonstrates the stability of the drivers. Fine, AMD drivers are perfectly stable in games. But they have way way more bugs and glitches than Nvidia. The amount of time I have spent in my life that AMD drivers have cost me to perform windows reinstalls because the driver install corrupted because of something stupid like having an open programme in the background.

The Nvidia driver experience is far superior. Not only are they easy to install, they have less bugs and come out more often and more promptly after game releases. I deeply pity anyone who thinks AMD has parity with Nvidia in this department.

The most often missed fact about Nvidia is that out of their 12,000 employees, %90 of them are software engineers, in other words, Nvidia is officially a software company.

 

[fadingfool]

I’m sorry but you are just wrong. I’m so fed up of hearing this guff that AMD equal Nvidia in driver support. This article demonstrates the stability of the drivers. Fine, AMD drivers are perfectly stable in games. But they have way way more bugs and glitches than Nvidia. The amount of time I have spent in my life that AMD drivers have cost me to perform windows reinstalls because the driver install corrupted because of something stupid like having an open programme in the background.

The Nvidia driver experience is far superior. Not only are they easy to install, they have less bugs and come out more often and more promptly after game releases. I deeply pity anyone who thinks AMD has parity with Nvidia in this department.

I've owned both (well still do) and in my experience the AMD driver problems have been on a par with nVidia (I still have to close my animated backgroud program when upgrading nVidia drivers as it causes a system crash every time) . nVidia drivers updates for laptops seem to be a 50-50 on whether they upgrade nicely (frequently get the device not installed error part way through as the system is using the lower power onboard intel). With AMD the red screen of death was a bit of a problem prior to crimson but the latest issues have been win 10 related and not AMD (win 10 auto downloading the wrong drivers causing boot loop). So to be honest not much to pick between them in my experience (YMMV).
As to this new 1660 Super card - nVidia have just made 2 of their cards redundent and done nothing to AMD (the 590 has always been just a warmed up 580 so the price never made much sense) . And I still have trouble seeing beyond a 570 for 1080p - the price/preformance (and you can overclock it) is just amazing - and the rest of the stack up to the 1660Ti doesn't quite cut it for 1440p. So yes you can turn on more bells and whistles at 1080 but do you get $100 worth of bells and whistles?

 

[Vulcanproject]

It depends. It really depends on what you are playing in. I'd look at worst case scenario if we consider that we buy a videocard not every year. 55-57 1% lows is a common thing for 1660s at 1080p, while if we want it to be little more future-proof we'd better look at 1440p numbers, where 1660s usually sits at middle 40s. Moreover there's no new titles in this test, eg BL3 or Control. From other sources we can find out that 1660s gets 40-60 fps on average. Average. It won't last through 2020 with eye-candy visuals, we can suppose...

It'll last plenty through 2020.

The problem for ALL of these lower midrange cards is 2021, because new consoles will massively raise the bar for multi platform games releasing the year after they launch. All of a sudden every high end multi platform game will be designed for at least 6 decent Zen 2 cores and a GPU potentially as fast as a 5700, although most likely a tad below it.

One mitigating factor is those consoles will still be focused on 4K and 30FPS with most high end titles. So as long as you have a strong contender such as this you'll be fine for 1080p 60FPS for a while longer.

Even saying THAT by the time the consoles get momentum Nvidia will have long released the replacements for all of their cards currently on sale. They'll all be much faster because of the significant leap to 7nm. In a years time you'll probably find RTX2060S performance is in the same market slot as this card is right now.

 

[amghwk]

Wouldn't reducing the price of current 2060, 2070, Super or not, or the 1660Ti, make more sense than introducing another slot-in card that barely nudge it's predecessor, and in the process save on fabrication and production cost? There are too many low-end to mid-range cards from Nvidia that it has become boring. Really.

 

[Lew Zealand]

After reading the intro and the following:
"... and this sees a massive 75% increase in memory bandwidth. In fact, this provides the 1660 Super with even more memory bandwidth than the Ti model".......and then the screaming headline in mid article: "This means the GTX 1660 Super comes with the same spec GDDR6 memory that you’ll find on the RTX 2060, 2060 Super, 2070, 2070 Super, 2080, 2080 Ti and even the Titan RTX."....I was expecting to see real fireworks!

What a let-down!! All I see is that it was able to beat (an earlier version of) itself by a tiny margin!

And at the end we have this summary: "The 75% increase in memory bandwidth is huge, but ultimately if the GPU wasn’t memory starved to begin with, that would just end up being a big number on paper that wouldn’t translate into meaningful gains in the real world."

Alrighty then. I guess don't have to change my mind about my next card: The 1660TI.
Good article, nevertheless. Carry on.

You're saying that paying $10 more for the "tiny margin" of 8 FPS (1660S vs 1660) isn't worth it, yet paying $40 more for 6 FPS (1660Ti vs 1660S) somehow is worth it?

Please explain.