Picture via Anandtech
Lately we have seen Nvidia releasing all kinds of Super models to their existing Turing line-up. The trend started with the Nvidia Geforce RTX 2070 Super as Nvidia’s answer to compete with the AMD Radeon 5700(XT). Later the RTX 2060 and 2080 Super were released. The Nvidia GTX 1660 Super is therefore no new exception. At a pricepoint of € 249,00 MSRP this card falls directly in between the GTX 1660 and GTX 1660 Ti.
Before we talk performance figures lets take a moment to look at the differences between the GTX 1660 the new GTX 1660 Super and the GTX 1660 Ti all featuring the TU116 GPU.
| GTX 1660 | GTX 1660 Super | GTX 1660 Ti | |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPU | TU116 | TU116 | TU116 |
| Cuda-cores | 1408 | 1408 | 1536 |
| Clockspeed | 1530 MHz | 1530 MHz | 1500 MHz |
| Boost | 1785 MHz | 1785 MHz | 1770 MHz |
| Memory | 6 GB GDDR5 | 6 GB GDDR6 | 6 GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Speed | 2000 MHz | 1750 MHz | 1500 MHz |
| Memory bus | 192-bit | 192-bit | 192-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth | 192 GB/s | 336 GB/s | 288 GB/s |
| TDP | 120 W | 125 W | 120 W |
| MSRP | € 229 | € 249 | € 299 |
The main difference between the regular GTX 1660 and the GTX 1660 Super is the use of GDDR6 memory instead of GDDR5. The memory bandwidth increase is gigantic up from192 GB/s to 336 Gb/s. It even surpases the € 299,00 GTX 1660 Ti that has its memory clocked at 12Ghz instead of 14Ghz on the GTX 1660 Super.
Looking at these figures the performance gain from buying the € 299,00 GTX 1660 Ti over the GTX 1660 Super is minimal. Below the benchmarks of Hardware.info confirm the minimal differences. Overall the GTX 1660 Ti remains faster than the GTX 1660 Super but with a very small margin.
Okay so what is to conclude? First, we think whether or not the GTX 1660 Ti still has a viable future? Performance is almost on par with the new GTX 1660 Super but the Ti costs € 50,00 more. One little remark here, this is at stock speeds. If you would overclock the GTX 1660 Ti’s memory to 1750 Mhz memory (14Ghz) speeds the difference between both cards will increase in favor of the GTX 1660 Ti.
Second, we think for people upgrading from a GTX 1060 6GB of the Pascal generation there is a nice performance jump to the GTX 1660 Super. Used GTX 1060 6GB and RX580 cards can be sold for € 100,00 – € 125,00 depending on the brand which leaves a gap of the same ammount to upgrade to Turing. If we compare a Geforce GTX 1060 6GB vs Geforce GTX 1660 Super the performance increase you can expect is in the neighborhood of 30-35%!
For € 249,00 MSRP there is no denying this GTX 1660 Super can be described as best bang bang for your buck GPU at the moment! All major GPU manufacturers like Asus, Gigabyte, MSI and announced their version of the GTX 1660 Super. Momentarily stocks are low and prices are higher than MSRP but this will stabilize once the stocks are filled. For your convenience we included a few links containing reviews of the GTX 1660 Super for you to view/read.
Anandtech – EVGA GTX 1660 Super : https://www.anandtech.com/show/15010/the-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1660-super-review-feat-evga
Hardware.info – Gigabyte GTX 1660 Super Gaming OC: https://nl.hardware.info/artikel/9677/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1660-super-review-de-1660-die-de-1660-ti-overbodig-maakt
Eurogamer – Gigabyte GTX 1660 Super Windforce OC: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2019-10-29-gtx-1660-super-review-7001
Techpowerup – MSI GTX 1660 Super Gaming X: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/msi-geforce-gtx-1660-super-gaming-x/
