Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660 OC 6G review

Exceptional entry-level graphics.

Verdict: The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660 OC 6G does not offer tensor or RT cores, nor does it have a graphics card or GDDR6 VRAM, but that doesn’t stop the 1660 from offering great performance and streaming capabilities at a budget price.

pros:

• Excellent 1080p gaming performance
• Affordable pricing;
• NVENC improves data streaming;

Minuses:

• QHD and UHD games may lack performance;

For a long time, the world of computer games suffered from a shortage of new video cards, and now it seems that an avalanche has hit the market. Nvidia introduced the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti just a few weeks ago, and now the GeForce GTX 1660 graphics cards are coming to market.

Read: Best Graphics Cards of 2019

The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660 OC 6G is an outstanding version of this GPU as it offers decent factory overclocking (45 MHz) and upgraded cooling, all at a low $ 219 (RUR 14,000 + VAT) price tag. This is a fantastic graphics card for playing Full HD games, especially in a competitive environment. A video card will be useful if you are just starting a streaming channel.

| GEFORCE GTX 1660 OC 6G PRICES

The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660 OC 6G costs $ 219, making it the cheapest graphics card in the Turing series. We were impressed by the value for money offered by the GTX 1660 Ti cards, which sell for $ 279 (RUR 18,000 + VAT), but the new graphics card further reduces the barrier to entry into the world of PC gaming.

Even more impressive is the fact that the new graphics card is much more affordable than the $ 299 / 19500r Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060, which it replaces. The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660 OC 6G is also undercutting the AMD Radeon RX 590, which typically sells for $ 279 (RUR 18,000 + VAT).

| GEFORCE GTX 1660 OC 6G FEATURES

Technically, the GeForce GTX 1660 remains part of the Nvidia Turing family, but the graphics card loses many of the features that its siblings have. Features that you will not find in the new graphics card compared to other Turing cards (RTX or GTX) include RT (Ray Tracing) cores, tensor cores, and even GDDR6 memory.

That’s right – you get GDDR5 video memory again, which runs at 8Gbps just like the original GeForce GTX 1660.

However, the new graphics card is still equipped with a TU116 GPU equipped with Turing-based shaders. And while the GeForce GTX 1660 has fewer CUDA cores – and don’t forget the slower memory – compared to its GTX 1660 Ti counterpart, it gets an extra base and clock to make up for the shortcomings.

The Gigabyte graphics card we are testing here also adds a bit of fire with factory overclocking to 1830 MHz, making the card noticeably faster than the reference GPU clock speed of 1785 MHz. In addition, this model comes with dual Windforce 2X fans and a more powerful heatsink typically not available on entry-level budget graphics cards.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEST SYSTEM

• CPU: Intel Core i7-8700K 3.7 GHz (6-core, 12 MB cache, up to 4.7 GHz);
• RAM: 32GB LED Vengeance DDR4 (3200MHz)
• Motherboard: ASUS ROG Strix Z390-E Gaming;
• Source of power: Corsair RM850x;
• Built-in memory: 512 Гб Samsung 960 Pro M.2 SSD (NVMe PCIe 3.0 x4);
• Cooling: Thermaltake Floe Riing 360 TT Premium Edition;
• Housing: Corsair Crystal Series 570X RGB;
• Operating system: Windows 10;

| GEFORCE GTX 1660 OC 6G: PERFORMANCE

Despite the fact that the GeForce GTX 1660 looks almost identical to the GTX 1060, the graphics card offers an impressive leap in performance. However, the GTX 1660 will not be able to outperform the GTX 1070 as the GTX 1660 Ti does.

More importantly, the Nvidia GTX 1660 easily overwhelms the AMD Radeon RX 590, a graphics card that costs significantly more.

Tests are not all, the GTX 1660 can handle modern games, sometimes in QHD (1440p) resolution. We’ve managed to play Hitman 2 at between 60 and 70 frames per second (FPS) without any dropouts, and if you’re playing in Full HD (1080p), you can expect speeds between 90 and 100 FPS.

You will be able to run games in 4K (3840 x 2160) with Nvidia GTX 1660 cards, although in our experience Hitman 2 often fell below 30 frames, which distorts the gameplay.

Our GTX 1660-equipped test system ran into some difficulty trying to play Anthem at 1440p and 2160p, with frame rates dropping to 30 and 20 FPS respectively. However, as soon as we jumped to 1080p, Anthem showed a much more stable 50fps.

In general, we would say that the GeForce GTX 1660 is a graphics card primarily focused on Full HD playback; however, it will be able to run games at 2K and rarely even 4K, depending on the graphics requirements of the game.

Outside of gaming and benchmarking, the GTX 1660 is becoming the most affordable way to take advantage of Nvidia’s new NVENC encoder for streaming. With a bitrate savings of 25% with HEVC and 15% with H.264, this is the only graphics card we would recommend to novice gamers looking to stream their achievements.

| GEFORCE GTX 1660 OC 6G: SUMMING UP

When we first started our review of the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660 OC 6G, we didn’t expect much. Not only is this essentially a stripped-down GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, but the card also lost the fast memory you’ll find in the GeForce GTX 1060, the graphics card that the 1660 is replacing. And so we were quite surprised by the benchmark results.

The GTX 1660 not only remains an amazingly high-quality graphics card, but it is also much more affordable than its predecessor, and the low cost makes the graphics card affordable for most gamers.

While the card doesn’t offer any of Turing’s new features, the new shaders and core TU116 GPU on this card provide everything you need to boost performance, not to mention better streaming.

So far, we’ve recommended the Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti or GTX 1060 to novice PC gamers, but the GeForce GTX 1660 has taken over the crown as the best entry-level graphics card available right now.