Review of ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1660 Ti OC

A mid-range graphics card that requires overclocking.

Verdict: The ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1660 Ti OC delivers high performance with a large cooler and the highest clock speeds we’ve seen behind a new GPU, but you’ll have to overclock this card to get the most out of it.

Pros:

• Accelerates easily;
• Works incredibly cool;
• Silky QHD performance;

Minuses:

• Almost as expensive as the RTX 2060

Nvidia has gone out of its way to make expensive Turing RTX graphics cards appealing to the masses, and now, after all the complaints about the lack of cheaper GPUs without ray tracing, the company has finally responded with a GeForce GTX 1660 Ti.

While the graphics card was introduced as a mid-range option at a fairly reasonable starting price of $ 279 (RUR 18,000 + VAT), that hasn’t stopped component makers from spinning GPUs with models like the ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1660 Ti OC.

Rating: The Best Graphics Cards of 2019 | TOP 10

This variant comes with some serious cooling and the fastest factory overclocking we’ve ever seen, this is the most powerful GeForce GTX 1660 Ti you can buy so far – just know that this graphics card is asking for a premium price that is so high that you could have preferred the Nvidia RTX 2060.

| ASUS ROG STRIX GTX 1660 TI OC PRICES

ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1660 Ti OC is expensive – $ 329 (21500r + VAT). This is much more expensive than the price of the cheapest 1660 Ti graphics cards that will hit the market for only $ 279 (RUR 18,000 + VAT);

The video card is so expensive that it costs almost more than the $ 349 Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 (22500r + VAT). Since the two video cards cost almost the same, the specifications will have to be studied very carefully. Let’s see why the ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1660 Ti OC is worth its weight in gold.

| ASUS ROG STRIX GTX 1660 TI OC: CHARACTERISTICS

We weren’t kidding when we said the ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1660 Ti OC is a maxed out version of Nvidia’s latest mid-range GPU. The graphics card boasts a factory overclock of 1890 MHz, which is much higher than the traditional 1660 Ti, with a clock speed of 1770 MHz.

The GTX 1660 Ti OC from ASUS is more than double the size of the PNY GTX 1660 XLR8 Gaming OC and most other graphics cards, thanks to an extremely large heatsink and three axial fans. ASUS claims that its graphics card can offer 140% more airflow compared to other models equipped with traditional fan blades.

All of this ultimately forms a graphics card capable of delivering higher clock speeds, along with quality cooling.

Side by side with the Nvidia RTX 2060, the GTX 1660 Ti might seem like a lame duck in the Turing series. This GPU offers higher base clock speeds but fewer CUDA cores. It also uses onboard GDDR6 memory, but it is only rated at 12 Gb / s compared to the same video memory on RTX cards, which runs at 14 Gb / s. And, of course, it lacks RTX and Tensor cores, meaning the video card does not support ray tracing or DLSS.

And while the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti is the most affordable addition to the Turing series, Nvidia is deliberately cutting out some of the notable features to avoid the pricey RTX 2060 crashing. Thankfully, however, the graphics card hasn’t suffered much in terms of performance.

Higher is better.

Higher is better.

SYSTEM FEATURES

• CPU: Intel Core i7-8700K 3.7 GHz (6-core, 12 MB cache, up to 4.7 GHz);
• RAM: 32 GB LED Vengeance DDR4 (3200 МГц);
• Motherboard: ASUS ROG Strix Z390-E Gaming;
• Power Supply: Corsair RM850x;
• 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;
• OS: Windows 10;

| ASUS PLEASE STRIX GTX 1660 TI OC: PRODUCTIVITY

This graphics card is the definitive version of the Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti and it technically manages to make a similar claim. In synthetic tests, it slightly outperforms the PNY GTX 1660 Ti XLR8 OC, and games run one frame per second faster. Overall, the performance gain is not as great as we expected.

Even more impressive, the ASUS GTX 1660 Ti OC runs 10 degrees cooler than the competing PNY card, thanks to the addition of two additional fans and a much larger heatsink. This video card is not steamed in normal operation mode, the temperature margin is quite large even at high speeds.

Unfortunately, the value of this graphics card will depend on how well you can overclock it, as it just doesn’t keep up with the Nvidia RTX 2060 at stock settings. If you’re willing to part with a few thousand dollars on top, you can get a much more powerful GPU capable of handling ray tracing.

Outside of our comparison tests, the ASUS GTX 1660 Ti OC is capable of playing Hitman 2 at 4K resolution and Ultra settings at 30 to 40 frames per second. Reducing the resolution to 1440p will increase the frame rate to 60-70 FPS. Finally, you can enjoy Full HD gaming at high speed from 80fps and above.

| ASUS PLEASE STRIX GTX 1660 TI OC: SUMMING UP

ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1660 Ti OC is an impressive graphics card that delivers more performance the more you push it. With a powerful cooling system, this mid-range graphics card can dissipate heat generated by extreme overclocking.

However, this is a fairly expensive version of the GTX 1660 Ti that we wouldn’t recommend for most users, especially if you’re just looking for a new graphics card to get out of the box and plug into your PC. There are much cheaper versions of this graphics card out there that do the same job, and this high quality ASUS card isn’t too fast out of the box.

With a price tag that’s set to pretty much the same level as the Nvidia RTX 2060, it’s better to buy the lower-end RTX card. It will deliver the best performance across the board, and it also includes all the latest RTX and Tensor core features not found on GTX graphics cards.