Test – Asus ROG Strix GTX 1660 Ti |Specs | Price

Introduction

Hi all!

After a few weeks of rumors and other more or less true leaks, the new card from Nvidia has arrived, and it is indeed the Geforce GTX 1660 Ti! After releasing the RTX range (see our tests here) highlighting support for ray tracing and DLSS, it’s back to basics, with a new GPU that is intended to replace the GTX 1060 6GB. On the program, the absence of RT and Tensor cores which are one of the specificities of the RTX range, to reduce costs and focus on the performance / price ratio. We managed to get a partner model for our test today, and not just any one because it is the Asus ROG Strix GTX 1660 Ti OC, the top of the range from the manufacturer.

[En pratique] Battlefield V and DLSS, our first preliminary performance tests with the RTX 2060 and 2080!

At the rate recommended by Nvidia, it starts at 299 € for partner cards, i.e. a price between the GTX 1060 6 Go Founders Edition in its time (320 €) and its GTX 1060 partners (280 €). Anyway, we remain in the card segment around € 300 which represents a large chunk of sales. The manufacturer must therefore take particular care of this model and offer an attractive performance / price ratio. The Asus card that we tested is the top of the range offered at 380 €, but the brand also has a Dual model (therefore dual fan cooler) at 349 € and a Phoenix, equipped with a single fan and respects the price recommended by Nvidia from 299 €. The ROG Strix is ​​however € 100 more expensive than an RTX 2060 Founders Edition which is supposed to be more efficient and equipped with more features. It will be difficult to fight at the level of performance / price ratio at this level. What about in practice? This is what we will see!

Presentation

Technical characteristics

The GTX 1660 Ti therefore partly uses the Turing architecture with a GPU named TU116 and engraved in 12 nm. It is made up of 6.6 billion transistors, 2.2 billion more than the GTX 1060 anyway. The elimination of the RT and Tensor cores causes the size of the DIE to drop compared to its big sister RTX 2060, from 445 mm² to 284 mm² (losing at the same time 4.2 billion transistors). We therefore remain on a DIE larger than the GTX 1060, more expensive to produce.
The operating frequency is up on the other hand compared to the RTX 2060, now capping at 1500 MHz base for 1770 MHz in boost mode. The model from Asus that we have at the editorial office can go up to 1830 MHz for Gaming mode or 1860 MHz for OC mode, for a base frequency of 1500 or 1530 MHz. Performance should therefore be better than an entry-level GTX 1660 Ti at reference frequencies.

The GDDR6 memory of the RTX is retained, but sees its frequency lowered, going from 14 Gbps to 12 Gbps, a significant increase compared to the GDDR5 / X operating at 8 Gbps of the GTX 1060. The memory bus remains at 192 bit. , like all xx60 series. A good point concerning the TDP, remaining at the same value as the old GTX 1060, ie 120 Watts! After the RTX 2060’s appetite in watts (160 Watts), we could have asked ourselves some questions but with 120 Watts we can not really ask for better, to see if that does not limit the performance of the beast that said! Power is supplied by an 8-pin connector.

The GTX 1660 Ti is oriented for “competitive” games, therefore requiring a high number of FPS (in Full HD in our case) so as not to blame this poor graphics card in case you take a lost headshot: p The Streaming of this type of game has been booming in recent years (everyone is trying it), Nvidia therefore offers (like other Turing GPUs) hardware encoding support (via NVENC) supporting H. 265 HEVC up to 8K @ 30 FPS resolution. What does this mean in practice? And although instead of needing a separate encoding machine, or a big, hard-working processor (negatively impacting in-game performance of course), the graphics card will do that. without (almost) loss of FPS. OBS and Nvidia have also worked together

The ROG Strix GTX 1660 Ti OC is as usual for this range a beautiful baby, displaying 30 cm long, 13.2 cm and 5 cm thick (or about 2.5 slots). It goes without saying that the ventilation will be excellent, especially on a card that consumes so little! There are also two ventilation modes, “Quiet” (fans stopped at rest and less aggressive ventilation curve under load) and “Performance” (fans which operate continuously and run faster). The “Quiet” mode was chosen for our tests, the hybrid ventilation being one of the strong points of this model.