Overclocking

Last, but not least, we'll take a look at overclocking. While NVIDIA does support overclocking, they have limited actual overvolting, and instead providing the ability to unlock 1-2 more boost bins and associated voltages. Either way, Maxwell 2 and Pascal certainly have much to thank for high clockspeeds; for Maxwell 2, it was a combination of high efficiency and ample overclocking headroom, while Pascal took advantage of the FinFET process to ramp up the clocks to new heights.

A total of four different overclocks were tested via EVGA's Precision X1; unfortunately, we were not able to get the auto OC scanning functionality to fully work. First was a baseline, consisting of 100% overvoltage and max temperature limits; power limit is already set to a soft cap of 130W at stock. The second was overclocking the GDDR5 memory by 1Gbps. The third was overclocking the GPU by +100MHz; in practice, observed clocks were in the mid 1900MHz. Lastly, all previous adjustments were combined for an overall overclock.

GeForce GTX 1660 Overclocking
  Baseline Memory OC GPU OC All OC
Core Clock 1530MHz 1530MHz 1530MHz 1530MHz
Boost Clock 1785MHz 1785MHz 1885MHz 1885MHz
Memory Clock 8Gbps 9Gbps (+250MHz) 8Gbps 9Gbps (+250MHz)

Naturally, these results cannot be taken as representative of all GTX 1660 cards, but results here can offer some insight.

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation - 2560x1440 - Extreme QualityGrand Theft Auto V - 2560x1440 - Very High QualityF1 2018 - 2560x1440 - Ultra QualityShadow of War - 2560x1440 - Ultra QualityWolfenstein II - 2560x1440 -

 

 

 

 

 

Power, Temperature, and Noise Final Words
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  • Flunk - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link

    And about 4 years of time. That's not a very good deal.
  • flyingpants265 - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link

    While you're at it, can you make Bench compare multiple cards at the same time? This site seems oddly trapped in 2007 in some ways.
  • catavalon21 - Friday, March 15, 2019 - link

    Or, it ties or bests the GTX 980 in 43 of 44 benchmarks. Not bad for a $219 card with a 3 year warranty (compared to whatever life one will get out of a 980 after years of mining...)
  • maroon1 - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link

    Just buy GTX 1660 Ti
  • flyingpants265 - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link

    Just spend more money
  • brunis.dk - Friday, March 15, 2019 - link

    Just dont be homeless!
  • TallestJon96 - Friday, March 15, 2019 - link

    Just buy RTX 2080 TI
  • 0ldman79 - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link

    I was thinking the same.

    I tripped over a deal for 970 SLI, makes the 1660 even less appealing. 970 vs 1660 looks like the difference between high and ultra at 1440p or something, hardly worth $200.

    Not yet, Nvidia...
  • celtiberian - Saturday, March 16, 2019 - link

    I have a GTX 970 running full HD. I don't really need to upgrade now unless I plan to run higher resolutions or a VR set.

    With the CPU race, a CPU upgrade is more likely after zen 2 is released (still running the old reliable i5 2500k OC).
  • just4U - Sunday, March 17, 2019 - link

    Every once in awhile I am on 2600K setups.. and can certainly see they are showing their age now.

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