The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Review, Feat. EVGA XC GAMING: Turing Stakes Its Claim at $219
by Ryan Smith & Nate Oh on March 14, 2019 9:01 AM ESTPower, Temperature, and Noise
As always, we'll take a look at power, temperature, and noise of the GTX 1660, though after having seen the GTX 1660 Ti in a similar if not identical design, we aren't expecting anything out of the ordinary. As mentioned earlier, we've seen the XC Black board with the GTX 1660 Ti not too long ago.
Using the same TU116 GPU as the GTX 1660 Ti, the voltages are unsurprisingly the same.
| NVIDIA GeForce Video Card Voltages | ||
| Model | Boost | Idle |
| GeForce GTX 1660 | 1.037V | 0.656V |
| GeForce GTX 1660 Ti | 1.037V | 0.656V |
| GeForce RTX 2060 | 1.025v | 0.725v |
| GeForce GTX 1060 6GB | 1.043v | 0.625v |
As for clockspeeds, the same broad points from the GTX 1660 Ti review apply. Clocks at +10W TDP and at reference 120W TDP are only slightly altered, and the trend of NVIDIA's conservative boost estimates continues.
| GeForce Video Card Average Clockspeeds | |||||
| Game | GTX 1660 | EVGA GTX 1660 XC |
GTX 1660 Ti | GTX 1060 6GB | |
| Max Boost Clock |
2160MHz
|
2160MHz |
2160MHz
|
1898MHz
|
|
| Boost Clock | 1830MHz | 1830MHz | 1770MHz | 1708MHz | |
| Battlefield 1 | 1880MHz | 1885MHz | 1888MHz | 1855MHz | |
| Far Cry 5 | 1889MHz | 1897MHz | 1903MHz | 1855MHz | |
| Ashes: Escalation | 1874MHz | 1872MHz | 1871MHz | 1837MHz | |
| Wolfenstein II | 1832MHz | 1861MHz | 1825MHz | 1835MHz | |
| Final Fantasy XV | 1865MHz | 1869MHz | 1855MHz | 1850MHz | |
| GTA V | 1894MHz | 1898MHz | 1901MHz | 1872MHz | |
| Shadow of War | 1879MHz | 1882MHz | 1860MHz | 1861MHz | |
| F1 2018 | 1880MHz | 1886MHz | 1877MHz | 1865MHz | |
| Total War: Warhammer II | 1890MHz | 1893MHz | 1908MHz | 1875MHz | |
Compared to the official average boost clock of the GTX 1660 Ti, the differences are also minor.
Power Consumption
Meanwhile when it comes to idle power consumption, the GTX 1660 falls in line with everything else at 83W. With contemporary desktop cards, idle power has reached the point where nothing short of low-level testing can expose what these cards are drawing.
All told, NVIDIA has very good and very consistent power control here. and it remains one of their key advantages over AMD, and key strengths in keeping their OEM customers happy.
Temperature
Noise
Turning again to EVGA's card, despite being a custom open air design, the GTX 1660 XC Black doesn't come with 0db idle capabilties and features a single smaller but higher-RPM fan. The default fan curve puts the minimum at 33%, which is indicative that EVGA has tuned the card for cooling over acoustics. But the curve is a little more forgiving at higher temperatures, and doesn't ramp up as much, reducing their noise levels significantly from the Ti XC Black.
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Cellar Door - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
At the moment this card offers better perf/$ then a RX 580 - which is impressive considering Nvidia's price antics this generation.eva02langley - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
No it is not.The RX 580 is 179$. Making it 2.304$ per frame on techspot. They screw up again with their cost analysis. Also, you have 2 AAA games with it bundle. The RX 580 is still the value king hand down.
https://static.techspot.com/articles-info/1811/ben...
Don't get me wrong, this card is interesting, but is it groundbreaking in anything? No... if Nvidia was offering it at 170$, then that would be disruptive.
Cellar Door - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
You are wrong, all the $179 580 cards are only 4GB. Please don't spread misinformation.Marlin1975 - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
https://www.microcenter.com/product/479525/red-dra...It was $169 last week, now its $179.
8Gb RX580s go for around $170-190 right now. The RX570 is as low as $140
eva02langley - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
The only thing you had to do is look at the price list on the first page to SEE that I am right and that YOU are spreading nonsense.flyingpants265 - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
There is no such thing as $/frame.ElDiomedes - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
Probably only in the US, I saw Microcentre offering some RX 580 8gb at $168. The 8 GB Nitro+ is still $340 here. While the 1660 will start from $230. In the SEA region, only a few retailers in Australia have the RX 580 in the ~$200 region. So keep in mind, no one is gonna buy AMD with those prices outside of US.Qasar - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
eva02langleythe AAA games they bundle with the cards are meaningless.. if you dont play them, or want them, so that is a moot point, and may not be a factor for some...
how do they even come up with the cost per frame?? never even heard of that metric before.....
Threska - Tuesday, April 2, 2019 - link
Not meaningless if one can sell all three games offsetting the purchase price.PeachNCream - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
Not bad. The price point is reasonable and the performance is good enough. I wish it had a lower TDP and I don't care at all for the triple slot form factor. Still, this _might_ be the GPU that lures me back to owning a desktop PC for gaming. It is still difficult to justify the costs given that PCs end up as second acts with crappy console ports and you pay more for the hardware just to get poorly optimized games a few months after everybody else has already played them.