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 ESTBattlefield 1 (DX11)
Battlefield 1 returns from the 2017 benchmark suite, the 2017 benchmark suite with a bang as DICE brought gamers the long-awaited AAA World War 1 shooter a little over a year ago. With detailed maps, environmental effects, and pacy combat, Battlefield 1 provides a generally well-optimized yet demanding graphics workload. The next Battlefield game from DICE, Battlefield V, completes the nostalgia circuit with a return to World War 2, but more importantly for us, is one of the flagship titles for GeForce RTX real time ray tracing.
We use the Ultra preset is used with no alterations. As these benchmarks are from single player mode, our rule of thumb with multiplayer performance still applies: multiplayer framerates generally dip to half our single player framerates. Battlefield 1 also supports HDR (HDR10, Dolby Vision).
As a mainstream card, the GTX 1660 is aiming at the area between RX 580/590 and GTX 1660 Ti, and that's exactly where it lines up in Battlefield 1. In fact, it's also the only game this suite that the RX 590 can make a claim to have a slight lead, albeit at 1440p. Ideally, given the original $279 MSRP of the RX 590, this is the level of performance the GTX 1660 wants to meet, where it undercuts the RX 590 and beats out the RX 580 for a competitive price.
And unsurprisingly, the mild +10W TDP of the EVGA XC Black makes an equally mild difference, just like last time.
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Opencg - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
honestly the selling point is the interface and things like high frame rate, high quality vr, a more customizable experience (sometimes this means fixing things that should just work though). playing everything at 180fps is a bit different than console. as well its up to personal preference whether you prefer a mouse or controller. many games on pc support both. all in all its a bit more involved and alot more expensive. and the game libraries are slightly different but i would say there are for sure enough games for pc.eva02langley - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
With PS5 coming in next year at 500$ with 4k@60Hz and Freesynch, I would not even bother.If you already have a desktop and want to upgrade, then yeah, makes sense.
PeachNCream - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
I wasn't aware there was a PS5 on the horizon. Makes sense though given the amount of time current consoles have been on the market. That does end up making the decision. There's no point in building a desktop that'll be made obsolete by the next console generation as I'd have to go from ground up. I'm not playing that buy stuff and then within a year have to buy more stuff just to get passable FPS game. It's annoying so I'll just hunker down and wait to get a new console.Bp_968 - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
There really isn't much comparison. A console is designed for 30-60fps gaming, a controller and not a KB/M, and has zero modding culture and a much smaller game selection (RTSs are almost nonexistent for example). Heck, PC just got a free skyrim total conversion released that many people think is *better* than skyrim itself!As for "made obsolete in no time" thats not the way it works anymore. Modern consoles are budget PCs with custom software installed. They use mostly off the shelf CPUs and GPUs now instead of the custom ASICs they used in the past. This means a decent PC build will likely outperform a console for the entire console generation or more (my i7 960 was still outperforming the PS4PRO, and only the xbox1x was faster and by then the PC was 7 years old). I upgraded to a 8700k with a 1070ti (350$ for the card at the time) and it will likely still outperform the next generation of consoles since all speculation has them locking in their hardware design using AMDs 2nd gen ryzen cpu design and vega gpu design.
Nvidias current and last gen cards will easily outperform the most likely upcoming consoles and AMDs ryzen 3rd gen and intels last two gens will easily outperform them as well.
If you only care about playing the latest AAA titles (COD, BF, rockstar stuff, etc) than a console is probably fine. Personally I prefer the much broader game selection, the near constant sales, the ability to share games with friends and family (steam), emulators, and the fact that I can still play, on my current PC, games I bought when the PS1 was new. I hope modern consoles maintain backwards compatibility this next gen, but they certainly don't have the wonderful granularity of upgrade path the PC has enjoyed for decades.
And last but not least, building and upgrading a gaming PC has gotten so easy even totally computer illiterate gamers can do it. Its a 1 or 2 hour plug and play "lego" affair at this point. That alone amazes me, especially when I think back to how involved the process was in the 90s (back before PCI made life so much easier).
eva02langley - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
You really think I am going to read that?Look, building a ground up PC with a 1660, as of now, is not better than buying a PS4 Pro. Microsoft and Sony are aiming for 4k @ 60 Htz, that's a given. One year from now, I totally believe 500$ PS5 will be able to democratize 4k.
PeachNCream - Friday, March 15, 2019 - link
Yeah, I'm gonna say TL;DR as well.D. Lister - Saturday, March 16, 2019 - link
@Bp_968As someone who does NOT have ADD, I did actually read what you said, and you have made some good points. To suggest that getting a console somehow gets you a better deal is so early 2000's it's not even funny.
Rainmaker91 - Sunday, March 17, 2019 - link
Look, while you do make some good points here you are a bit off on some other points.Console markets have always had custom hardware, and that includes the Xbox one and the PS4 as well. Current generation consoles are based on jaguar and Polaris cores, but don't think for a second that they are not custom solutions. Another thing to keep in mind is that consoles has a tendency of using cutting edge architectures, as in not this generation, but the next one (the Xbox 360 GPU is a good example here being a hybrid design somewhere between the x1950 and the hd2900). So the ps5 is unlikely to use zen+ with Vega 7nm as you suggested, but far more likely to utilize zen2 and Navi as the basis. Which is also what all the rumors have indicated.
I prefer computers to, but arguing that consoles=pc just because it's x86-64 based is just not true. Consoles will also no doubt be better value at their price point at launch, but they do lack any upgradability options. So going from a console to a pc if you don't already have one makes little sense if the budget is 500 and you are not aiming for that games in the RTS genre for example.
Orange_Swan - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
yeah, I'm really not that convinced about that 4k60 PS5 rumor using the RTX 2060 review here, and using all games,the Vega 56 averages 40.9, the Vega 64 averages 47.5, the RTX 2060 averages 43.5, the GTX 1070 ti averages 43.3, the GTX 1080 averages 47.1. with an average of all the GPUs being 44.4fps
eva02langley - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
If you think Sony and Microsoft is not aiming at 4k@60Hz, then what would be the point of even a new console since we have that already.Also, console hardware is more efficient since it is dedicated for gaming only. Even with lower spec, you can achieve incredible result. Also, all games are develop on consoles first and botched as a PC port after nowadays. If you are a console person, as of now, unless you are putting down 700-800$ on a GPU, it will not get you any benefit... especially not a 1660 GTX.