The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Review, Feat. EVGA XC GAMING: Turing Stakes Its Claim at $219
by Ryan Smith & Nate Oh on March 14, 2019 9:01 AM ESTFar Cry 5 (DX11)
The latest title in Ubisoft's Far Cry series lands us right into the unwelcoming arms of an armed militant cult in Montana, one of the many middles-of-nowhere in the United States. With a charismatic and enigmatic adversary, gorgeous landscapes of the northwestern American flavor, and lots of violence, it is classic Far Cry fare. Graphically intensive in an open-world environment, the game mixes in action and exploration.
Far Cry 5 does support Vega-centric features with Rapid Packed Math and Shader Intrinsics. Far Cry 5 also supports HDR (HDR10, scRGB, and FreeSync 2). This testing was done without HD Textures enabled, an option that was recently patched in.
For Far Cry 5, we see the same story, where the GTX 1660 is matching RX 590 performance, meaning that it is comfortably ahead of the RX 580 and GTX 1060 3GB. As for the very close results of the GTX 1660 at reference specifications and at 130W, compared to the RX 590, Far Cry 5 is not one to show granular differences, due to how the developers implemented the built-in benchmark reporting. But for all intents and purposes, the matchup is a wash here.
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Opencg - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
honestly the selling point is the interface and things like high frame rate, high quality vr, a more customizable experience (sometimes this means fixing things that should just work though). playing everything at 180fps is a bit different than console. as well its up to personal preference whether you prefer a mouse or controller. many games on pc support both. all in all its a bit more involved and alot more expensive. and the game libraries are slightly different but i would say there are for sure enough games for pc.eva02langley - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
With PS5 coming in next year at 500$ 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.