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
Comments Locked

77 Comments

View All Comments

  • flyingpants265 - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link

    used cards have no warranty and arent a realistic option for most people
  • Bp_968 - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link

    EVGA warranties are usually 3 to 5 years and transferable. And as long as it works for a week or so after you install it its likely good forever at that point. Out of the 120+ video cards I've owned and installed over the past 25 years I've only see a handful fail and the majority of those were DOA right off out of the box.
  • AustinPowersISU - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link

    Do you work for Nvidia by chance? I mean, they had $500 million less sales in Q4 last year due to (partly) the used market eating into their profits. I guess bashing the reliability of old products is a way to increase sales of the new, but it damages the brand.

    If a $200 purchase would literally cause you massive financial pain if it broke, I would make the argument that you shouldn't be purchasing anything, regardless of warranty.

    I would also make the argument that a 1070 that has lasted for years is probably more reliable than turing, which had failure problems at launch.

    The true solution would be to actually release a product that increased performance over last gen at a better price, but that doesn't seem to happen with Nvidia anymore.

    Enjoy the lower performance for more money. I'll keep gaming on my 1070 I picked up for $175.
  • Mr Perfect - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link

    Page one paragraph three starts with "Turing our eyes to NVIDIA’s new card then"

    I can't decide if that's a typo or a pun.
  • Ryan Smith - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link

    I'm going to go with "both".

    Thanks!
  • atiradeonag - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link

    $219 1660 offers better perf/$ than both RX 580 and RX590, AMD your move
  • Death666Angel - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link

    RX590 was never a perf-per-dollar leader. RX580 still is according to TPU. TechSpot has the 1660 slightly ahead. Guess it depends on the seller and the price you can get. Does the 1660 offer any game addons? Seems like this is the first time in a while we have competition. Now we just need it for the 300€ range and we're golden. Let's see what Navi brings.
  • eva02langley - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link

    Like I mentioned, at 180$, the RX 580 stand at 2.30$, below the 1660... and you get Resident Evil 2 and DMC 5 for free.
  • Qasar - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link

    eva02langley and what if you dont want to play those games?? then what?
    RX580 starts at $320, 1660 $300 ( for preorder, price could change ) where i am ( canada ) i wish video cards were that inexpensive up here....
  • Death666Angel - Sunday, March 17, 2019 - link

    "what if you dont want to play those games?? then what?"
    Have you heard of this newfangled thing called "Ebay"?

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now