Product Info

GALAX GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC

October, 2019

Type

Graphics Card

Price

$249 US

NVIDIA introduced their Turing GPU architecture last year, making a complete departure from traditional GPU designs and creating a hybrid architecture that would include a range of new technologies to power the next-generation immersive gaming experiences.

While initially announced with Quadro lineup under the new Quadro RTX brand, we all knew that the Turing architecture was coming to the GeForce lineup. It arrived in the GeForce lineup a few months later under the new GeForce RTX branding. NVIDIA's first big naming departure for two decades of GeForce GTX.

The GeForce RTX 20 series was the enablement of real-time raytracing which is the holy grail of graphics and something NVIDIA spent 10 years to perfect. In addition to raytracing, NVIDIA also aims to place bets on AI which will play a key role in powering features such as DLSS or Deep Learning Super Sampling, a unique way of offering the same quality as the more taxing MSAA AA techniques at twice the performance.

NVIDIA has announced for cards under the GeForce RTX 20 series family, the flagship GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, the Enthusiast GeForce RTX 2080, the high-performance GeForce RTX 2070 and the main-stream GeForce RTX 2060. Now, NVIDIA is looking to offer Turing for more reasonable prices, so is also going back to the good old GeForce GTX branding and for good reasons. While GeForce RTX and GeForce GTX will exist alongside each other in this generation, the GeForce GTX lineup as the name suggests would be aiming for raw performance over the graphics intensive RTX features which only the RTX cards support.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 16 series includes the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER, GeForce GTX 1660 and the GeForce GTX 1650. The GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER was the most recent entrant to the SUPER family, offering a supercharged design with the same underlying DNA as the GeForce GTX 1660 and at the same price. The GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER is also expected to land later this month, offering much better performance than the GTX 1650 for around the same price.

When it comes to pricing, the GeForce RTX 20 series are some of the most costly cards NVIDIA has offered to consumers. The GeForce GTX 1660 Ti and GeForce GTX 1660, on the other hand, tried to keep budget and more mainstream audiences in mind by offering a price closer to the GeForce GTX 1060 which became a popular gaming card on Steam due to its $249 price point. The GeForce GTX 16 SUPER series would continue the trend of introducing a higher performance at the same price tag. Following is the current per segment price structure of the entire NVIDIA Turing lineup compared to its predecessors.

NVIDIA GeForce GPU Segment/Tier Prices

For this review, I will be taking a look at the GALAX GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC, a custom graphics card that will retail at $249 US. The reference card will be priced at $229 US so we are looking at a $20 premium price tag but with a much better dual-fan cooler, a custom PCB and a factory overclock out of the box.

With just a few bucks of asking price over the reference MSRP, these custom variants offer a range of features such as dual-fan coolers, better heatsinks, and custom PCBs allowing for better heat dissipation, higher airflow and more overclocking performance and clock stability at their respective boost clocks which will be higher compared to the reference variants. The main barrier with overclocking on Turing GPUs is by far the power limit and those that offer the highest power limits out of the box are generally the ones with the best overclocking potential and performance output.

In case you want to read our full NVIDIA Turing GPU architecture and RTX/DLSS features deep dive, head over to this link.

Contents

1. Intro2. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER and Turing TU116 GPU3. GALAX GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC ($249.99 US) Overview4. GALAX GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC Package5. GALAX GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC Closer Look + Teardown6. Test Setup7. GALAX GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC Benchmarks (VULKAN)8. GALAX GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC Benchmarks (DirectX 12)9. GALAX GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC Benchmarks (DirectX 11)10. GALAX GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC Thermal Tests11. GALAX GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC Power Consumption12. Conclusion - GALAX SUPERCHARGES Your Games With 1660 SUPER EX OC

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9.9

Wccftech Rating

For 1080p gamers, streamers and eSports fans, the GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC from GALAX at $250 US is a serious option and a great mainstream contender to consider!

Pros

More performance for the same price Almost as fast as the GTX 1660 Ti for less Faster Than The GTX 1660 6 GB and Radeon RX 590 8 GB Good upgrade from GTX 960 and GTX 1060 6 GB Great performance for 1080p Gaming Titles Great performance for eSports Gaming Titles Great thermals with GALAX's dual-fan cooler Great design with a brushed metal backplate Idle fan stop technology for lower noise Power efficiency further increased Support NVIDIA Adaptive Shading Technology Good driver support for GeForce products, compatibility with DX11, DX12, Vulkan, OpenGL titles Good Display Connectivity, support for VESA Adaptive-Sync

Cons

1845 MHz Profile only unlocked through proprietary Xtreme Tuner Plus application No RT Cores For Ray Tracing Support No Tensor Cores For DLSS Support