Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti Launch details, Specs, Price, Performance – Should You Buy?
Mumbai, India (22/Feb/2019) – Nvidia has finally launched the new GTX 1660 Ti in India/Globally, and it is available for purchase online as well offline.
There is no founders edition GTX 1660 Ti. Moreover, the cheapest GTX 1660 Ti I can find currently costs Rs. 23,990 and is from Inno 3D, another one from Galax is available for a similar price and the Zotac 1660Ti costs Rs. 25,699.
The rest of the vendor cards are more expensive.
Also, Asus GTX 1660 Ti is available for Rs. 26,999 while the AMP edition from Zotac is available for Rs. 28,299 respectively. MSI and Gigabyte cards are also available in the 27 to 28k price range.
RTX Series Background
Nvidia, a couple of months back launched the RTX series of graphics cards. The new RTX series met with some positive and a generally negative response from the fans due to higher pricing.
Now the company has launched the new (1600 series) GPU. In case, you are wondering what happened to the 1100 series, I have no clue.
Nevertheless, after weeks of leaks, Nvidia has finally launched the GTX 1660 Ti. Also, a GTX 1660 is rumored but may get launched at a later date.
Nvidia has said that they will not launch any RTX cards below $300. So we can expect future entry-level cards without ray tracing.
Notably, the new GTX series 1660Ti is unlike the RTX 2060/70/80 launched earlier.
The new card misses two essential or non-essential features (according to some gamers) – Ray Tracing and the Tensor Cores.
Ray tracing helps to improve the lighting of scenes by reflecting light rays in real-time from different objects. On the other hand, the Tensor Cores help with AI functions in some of the applications. Gamers are hardly concerned about those.
The current upper mid-range graphics card RTX 2060 is available for 31k (Founders Edition) to 35K ($350-$375 in the US) from different board partners.
The price is higher in comparison to Rs. 23,000 for the GTX 1060 in India or $ 220 in the US. Also, the Nvidia RTX feature is available for just 2 games – Battlefield V and the recently launched Metro Exodus.
Enabling RTX does improve the visual quality in some scenes and in some make it worse. Not to mention, the FPS drops by around 15-20% which is a bigger problem when running games on RTX 2060 or at a higher resolution. DLSS does solve the FPS drop performance to some extent.
So, now we know the background, let’s have a look at the new GTX 1660Ti, and why I am excited about it.
Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti – An Exciting Option for Gamers
The 1660 Ti is based on the latest Turing architecture, similar to the RTX cards, and comes with the GDDR6 memory.
The 1660 Ti will have 1536 Cuda Cores, 1500 MHz base clock speed, and 192 Bit Memory Bus Width. You can easily get a boost clock speed of over 1800 MHz on the new Nvidia GPU.
Also, it is highly energy-efficient, way better than the AMD RX 590, or even the RTX 2060. The graphics card uses just 120 Watts of power and you will need a 500 Watts PSU to run the PC.
Also, the 1660Ti comes with a 6-Pin connector to connect to the SMPS.
The most exciting thing is a better value proposition for the buyers, as the card is much cheaper and will have slightly slower performance than the RTX 2060.
Here is the Specs Comparison table for the 1660 Ti Vs 1660 Vs RTX 2060
| Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti 6 GB (Launched) | GeForce GTX 1660 6 GB | GeForce RTX 2060 FE | |
| Architecture | TU116-400 | TU116-300 | TU106 |
| CUDA Cores | 1536 | 1408 | 1920 |
| Texture Units | 96 | 80 | 120 |
| Base Clock | 1500 MHz | 1530 MHz | 1365 MHz |
| GPU Boost | 1770 MHz | 1785 MHz | 1680 MHz |
| Memory | 6 GB GDDR6 | 6 GB GDDR5 | 6 GB GDDR6 |
| Bus-Width | 192-bit | 192-bit | 192-bit |
| Memory Clocks | 6000 MHz | 4000 MHz | 7000 MHz |
| ROPs | ? | ? | 48 |
| Cache | ? | ? | 3 MB |
| TDP | 120 | 120 | 160 W |
| Transistors Count | – | – | 10.8 billion |
| SLI | No | No | No |
| Tensor Cores | No | No | 240 |
| RT cores | No | No | 30 |
Price in India for GTX 1660 Ti
The performance for the GTX 1660 Ti is lower by around 15%, in comparison to the RTX 2060 (based on Gaming Benchmarks).
The price for the GTX 1660Ti in the US is $279 equivalent to 71*279= Rs. 19809 (considering dollar value as 71).
But actually, in India, it costs close to Rs 26,000.
On the other hand, you can buy the RTX 2060 for Rs. 33,500, about Rs. 8500 more in comparison to the GTX 1660 Ti. Additionally, you will get the Battlefield V with the RTX 2060 which is worth 3.5K.
There is no bundled Game offers announced so far the GTX 1660 Ti.
Further, the RTX 2060 is about 26% more expensive and performance by about 15% better.
So, ideally, the GTX 1660 Ti is a better deal.
But if you buy the RTX 2060 FE for Rs. 31,000 then the price difference is about 19%.
Also, factor in the cost of Battlefield V, the RTX 2060 FE is actually a better value for money than the GTX 1660 Ti in India.
Ideally, if you can get the 1660 Ti for less than Rs. 24,000 then it is great value for money.
I would have liked them to launch it at Rs. 22,000 (or wish if there was a Founder Edition).
Here are some of the Early Benchmarks for the Nvidia GTX 1660Ti (Based on Several Games Combined).
These results are based on the benchmarks run on 2560*1440 pixels resolution. The situation is very similar at 1080P resolution.
The GTX 1660 Ti is as fast as the Maxwell Titan X and slightly faster than the GTX 1070.
The below Benchmark numbers are absolutely correct as the GTX 1660 Ti is about 2% faster in comparison to the GTX 1070 based on several games benchmarks combined.
Is there a 3 GB Version of GTX 1660 Ti?
Nvidia has launched only the 6 GB version of GTX 1660 Ti at the moment, there is no 3 GB VRAM version currently. We are not sure if the company will launch a 3 GB VRAM version or not.
I don’t think Nvidia will launch a 3 GB version since a lot of games at higher settings demand more VRAM and in the next 2-3 years may become a bottleneck.
Single Cooler Vs Dual Fan Coolers
There are 1660Ti available with both single as we as Dual Fan Coolers in the market. Single Fan Cooler versions are slightly less expensive in comparison to the Dual Fan Coolers.
Single Fan cards are usually less efficient at cooling and make more noise. Moreover, the single fan coolers are more suited for low-power cards like the GTX 1050/1050 Ti.
For a quieter and cooler experience, get the dual cooler for the 1660 Ti.
Which Brand for the GTX 1660 Ti To Get
There are several cards from Zotac, Asus, EVGA, Asus etc. Get the one you can buy at a lower price with Dual Coolers. If you want absolute quality with some dope RGB lighting, my bet is on the MSI Gaming X 6G.
GTX 1660 Ti or the AMD RX 590 or GTX 1060
There are no new cards available in the market both AMD RX 590 and the GTX 1060 are based on more than 2-year-old architecture. The RX 590 is a power hog whereas the 1660 Ti is a quite monster.
You may require a larger PSU and the AMD card will also generate more heat, consume more power.
The GTX 1060 is way slower than the 1660 Ti and makes no sense to buy it. Also, Nvidia claims that the 1660 Ti is more optimized for streaming and offer much better performance while streaming.
AMD Navi based cards are not expected until October and if Nvidia launches the 1660Ti it can be a great revenue churner for the company.
But at the same time can have some impact on the sales of more expensive RTX based solutions.
Read More About the Nvidia GTX 1660 – Should You Buy it?
Nvidia RTX Sales and Revenue Dip
Further, the lukewarm sales of the RTX cards (despite Nvidia’s best efforts) have to lead to a stock decline for the company (from 286$ (in Oct’18) to $157 (Feb’19)).
Notably, the company recently reported $2.21 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter ended in Jan’19. It is down 24 percent from $2.91 billion a year earlier.
Nevertheless, things are not so bad as they may seem, the company is still doing great despite the sales decline (primarily due to slump from miners).
“This was a turbulent close to what had been a great year,” said Jensen Huang, founder, and CEO of NVIDIA.
Lastly, we are expecting a positive outlook once the 1660 Ti hits the market.
