GRAPHICSCARDS
7676 JU 00JANUARY2^020 ||COMPUTER SHOPPERCOMPUTERS |ISSUE383
ITWASALWAYSlikely that Nvidia’s Geforce
RTXgraphics cards wouldn’t entirely kill off
the older GTX series: RTXcards are defined by
their baked-in support forray-tracing and
DLSS anti-aliasing, but these still require at
least fairly beefy GPUs to pull off,socheaper
cards without these features would still be a
viable option unless Nvidia wanted to
abandon the budget market completely.
What we didn’t expect, however,was that
there would be aGTX successor to the
mid-range GTX 1060, something that’s
already been replaced by theRTX 2060 and
now the RTX2060 Super as well. There are
two,infact: the GTX 1660 and the slightly
faster GTX 1660 Ti.
KEEP IT SIMPLE
Surprise aside,thisdoes make acertain
sense.Asgood as the RTX2060 and RTX
2060 Super both are,they’re pretty pricey
by mid-range standards, and the lack of
games with either ray-tracing or DLSS
integration means that these features alone
aren’t yet worth splashing out more for.
Notably,Nvidia has recently enabled very
basic ray-tracing functionality on most GTX
cards via adriver update, although they
won’t be able to run, say, Metro: Exodus’s
global ray-traced illumination while
maintaining playable performance.
Either way, there’s still room foramore
affordable mid-range Nvidia card forPC
builders who can live without those two key
RTXfeatures, and we’ve tested the MSI
GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Gaming X6Gtosee
whether this is it.
At £300, it’s one of the more expensive
partner card models available (others start at
as little as £260), but it’s very nicely made,
wwwiiittthhhaaassstttuuurrrdddyyyaaallluuummmiiinnniiiuuummmbbbaaaccckkkppplllaaattteeeaaannndddsssooommmeee
tastefully positioned RGB lightingsssstrips.
Crucially,it’s also cheaper than the RTX2060
NVIDIA GeForce
GTX1660Ti
★★★★★
£305•From http://www.box.co.uk
VERDICT
Once agreat mid-ranger,better-value alternativeees
end up leaving the GTX 1660 Ti behind
Super,although it’s also £15 more than the
AMD Radeon RX 5700’s starting price.
The arrival of this all-new AMD GPU
makes lifeanawful lot harder forthe GTX
1660 Ti; while it, too, was designed without
fancy tricks like ray-tracing in mind, its core
performance impresses hugely forthe price.
Our Dirt Showdown benchmarks didn’t
give the GTX 1660 Ti the best start, either.
At 1080p,itonly managed 99fps –an
underwhelming showing that doesn’t even
match the 101fps of the entry-level GTX
1650, let alone the RX 5700 and its 111fps.
Its 93fps at 1440p is also 18fps behind that
of the RX 5700, and its 4K result of 76fps
is 21fps slower.
STARKATTACK
In our other games tests, the GTX 1660 Ti
didn’t do outright badly,but the RX 5700
invariably performed better.Metro:Last Light
Redux demonstrated this rather starkly: with
64fps at 1080p,36fps at 1440p and just 15fps
at 4K, Nvidia’s GPU makes the RX 5700 look in
acompletely different league.The latter also
failed to reach 30fps at 4K, but that’s not an
essential milestone foramid-range card, and
its51fps at 1440p looks particularly smoother
than the GTX 1660 Ti’s equivalent result.
Tomb Raider at least allows the GTX 1660
Ti to breathe alittle more,and despiteits
150fpsat1080p and 95fps at 1440p still
ppplllaaaccciiinnngggiiitttbbbeeehhhiiinnndddttthhheeeRRRXXX 555777000000 ,,,ttttthhheeedddiiiffffffeeerrreeennnccceeesss
aren’t as immediately visible as in Metro.
47fps at 4K is decent as well, buuuutthe
58fps-scoring RX 5700 remains the more
appealing option forhigher resolutions.
Virtual-reality performance is much closer:
theGTX 1660 Ti scored 10.9 in the SteamVR
Performance Test, amere 0.1offthe perfect 11
that the RX 5700 (and the entirety of the
GeForce RTX20-series) produced. You’ll be
able to run most VR games on their highest
settings without having to worry about big
performance drops.
TheGTX 1660 Ti is unluckyinasense,as
forafewmonths between it launching and
AMD’s new Radeon GPUs appearing, it could
actually have been considered rather potent;
itsclosest AMDrival at thetime, the RX 590,
was slower,noisier andmuch worse value.The
RX 5700 simply set anew standard, one the
1660 Ti has more trouble trying to reach.
It’s not all bad news. MSI has added a
nicely quietdual-fan cooler to this model,
adorned with some subtle RGB lighting, and
this keepscoretemperatures down better
than the RX 5700’s blower cooler.That
includesidle temperature,which we measured
at 42°C, as well as load and peak
temperatures of 63°C and 64°C respectively.
FORCED OUT
TheGTX 1660 Ti also usesless power,despite
sometimes creeping up to 102% of its130W
TDPunderheavy load.You only need to plug
in one 8-pin PSU cable,whereas the RX 5700
nnneeeeeedddsssbbbooottthhh 888 -pppiiinnnaaannnddd 666 -pppiiinnnconnectors.
Still, since most quality PPPSUs will be able to
handle two power ports, thisssshouldn’t be a
concern. The RX 5700 simplyyyperforms too
well to pass over it iiinfavour of the
GTX1660 TTTi; the latter is
coolerand more efficient,
but at all resolutions (and
1440p in particular) you can
often quite literally see the
difference.Atthe very least, it’s
not worth bbbuying aGTX
1660 Ti parrrtner card that
costs moreeethan the RX
5700 –andddcertainly not
onethat’s ooonly afew pounds
lss than the RX 57 77 00 XT as well.
