Custom PC - UK (2020-02)

I

f therewasonerangeofPCcomponentsthat

reallydidn’tneedanothercontender,it wasthe

£200-£250graphicscardsegment.Wealready

havetheGeForceGTX 1660 andTiinthere,alongwith

AMD’sagingRadeonRXVega56andNvidia’slast-genGTX

1070 muddyingthewatersfurther.

Nevertheless,Nvidiahasdecidedthat

weneedonemoreslightlydifferent

GPUinthemix,introducinga new

Super-brandedflavourofitsGeForce

GTX1660.

UnliketheSuperRTXline-up,there’s

nochangetotheGPUhere.Youstill

getthesame1,408streamprocessors

and 48 ROPS,attachedtoa 192-bit

memoryinterface.WheretheSuper

variantdiffersfromitspredecessoris

thememory.It has6GBof1750MHz

(14GHzeffective)GDDR6memory,

comparedtotheoriginalGTX1660’s

6GBof2GHz(8GHzeffective)GDDR5

memory.Theresultisa largeincrease

intotalmemorybandwidth,from

192GB/secto336GB/sec.

ThisputstheGTX 1660 Superintoa

similarleaguetotheGTX 1660 Ti,which

alsohas6GBofGDDR6memory,but

clockedata slightlyslowerspeedof

1500MHz(12GHzeffective).However,the Super doesn’t

havethe 128 extrastreamprocessorsfound in the GTX 1660

Ti’sfullyenabledGPU.AswiththeGTX 1660, while this chip

isindeedbasedonNvidia’sTuringarchitecture, it also doesn’t

havethededicatedraytracingorTensor cores found in

Nvidia’sRTXGPUs.

If you’restrugglingtogetyourheadaround all that

nomenclature,thebasicgististhattheGTX 1660 Super

mixestheoriginalGTX1660’sGPUwith the GTX 1660 Ti’s

memory,whileaddingsomeclockspeed tweaks.

Nvidia’sreferencespeedsfortheGPU are a 1530MHz

baseclockwitha 1785MHzboostclock. However, the Zotac

AMPcardhereupsthatboostclockby60MHz to 1845MHz.

There’sa cheaperversionoftheZotaccard without that

overclock,whichcosts£215incVATfrom ebuyer.com.

Comparatively,youcanbuyanMSIRadeon RX Vega56 card

fromthesameretailerfor£237incVAT, and that’s going to be

theGTX 1660 Super’smainproblem.

ThisZotaccardhasanadvantageover similarly priced

RadeonRXVega56cards,though,with its custom cooler.

Therearenofancylightsorfrills,butyou do get a backplate

thatwrapsaroundthePCB,three6mm heatpipes, a large

stackofaluminiumfansand,mostimportantly, two quiet

90mmfans.It’snotpretty,butit’smuch quieter in games

thanthestandardblowercooleronthe cheaper Radeon RX

Vega56cards.Theonlydowneristhatthe Zotac’s single

8-pinPCI-Epowerconnectorisplaced awkwardly in the

middleofthebackplate,ratherthanthe edge.

REVIEWS / GRAPHICS CARDS

S P E C

Graphics processor

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660

Super, 1530MHz base clock,

1845MHz boost clock

Pipeline

1,408 stream processors, 48 ROPs

RT Cores

0

Tensor Cores

0

Memory

6GB GDDR6, 1750MHz (14GHz effective)

Memory interface

192-bit

Bandwidth

336GB/sec

Outputs/inputs

3 x DisplayPort 1.4, 1 x HDMI 2b

Power connections

1 x 8-pin

Card length

210mm

ZOTACGAMING GEFORCE GTX 1660

SUPERAMP EDITION/£240 inc VAT

SUPPLIER ebuyer.com

GRAPHICS CARD