Is The GEFORCE GTX 1660 still good in 2022?

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 is a mid-range graphics card from NVIDIA. It was launched on the 14th of March, 2019 as a successor to the prior GeForce GTX 1060. The card was widely popular among gamers and professionals alike for its value for money and was integrated into many laptops of the time.

Back in 2019, it was a deal-breaker in the mid-range graphics segment for its value for money as it handled all the games at 1080p with an almost full setting at good frame rates.

However, as we are in late 2022 now a lot of things have changed with the launch of heavy-performance games and software that requires a good GPU. If you are a casual gamer and have a tough time deciding if GTX 1660 is still a good GPU for you in 2022 this article is helping you sort things out.

We’ll discuss some of its key features and compare it to industry rivals. So, Is the GEFORCE GTX 1660 still good in 2022? Let’s find out.

Specifications

GEFORCE GTX 1660 is fabricated at 12nm technology in turning architecture with 6600 million transistors. It has a core speed of 1530-1785(BOOST) MHz delivering a TDP of 120W. It comes with 6GB of GDDR5 memory and has a bus width of 192 bits which runs at the speed of 8000MHz.

GTX 1660 is based on a TU116 chip and features a bus interface PCle 3.0 X 16. The clock speed starts at 1530 MHz and can be boosted up to 1785 MHz for better performance. For convenience, manual overclocking is also possible.

The memory clock is 2001 Mhz and has a memory bandwidth of 192.1 GB/s. In regards to render configurations, the pixel rate is 85.68 GPixel/s with a texture rate of 157.1. It runs Direct X 12, however, does not support the Direct X 12 Ultimate version which might let down some users.

Gaming Benchmarks

Debuted just for $220, the GTX 1660 packs some serious gaming capabilities. After testing various games on 1080p at medium to high settings we found the following results.

While playing The Division 2 the card delivered a smooth experience at an average of 60 fps in 10080p settings. However, fps dropped to 40 averages when we tried to load it in 1440 ultra settings which were almost unplayable.

The Assasin’s Creed Odyssey ran at 50 fps average on 1080p settings and dropped down to 36 when the settings were set in ultra. War games like Warframe received the most satisfying results with an average fps of 150 in 1080p settings. Even the 1440 mode ran smooth like butter with average fps of 100.

 With newer titles, the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Strange Brigade, the fps were just playable at 50 and 66 on average in 1080p respectively. When the performance and graphic settings were increased to 1440, the games became relatively unplayable with many lags.

Power Consumption

The NVIDIA GTX 1660 showed some decent results in power consumption. When the system was kept idle it consumed about 61 Watts. However, when heavy and performance-demanding games were loaded, the power consumption was pushed to 262 Watts.

In a similar test, the AMD Radeon RX 570 consumed 300 Watts. Since these two chips are industry rivals, the GTX 1660 outperformed in this category. As a rule of thumb, the AMD chips are known to consume more power but also have a better price-to-performance rating.

Advantages of Purchasing GTX 1660 in 2022

The first advantage of the GTX 1660 is it is affordable. There aren’t many graphic cards you can get for the price which deliver this level of performance. Another advantage would be that the chip does not get hot. This also means that it will be more durable and last longer than chips such as AMD RX 570 which are known for heating while playing heavy games.

Finally, the power consumption of the card is one of the best at its price level. With the Turing architecture, the card is also future-proof and will be viable to play 1080p games for many years to come. The GTX 1660 is available in every region and has proven performance capabilities.

Disadvantages

The price-to-performance ratio of the GTX is quite low compared to its industry rivals like the AMD Radeon RX 570. There are limited ports in this graphics card which seriously limits the usability. You might have to invest extra dollars for adapters. In addition, there are no RT cores on the graphics card. You won’t have features like Ray Tracing that are available in the RTX series.

If you want to play games on 1440p, then GTX 1660 is not the best choice. In almost all of the games that we tested, this graphics card showed poor results in 1440 settings. You also have two options, buying this with 3GB or 7GB of VRAM. The 3GB is more appealing for the price but will hurt you in the end with newer titles that won’t even let you install the game because you don’t have at least 4GB of VRAM.

Alternatives to GTX 1660

If you aren’t satisfied with some of the features and specs the GTX 1660 offers, there are many options you can go for. For example, if you are still tight on budget and want the Ray Tracing feature, you can get the RTX 2060 from the same manufacturer.

If you don’t care about the thermal capabilities and heating issues, you can go for the AMD Radeon RX 570. The RX 570 offers a better price-performance than the GTX 1660 graphics card.

Conclusion: Is The GTX 1660 Still Good?

GEFORCE GTX 1660 is still one of the best graphics cards for the 1080p gaming experience in 2022. It can even run most of the latest games and graphics-intensive software at 1080p. Besides gaming, you can also do video editing up to 1080p as well.

If you are a casual gamer and a beginner-level video editor demanding a decent performance up to 1080p then GTX 1660 is a viable choice for you as it provides excellent value for money. However, if you are a veteran gamer or a veteran editor, we suggest you look out for RTX 30 series graphics card that delivers better performance.

All things considered, the GeForce GTX 1660 is a good buy in 2022.

You can buy it here