Nvidia announced the GTX 1660 earlier this year as the successor of the GTX 1060. The GTX 1660 turned out to be the next value for money card in the mid-range segment, especially focused for gamers playing at 1080p. The GTX 1660 offers a significant performance boost over the GTX 1060, that is, roughly 1.5 times the performance of the 1060. While the GTX 1660 is an extremely good card for competitive gaming, the GDDR5 memory might lack behind in certain cases. Keeping in mind the fact that newer games have been using more complex shaders, the memory upgrade might be very beneficial in the near future. We reviewed the Zotac 1660 Super Twin Fan Edition to assess the performance of the latest GPU from Nvidia. How does the Zotac 1660 Super perform? Find out in our review below.
Inside The Box
The Zotac GTX 1660 Super Twin Fan comes in a similar box as it’s non-Super counterpart. Inside the box, we have the quick installation guide, marketing pamphlets, and the GPU itself. There is no driver CD, but given the fact that PCs rarely have CD-ROMs these days to begin with, this isn’t something to fuss about.
Technical Specifications
The Zotac GTX 1660 Super comes with almost the same specifications as the GTX 1660, apart from the memory. The 1660 and 1660 Super share the same 1530 Mhz base clock and 1785 Mhz boost clock and is based on 12nm TU116 GPU which even the 1660 Ti has in common.The most important thing one would look into is Shader processors. While the 1660 Ti has a total of 24 Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs), the 1660 Super and the 1660 have 22 SMs, totaling to 1408 (22×64) Shader processors as compared to the 1660 Ti’s 1536 Shader processors. Coming to the Texture Units and fill rate, the 1660 siblings share 88 TUs and 157.1 Gigatexel/s respectively, while the 1660 Ti has 96 TUs and 169.9 Gigatexel/s fill rate.
Where the 1660 Super is different is in the memory department. Nvidia has bumped up the memory of GTX 1660 from GDDR5 to GDDR6 in the GTX 1660 Super keeping in mind the increasing demands of recent and upcoming games. The GTX 1660 Super comes with 14 Gbps of GDDR6 memory which in fact is even faster than the GTX 1660 Ti’s 12 Gbps GDDR6 memory. The memory bandwidth in the GTX 1660 Super witnesses a massive bump from 192 Gbps in 1660 to 336 Gbps. Like we mentioned earlier, the memory bandwidth is even higher than the 1660 Ti which is clocked at 288 Gbps.
Build Quality
Zotac is known for its top-notch price to performance ratio. Be it providing the one-of-a-kind 5-year warranty on its GPUs or providing the best stuff at the cheapest prices, Zotac never fails to deliver. The Zotac 1660 Super twin fan is no exception. The most commendable aspect is the compact design, despite being a twin fan card. The card measures just about 17 cms, which is pretty compact for a card packing twin fans. The card uses a single 8-pin power connector and has a TDP of 125W as compared to the GTX 1660’s 120W TDP. The recommended PSU is 450W so it is meant for budget and mid-range builds. As far as connectivity goes, the card offers three DisplayPort 1.4 and one HDMI 2.0b. You may or may not need a separate adapter depending on what monitor you have. Overall the build quality is pretty robust, and there isn’t anything more we could expect from Zotac’s version of the GTX 1660.
Performance
The major difference in performance between the 1660 and 1660 Ti was due to the significant memory difference between them. Nvidia aims to cut it down with the launch of the 1660 Super. Nvidia claims that the faster memory in the 1660 Super gives up to 20% performance bump over 1660, which has been one of the most sought out cards in the mid-range segment. Irrespective of the fact whether the 1660 Super is able to deliver substantially better performance in all games as compared to 1660, it will definitely see major thrusts in the days to come, as games become more demanding. The launch of the 1660 Super is a pretty prudent move from Nvidia for gamers who are looking for a future-proof card in the budget segment.
We tested the GPU on a PC with the following specifications. All benchmarking was done with MSI Afterburner and Rivatuner Statistics Server.
Specifications:-
- Ryzen 5 2600 @3.85 Ghz
- 16GB DDR4 3000 Mhz RAM
- Western Digital M.2 250GB SSD
- Western Digital 1TB 7200 rpm SSD
- Windows 10 Build 1809
Unigine Valley
We kicked off our benchmarking process with Unigine Valley. The GPU performed pretty well in the test, with an average FPS of 118. The 1% low (Minimum FPS) was quite drastic at about 35 FPS but apart from the one specific scene, there were no major drops as such in the entire benchmarking process with Unigine Valley. The maximum FPS was a commendable 190, and we got a pretty stellar performance of 160+ FPS in less demanding scenes. The average temperature during the benchmarking process was 69 degrees.
Cinebench R15 GPU Benchmark
In Cinebench GPU benchmark, the GPU managed an average FPS of 130 and a minimum of 77 FPS. The temperature during the whole benchmarking process was a bit higher than the other benchmarking processes. The average temperature stood at 71 degrees.
Metro Exodus
For our first game, we had Metro Exodus. This was indeed one of the most demanding games this year, posing a challenge to even one of the best GPUs out there. However, the GTX 1660 Super did perform extremely well in the very first game. We tried out the game on the Extreme preset, which is the highest quality available. The average FPS was 83, while the minimum and maximum stood at 54 and 134 respectively. There weren’t any massive FPS drops as such except for a few highly intense segments in the game. What’s commendable is that the 1660 Super managed to stay just a few notches below 60 FPS in those demanding segments as well, ensuring that there was no significant performance loss. The average temperature while playing the game was 66 degrees.
Control
Another visually appealing game to come out recently, Control poses a fair challenge for GPUs as well with its high-quality textures and lighting. We tried Control on the highest settings, and it performed pretty similar to Metro Exodus. There were some drops here and there, but they were significantly lesser than Exodus and it gave a much stable performance. The average FPS was at 81 while the minimum stood at 56. The highest FPS we got, however, was pretty low at 100, but considering the game is pretty demanding, it is still a good number. The average temperature while playing the game was 60 degrees.
The Outer Worlds
No GPU review is complete without some open-world games, and for our 1660 Super review, we have one of the latest open-world games. Well, technically, it’s pseudo-open world but the game is pretty vast and still pretty close to an open world even though it might not be one completely. Moving on to the performance, the 1660 Super managed an average of 94 FPS at the highest preset. The minimum FPS was 54 while the maximum FPS we got was 114. Pretty decent performance once again, with the game being pretty recent and demanding as well. The average temperature while playing the game was 68 degrees.
eSports Titles – Counter-Strike Global Offensive
Coming to the eSports titles, we have Counter Strike Global Offensive first. In eSports titles, we used multiple presets to better assess the performance of the GPU in real-world scenarios. For instance, we tested the eSports titles on the Highest preset as well as the preset commonly used for competitive gaming. In CS:GO, the average FPS we got was 220 while the maximum was 348 while the minimum was at 180. Keep in mind, these are numbers from retake matches. We chose retake matches for benchmarking owing to the fact that they are pretty intense and consequently they are demanding on the system. Switching to competitive settings, that is, low settings, we got much better results. The average FPS saw a jump to 250 FPS while the minimum FPS went to 200. If someone is looking to use the 1660 Super with a 240 Hz monitor, he might need to play around with the settings a bit. Also, keep in mind CS:GO is a CPU-intensive game so your CPU will matter more for the performance you get. The average temperature while playing the game was 60 degrees.
Rocket League
One of the most popular eSports titles out there and one of the two titles which managed to make the cut for Olympic Games, Rocket League performed exceedingly well on the GPU. The game isn’t much demanding so we didn’t face any issues as such while playing the game since the minimum, average and maximum FPS stayed at almost 250 all the time. Keep in mind that the maximum FPS supported by the game is 250 FPS. Also, the graphics were set at the highest quality. The average temperature while playing the game was 58 degrees.
Rainbow Six Siege
One of the fastest-growing eSports titles out there, Rainbow Six Siege managed to give pretty good numbers on both competitive and highest settings. On the highest preset available, we got an average of 168 FPS and a minimum of 80 FPS, using the in-game benchmarking tool. On competitive settings, the average FPS stood at 184 while the minimum FPS was at 98. Keep in mind, these numbers are with all settings low except Level of detail, which was set on Ultra. The average temperature while playing the game was 65 degrees.
Temperatures
Zotac’s version of the GTX 1660 is a pretty great performer when it comes to the temperatures. The card managed to stay at an idle temperature of 45 degrees. During gaming, the maximum we witnessed in even the most demanding of titles was still under 70 degrees. Even under stress testing, the GPU didn’t go beyond 75 degrees. All these results were under ambient temperatures of around 35 degrees. Moreover, the process was carried out in an mATX build, so if you have a better cabinet with better and balanced airflow, the temperatures should be lesser. That being said, the temperature we witnessed was pretty great to begin with and speaks volumes about Zotac’s cooling despite being a budget card.
Conclusion
The Zotac 1660 Super is exactly what the 1660 series needed. While the 1660 was a pretty great card, it wasn’t completely future proof due to the old memory, which was not even GDDR5X. With the launch of the GTX 1660 Super, gamers now have a better and more future-proof GPU to get for themselves. Speaking of the Zotac 1660 Super Twin Fan, it is a pretty solid card that is sweetly priced and comes with decent cooling and five years of warranty. Zotac lives up to its reputation as a brand that delivers the best performance at the given price point once again.