Evga Geforce Gtx 1660 Xc Ultra Gaming, 06g-p4-1167-kr, 6gb Gddr5, Hdb Fan

At a Glance

Expert's Rating

Pros

• Excellent 1080p/60Hz gaming performance
• Relaxing below load
• Very tranquillize
• Affordable
• EVGA's Preciseness X1 overclocking software is GREAT

Cons

• No fancy extra features
• Reasonable $30 premium puts it confined to entry-level GTX 1660 Ti GPUs
• Only 1 DisplayPort and HDMI port

Our Finding of fact

Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1660 and EVGA's superb XC Ultra custom design result in a inexperienced mainstream gambling champion. This is the graphics card you want for 1080p gaming at 60 frames per second.

Unexceeded Prices Nowadays

Non Available

Acclaim to the new champion of the graphics circuit board "sweet spot." Nvidia's $220 GeForce GTX 1660 usurps the prize from AMD's Radeon RX 580, which held the title of respect for years now, and renders even the recently released Radeon RX 590 obsolete. And though Nvidia's in style GPU technically replaces the unimpressive $200 3GB GTX 1060, it actually manages to surpass the Thomas More potent (and pricier) 6GB GTX 1060 while at the same time addressing the most glaring weaknesses of its predecessor.

Non too shabby, Nvidia. Not also shabby the least bit.

Nvidia ISN't creating a Founders Edition for the GPU, but its get on partners will release a variety of GTX 1660 models for Thursday's launch. Today, we'll embody reviewing the $250 EVGA GeForce GTX 1660 XC Ultra, the much affordable cousin to the custom-cooled, highly overclocked $310 EVGA GTX 1660 Ti XC Ultra that we loved indeed some. Let's go!

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 specs, features, and price

Brad Chacos/IDG

You North Korean won't find many surprises under the hood of the GTX 1660, because it uses a cut-down version of the TU116 Alan Turing GPU launch in the powerful GTX 1660 Ti. That gives it all of Nvidia's modern carrying out benefits in traditional games, which we covered in-deepness in our Turing GPU deep-dive. As a GTX model alternatively of an RTX GPU, notwithstandin, the GTX 1660 lacks the dedicated hardware that enables ray-tracing and AI-enhancement features so heavily promoted in more expensive Nvidia graphics card game.

Nvidia

Arsenic you can envision in the chart above, the new GTX 1660 matches or beats both the 3GB and 6GB GTX 1060 in every relevant spec, from CUDA core counts to raw clock speeds, entirely spell sticking to the same 120-watt TDP. That's a stunning testament to the superb Energy Department efficiency of Nvidia's architecture, which makes rival Radeon GPUs look outright power-hungry aside comparison.

Speaking of comparisons, it's worth taking a back to discuss the GTX 1660's memory shape. Nvidia's new GPU fixes the most notable flaw of 3GB GTX 1060: the paltry 3GB of RAM stated right in its name. When the 3GB GTX 1060 launched in 2022, that scant memory capacity resulted in occasional performance issues when playing some 1080p games with all the centre candy cranked. The limitation rankled every last the more than with the passage of clip, essentially leaving the $200-ish food market to AMD's better-equipped Radeon RX 570 and RX 580.

Nvidia unchangeable that by giving the GeForce GTX 1660 a full 6GB of VRAM, but tone that it uses time-honored GDDR5 computer storage instead of the ultra-fast (and cutting-edge) GDDR6 kind found in the GTX 1660 Ti and RTX 20-series graphics cards. It's a shrewd move to save money in the cutthroat mainstream commercialize. GDDR5 offers much lower retentiveness clock speeds and frankincense much take down overall memory bandwidth than GDDR6, but it's fast enough for 1080p gaming, and it ensures the price stays right-minded (although the GTX 1660 still costs $20 more than the 3GB GTX 1060 did at launch).

Brad Chacos/IDG

You won't find many surprises in EVGA's implementation either, but you will find slew to be affected with. The $250 GTX 1660 XC Ultra uses the Lapplander custom cooler as its GTX 1660 Si counterpart. IT too comes overclocked out of the box, hitting 1,845MHz rather than the GTX 1660's rated 1,785MHz. The card runs very much faster in practice, hovering round the 2GHz range depending on the application.

EVGA's effective cooling resolution enables Nvidia's GPU Boost algorithms to agitate the filaree that hard. Here's what we said about information technology in our EVGA GTX 1660 Ti XC Ultra critical review, and spoiler alert: The tank runs even, swell, cooler paired with the less-puissant GTX 1660.

"The GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Cardinal Ultra includes the overhauled custom cooling design found on many of EVGA's RTX 20-series GPUs. Dual hydraulic dynamic bearing (HDB) lengthwise fans emblazoned with tiny 'E's sit atop a deep, dense heat sink, and EVGA claims that the mixture of HDB fans with the tiny letters result in a 19 percent reduction in disturbance levels compared to competing fans with sleeve-bearing fan designs."

EVGA

The EVGA GTX 1660 XC Ultra as wel mirrors its large sibling's port selection, providing one HDMI, DVI, and DisplayPort apiece. That's pretty special, but most gamers buying graphics cards in this price range in all likelihood have only united or two monitors at any rate. DVI's inclusion is a very welcome surprise—it's becoming a rarity. The card sticks to a standard dual-slot design and only needs a single 8-pin business leader connector, soh upgrading from another GPU shouldn't be a hassle.

Despite organism EVGA's high-end GTX 1660 offering, the Ninety Ultra skips out happening some common value-adding extras. You won't find a backplate on it, nor RGB LED illumination. Neither omission is really a drawback—I turn over a "blacked-out" not-RGB look in many systems—but they're worth noting.

Brad Chacos/IDG

Too Charles Frederick Worth noting: EVGA's robust funding scheme. The company's Preciseness X1 software was overhauled from the earth up for Nvidia's latest GPU generation, and it's absolutely stunning—it's my loved GPU overclocking and monitoring tool to use, complete with one-click auto-overclocking using Nvidia's splendid OC Scanner API. The company also of late started an EVGA Associates program, which is kinda like an affiliate program for PC enthusiasts. The referred buyer receives a discount on EVGA gear, and the person whose Relate Code was wont to buy new computer hardware gets a percentage of the net income cut-rate sale as "EVGA bucks" that pot be used for discounts on EVGA's website. Bully!

EVGA will likewise provide a free copy ofGRIP: Combat Racing, mated with an exclusive EVGA-branded skin for your essential car. Simply enough talk. On to the games!

Close page: Our test system, benchmarks begin

Our test system

Our dedicated graphics scorecard test system is packed with around of the fastest complementary components available to put whatever potential operation bottlenecks squarely on the GPU. Nigh of the hardware was provided by the manufacturers, but we purchased the cooler and storage ourselves.

• Intel Core group i7-8700K CPU ($360 on Amazon)
• EVGA CLC 240 nonopening-loop fluid ice chest ($120 on Virago)
• Asus Maximus X Hoagie motherboard ($260 on Amazon)
• 64GB HyperX Predator RGB DDR4/2933 ($318 for 32GB on Amazon)
• EVGA 1200W SuperNova P2 power issue ($180 on Amazon)
• Corsair Crystal 570X RGB case, with look and top panels removed and an extra rear fan installed for improved airflow ($160 connected Amazon)
• 2x 500GB Samsung 860 EVO SSDs ($78 each on Amazon)

We're comparing the $250 EVGA GeForce GTX 1660 Ninety Ultra against its crowing sibling, the $310 EVGA GTX 1660 Ti 90 Ultra, Eastern Samoa well equally its predecessor, an overclocked EVGA interpretation of the 6GB GTX 1060. Rounding out the Nvidia side, we're too including the GTX 1070 Founders Edition and the ray tracing-capable $350 GeForce RTX 2060 Founders Edition.

We received our review sample very close to deadline and didn't hold time to re-test the $200 3GB GTX 1060, but since the new GPU outclasses the 6GB GTX 1060, we're homely omitting the slower 3GB variant from our results. (For what it's worth, Nvidia claims the GTX 1660 is "on average 30 pct quicker" than the 3GB GTX 1060 at reference book clock speeds.)

To see how EVGA's graphics posting stacks up against the Radeon competition, we've also included public presentation results from the $260 Sapphire Radeon RX 590 Nitro+ (which launched at $280 in November), the $400 Radeon Vega 56, and the Asus ROG Strix version of the Radeon RX 580. Many Radeon RX 580 models can consistently be launch for $200 or slightly less on sale these days, even in 8GB variants.

Each game is tested victimization its in-game benchmark at the highest possible art presets, with VSync, frame rate caps, and all GPU vendor-specific technologies—like AMD TressFX, Nvidia GameWorks options, and FreeSync/G-Synchronise—disabled, and temporal opposing-aliasing (TAA) enabled to push these high-final stage cards to their limits. If anything differs from that, we'll cite information technology. We run each benchmark at least three times and list the mediocre solution for each screen.

We limited our testing to 1080p and 1440p resolutions, equally satisfying 4K gaming is mostly out of the reach of this class of lineup.

EVGA GTX 1660 XC Extremist gaming benchmarks

Quaint Brigade

Let's kick things off withStrange Brigade ($50 happening Small), a cooperative third-person crap-shooter where a squad of adventurers blasts through hordes of mythological enemies. It's a technological showcase, built around the next-gen Vulkan and DirectX 12 technologies and infused with features like HDR support and the power to on-off switch asynchronous cypher on and off. It uses Rebellion's custom Azure engine. We test with async compute off.

Brad Chacos/IDG

The first spunky exterior of the gate doesn't blusher the GTX 1660 in the best white. IT's solely about 9.5 percentage faster than the GTX 1060, and information technology's actually slower than the Radeon RX 580, much less the RX 590. But Strange Brigade loves AMD GPUs, and the GTX 1660 still delivers great framerates at 1080p resolution. Heck, IT almost hits the hallowed 60 frames per second at 1440p! The increase GTX 1660 Ti is importantly faster, however—as it should be for $60 more.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Shadow of the Tomb Raider ($60 on Menial) concludes the reboot trilogy, and information technology's deadbeautiful. Square Enix optimized this game for DX12, and recommends DX11 solitary if you'rhenium exploitation older ironware or Windows 7, so we test therewith.Shadow of the Grave Despoiler uses an enhanced version of the Foundation engine that likewise poweredRise of the Tomb Looter.

Brad Chacos/IDG

EVGA's GTX 1660 XC Ultra delivers much more impressive results Hera, beating the Radeon RX card game conveniently, and the last gen's overclocked 6GB GTX 1060 by a thumping 27+ percent at 1080p resolution. Games should also Be playable at 1440p if you muck about with the exteroception settings. Again, the pricier GTX 1660 Ti is about 20 percent quicker than the new GTX 1660.

Cold Holler 5

At length, a DirectX 11 plot!Far Cry 5 ($60 on Humble) is powered aside Ubisoft's long-established Dunia railway locomotive. It's just as gorgeous as its predecessors, and even more fun.

Brad Chacos/IDG

Nvidia's card shows up strong yet once again, beating the GTX 1060 and comparable Radeon GPUs similar. The 1080p results prove particularly strong, though you could play Far Cry 5 at 1440p with rattling few visual compromises, as well.

Next page: Gaming benchmarks proceed

Ghost Recon Wildlands

Give,Crysis. If you crank all the graphics options heavenward to 11, like we dress for these tests,Wraith Recon Wildlands($50 on Humble) and its AnvilNext 2.0 engine deadmeld GPUs.Ghost Recon Wildlandsalso prefers Nvidia's GPU computer architecture in general.

Brad Chacos/IDG

The actual frame rates might appear slow present—they improve dramatically if you dial back from the game's borderline torture-examination Immoderate settings—simply don't be fooled: The GTX 1660 is still finished 10 percent quicker than the GTX 1060, and more so versus the Radeon options.

Middle-earth: Shadow of War

Mediate-earth: Shadow of War ($50 on Humble) adds a strategic layer to the series' sublime core gameplay loop, adapting the Curse system to let you create an army of personalized Orc commanders. Information technology plays like a champ on PC, too, thanks to Monolith's custom LithTech Firebird engine. We use the Ultra graphics preset simply drop-off the Vestige and Texture Character settings to High to avoid exceeding 8GB of VRAM usage in our testing scenario, because graphics cards that exceed 8GB of capacity are uncommon so. (Nvidia's "sweet blob" artwork card game wholly top outgoing at 6GB.)

Brad Chacos/IDG

The EVGA GTX 1660 XC Ultra is nearly 20 percent quicker than the GTX 1060 6GB here, and could provide a solid 1440p gaming experience with a few visual tweaks. And the GTX 1660 Ti is nearly 20 percent faster than that.

F1 2022

The latest in a long line of successful games,F1 2022($60 along Humble) is a precious stone to test, provision a wide array of both graphical and benchmarking options—making it a much more than reliable (and fun) option that theForzaseries. It's built on the twenty-five percent rendering of Codemasters' buttery-smooth Egotism game railway locomotive. We screen two laps on the Australia course, with serene skies.

Brad Chacos/IDG

EVGA's overclocked, bespoke-cooled card outdances its predecessor to the tune up of a 22 percent performance increase. The booster cable over the Radeon RX 590 is slimmer, but information technology's there, and the AMD GPU costs more in stores.

Next varlet: Play benchmarks continue

Ashes of the Uniqueness: Escalation

Ashes of the Uniqueness ($40 on Humble) was one of the very first DX12 games, and it remains a signal flag-toter for the technology to this solar day thanks to the extreme scalability of Oxide Games' next-gen Nitrogen locomotive. With hundreds of units onscreen at the same time and some serious graphics effects in play, the Crazy planned can make believe CPUs and graphics cards sweat.Ashes runs in both DX11 and DX12, but we only examination in DX12, as IT delivers the best results for both Nvidia and AMD GPUs.

Brad Chacos/IDG

Interestingly, the GTX 1660 is only a a couple of frames per moment faster than the experienced 6GB GTX 1060, and the GTX 1660 Ti is only a some frames faster than its namesake. Those amount to performance differences of 10+ percent, however. Expect to get word the in the raw frame charge per unit gap widen if you'atomic number 75 not using the ultra-strenuous Crazy preset.

GTA V

We're going to wrap things in the lead with few older games that aren't really sensory system barn-burners, but still whirligig the Steam charts day in and twenty-four hour period out. These are games that alot of people play. Number 1 up:Grand Theft Motorcar V ($30 along Humble) with all options turned to Very High, all Advanced Graphics options leave off extended shadows enabled, and FXAA.GTA Vruns on the RAGE engine and has received substantial updates since its first launch.

Brad Chacos/IDG

This is an older game, so it's no storm to run into the GTX 1660 provide stripped performance uplift compared to its predecessor. The GTX 1660 Ti is considerably quicker if you can spend to a greater extent money, though. AMD's Radeon cards are left in the proverbial dust by Nvidia's offerings.

Rainbow Half dozen Siege

Finally, let's contract a peep atRainbow Six Siege($40 on Humble), a game whose audience just keeps on growing, and peerless that still feels equivalent the only truly next-gen shooter after entirely these years. IlkTouch Recon Wildlands, this back runs connected Ubisoft's AnvilNext 2.0 engine, butRainbow Six Beleaguering responds particularly well to graphics card game that weedy on async cipher features.

Brad Chacos/IDG

That responsiveness to async compute gave the Radeon RX 580 a clear edge over the older GTX 1060, but the GTX 1660 manages to reap straight with AMD's artwork card. Both the Radeon RX 590 and GTX 1660 Ti are noticeably quicker—but realistically, this game delivers screaming performance along every the hardware tested, even at the more demanding 1440p resolving.

Next page: Power, thermals, noise, and synthetics

EVGA GTX 1660 XC Extremist power draw, thermals, and disturbance

We also tested the EVGA GTX 1660 XC Ultra using 3DMark's extremely respected Attack Strike synthetic benchmark. Fire Strike runs at 1080p, Fire Strike Extremum runs at 1440p, and Arouse Smash Radical runs at 4K closure. Entirely render the same scene, just with more intense graphical effects as you move up the scale, thusly that Extreme and Ultra flavors stress GPUs even more. We record the graphics score to eliminate variance from the CPU.

Brad Chacos/IDG

This is wherefore synthetic benchmarks are corking for gross comparisons and for providing a story playing field in overclocking competitions, simply can't Be fully relied upon. Fire Come upon shows the EVGA GTX 1660 Cardinal Ultra lagging behind the Radeon cards, just that simply International Relations and Security Network't true up in the majority of real-world games.

We test power draw by looping theF1 2022 bench mark for about 20 minutes after we've benchmarked everything other, and noting the highest meter reading happening our Watts Up Pro meter. The initial part of the pelt along, where totally competitive cars are onscreen simultaneously, tends to be the most tight portion.

Brad Chacos/IDG

The GTX 1660 offers outstanding power efficiency yet with EVGA's overclock and custom cooling answer applied. It draws the same amount of energy Eastern Samoa EVGA's overclocked GTX 1060 SSC from the last generation, but with much built performance—a fetching combination. The Radeon graphics cards can't even come close to matching these results.

We test thermals by leaving HWInfo's sensor monitoring tool loose during theF1 2022 five-lap power draw test, noting the highest maximum temperature at the end.

Brad Chacos/IDG

Fountain results under 70 degrees Celsius are great. In the 50s? That's ludicrous—merely the EVGA GTX 1660 XC Radical manages it while staying satisfyingly quiet (though not silent) under consignment. Such an impressive custom temperature reduction solution on a 1080p-class board delivers great performance. Stay frosty.

Future page: Should you buy the EVGA GTX 1660 XC Ultra?

Should you buy the EVGA GTX 1660 XC Ultra?

If you'rhenium looking for an affordable artwork card for 1080p gaming at 60 frames per irregular—the monitor specs for the majority of gamers—then the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 is the card you want.

The GTX 1660 rips the Radeon RX 580 from its years-lengthy lockdown As the go-to "sweet spot" graphics card. Nvidia's card trails its AMD counterpart in a pair of games that heavily favor Radeon architecture, only good triumphs over the competition in the other titles. With 6GB of store, the electrical capacity and longevity concerns that plagued the 3GB GTX 1060 are absent. And per usual, Nvidia's new GPU proves very power-efficient. Now that Nvidia GPUs play nice with FreeSync accommodative sync monitors, that's no thirster an AMD advantage, either.

Brad Chacos/IDG

EVGA's custom chilling designing and unfashionable-of-the-box overclock impresses even again in the GeForce GTX 1660 XC Ultra, delivering pregnant performance and downright icy temperatures. Information technology's deserving the $30 exchange premiu the card costs over the GTX 1660's $220 starting MSRP, particularly if you have no hope to overclock your graphics bill of fare manually.

But for as very much like we love the $250 EVGA GTX 1660 XC Radical, grocery pressures prevent us from awarding IT an Editors' Choice award like EVGA's pricier GTX 1660 Te cousin. That $30 superior, while valid, puts the placard within expectoration distance of entry-level $380 GTX 1660 Ti models, and as you adage in our benchmarks, the GTX 1660 Ti is significantly faster than the GTX 1660 non-Ti. A $30 premium is a significant markup percentage-wise for a GPU that starts at $220. I'd argue it's worth the investment, simply this is a very price-sensitive segment of the market, and there's a proficient chance that entry-tied GTX 1660 models will equal able to bear satisfactory gameplay results while still safekeeping temperatures from acquiring too hot. (They South Korean won't run anywhere hot atomic number 3 cool surgery quiet As EVGA's XC Ultra, though.)

AMD's Radeon RX 580 still plays well at 1080p/60, and we've seen sales drop 8GB versions of those card game well below $200 at times, often bundled with a geminate of disengage triple-A games. The GTX 1660 is a bettor GPU whol around, but if you're on the hunt for a new graphics card, the economics of a particularly juicy Radeon RX 580 sale could sway you to Team Scarlet. Don't buy a Radeon RX 590 though—at $260, it costs more than even this overclocked EVGA GTX 1660 XC Ultra despite existence inferior in power efficiency and in-game performance (commonly).

Brad Chacos/IDG

Don't let completely that market positioning talk dissuade you though. The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 is the better "sweet spot" 1080p artwork card you can buy out, priced well, and EVGA's XC Ultra spin on it is spectacular. They're passing to sell a ton of these.

If you game happening a higher freshen up pace 120Hz, 144Hz, operating theater 240Hz monitor, drop the extra cash happening the GTX 1660 Te or else—you'll want the extra legroom it provides. And while the EVGA GTX 1660 90 Ultra can dally games at 1440p with a fewer visual compromises, consider opting for a $380+ GTX 1660 Te or (more ideally) a $350+ GeForce RTX 2060 rather if you wishing to push on every last those pixels well.

Note: When you buy something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details.

Evga Geforce Gtx 1660 Xc Ultra Gaming, 06g-p4-1167-kr, 6gb Gddr5, Hdb Fan

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/403426/nvidia-evga-geforce-gtx-1660-xc-ultra-review.html