The Nvidia GTX 1660 and 1660 Ti are both decent gaming graphics cards, but which should you
pick, and is it worth upgrading? In this video we’ll test out and compare 16 different
games at 1080p and 1440p resolutions to help you see the performance difference between
them, and find out which is better value for the price.
Let’s quickly take a look at how the GTX 1660 Ti and 1660 actually differ in terms
of specs, note that things like clock speed and power will vary between specific cards,
these are just the reference specs for each model. The Ti has 9% more CUDA cores, however
the 1660 non Ti has slightly higher base and boost clock speeds. The memory is also different
between them, where the 1660 is using older and cheaper GDDR5 memory, so while both have
6GB the 1660’s memory is slower compared to the Ti’s.
For the testing I’m using the MSI GTX 1660 Ti Gaming X and the MSI GTX 1660 Gaming X,
so both cards are from the same company and are even from the same series with the same
coolers, as apples to apples as I can make things.
The system that I’m testing with has an Intel i7-8700K CPU overclocked to 5.0GHz in
an MSI Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon motherboard, along with 16GB of T-Force Night Hawk CL16
memory from Team Group running at DDR4-3200 in dual channel. Check the links in the description
for details on all of the components as well as for up to date pricing. The same Windows
updates and Nvidia driver 419.35 were used for the testing, so let’s get into the results.
Let’s start out Apex Legends, which was tested with all settings maxed out. In all
upcoming graphs I’ve got the GTX 1660 shown by the top bar in red, while the GTX 1660
Ti is shown below in purple, while the two different resolutions, 1080p and 1440p are
shown on the left. In terms of average FPS the Ti was 7% ahead of the non Ti at 1080p,
then a much larger 24% ahead at 1440p.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was tested with the built in benchmark using high settings,
and the 1660 Ti was 16% ahead in average FPS at 1080p, rising up to 21% faster at 1440p.
The increase to 1% low was a bit lower, it was 10% higher at 1080p with the Ti and 15%
higher at 1440p.
Battlefield 5 was tested in campaign mode rather than multiplayer, as it’s easier
to consistently reproduce the test run. I found both cards to deliver a fairly playable
experience with high settings, even with 1440p, however the Ti was getting 20% higher average
FPS here, and 19% higher at 1080p.
Far Cry New Dawn was tested using the built in benchmark with high settings, and once
again the 1660 Ti was coming out ahead. At 1080p we’re looking at a 15% improvement
to average frame rate, increasing to 17% higher once we turn the resolution up to 1440p.
Far Cry 5 was also tested using the built in benchmark with high settings, and this
game was seeing higher FPS over the newer Far Cry New Dawn just shown. The improvements
with the Ti were also very similar, 15% at 1080p and 17% at 1440p.
Fortnite was tested using the replay feature with the exact same replay on both graphics
cards. This was another game that I thought was easily playable on either card, even at
1440p with high settings in use. In terms of the differences to average FPS though,
at 1080p the Ti was 11% ahead of the non Ti, and 14% ahead at 1440p.
Metro Exodus was tested with the built in benchmark at high settings. The actual game
performs a fair bit ahead of this, so this is more of a synthetic test rather than representative
of actual game play, but it does allow me to accurately compare between the two graphics
cards. With that in mind, the Ti card was achieving 17% higher average FPS at 1080p,
rising to almost 19% at 1440p.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was also tested using the built in benchmark with high settings.
This seems to be more of a graphically intensive test, and the Ti was coming out almost 20%
ahead in average FPS, and about the same at 1440p as well.
Rainbow Six Siege was tested using the built in benchmark at high settings, with a 50%
render scale and T-AA in use as these are default with the built in presets. This is
a game that I’ve found to prefer Nvidia’s new Turing architecture, so we’re getting
fairly good results with either card here. At 1080p there was a 12% improvement with
the Ti and then similar at 1440p, almost reaching 13% faster.
CS:GO was tested with the Ulletical FPS benchmark, and both cards were delivering very high frame
rates as usual, although out of all 16 games this one saw the smallest change between the
two. At 1080p the Ti was 5% ahead of the non Ti, and then 9% ahead at 1440p, with no real
difference to 1% low at 1080p, but a 12% higher 1% low at 1440p with the Ti.
Overwatch was tested in the practice range as I can easily perform the same test run
compared to playing with bots or other players which will differ every time. Both of these
cards were capable of providing a great experience at 1440p even with ultra settings in use,
as this is a well optimized game. In terms of the differences at 1080p the Ti was 20%
ahead of the Non Ti, rising to 22% at 1440p, and the 1% low with the 1660 Ti was actually
just ahead of the non Ti’s average frame rate.
PUBG was tested using the replay feature with the exact same replay at high settings, and
this game saw the largest improvement out of all 16 games tested with the Ti. At 1080p
the Ti was giving us 23% higher average frame rate, and 25% higher at 1440p where the 1%
low from the Ti was approaching the average from the non Ti card.
Watch Dogs 2 is a resource intensive game and was tested with high settings. In my opinion
this one doesn’t need a high frame rate to play, I can get by with a solid 30 FPS,
so both cards were giving me very a playable experience at 1440p. As for the differences,
at 1080p the Ti was 13% ahead in average FPS and 17% at 1440p.
Ghost Recon was tested with the built in benchmark and high settings in use, and is another resource
heavy game. Despite this the 1660 was almost averaging 60 FPS in this test at 1440p, though
some of that would of course be due to my overclocked 8700K. As for the differences,
the Ti was scoring 13% higher average frame rates at 1080p, and 16% at 1440p.
The Witcher 3 was tested with Hairworks disabled, and like most other games was playable at
both 1080p and 1440p even with high settings in use. This game saw a pretty big improvement
with the Ti, with a 20% higher average frame rate at 1080p and 1440p.
Shadow of War was tested using the built in benchmark with high settings, and we were
seeing almost a 20% improvement with the Ti at both 1080p and 1440p.
In terms of overall improvement, over all 16 games tested with a 1080p resolution on
average the GTX 1660 Ti was performing 15.5% better when compared with non Ti 1660 in terms
of average FPS.
At 1440p on average over the same 16 games the GTX 1660 Ti was now scoring 18.6% higher
average frame rates when compared with the GTX 1660. This usually happens, where higher
resolutions show larger differences as we start becoming more GPU bound.
As both of these cards appear to be the same size and have the same coolers, we should
be able to accurately compare temperatures, power draw, clock speed and fan speed.
Starting with the temperatures with an ambient room temperature of 24 degrees Celsius the
1660 Ti was consistently 2 to 3 degrees Celsius warmer than the 1660 with the Heaven benchmark
running, though realistically neither were getting very hot and the difference was small.
Here are the fan speeds from the same tests, with the fans working on their default fan
curves the fans on the 1660 were running a bit slower than the Ti version, however when
we manually max the fans out with MSI Afterburner the 1660 appeared to run faster. Here’s
what these different fan speeds sounded like to give you an idea of what to expect.
Basically the 1660 Ti is a bit louder, which makes sense as it’s running a bit warmer
so the fans generally spin faster to compensate, but keep in mind my case does have 7 other
fans installed.
These are the average clock speeds with the same Heaven benchmark running. We can see
that while under load the clock speeds from the 1660 were a little ahead of the 1660 Ti,
which makes sense given as we saw at the start in the specs it had a higher base and boost
clock speed.
This is what we’re looking at for total system power draw from the wall, again with
just the Heaven benchmark running. With both cards at stock the 1660 Ti was using 11.5%
more power, then with both overclocked this lowers slightly to 10.9% more power. I think
this difference is acceptable, given there was a 15% improvement to performance at 1080p
and 18% at 1440p.
Here are some results from overclocking, I’ve still got the 1660 in red, and the Ti in purple,
with the overclocked results towards the top in the brighter colours. I was able to boost
the core clock of my 1660 Ti by 130MHz and 150MHz for the 1660, and we can see that we
seem to be getting a larger improvement with the 1660 overclocked compared to overclocking
the Ti version.
Now for the final difference, the price. I suggest checking updated prices using the
links in the description, as prices will change over time. At the time of recording, in the
US my MSI Gaming X 1660 is going for $250 USD, while my MSI Gaming X 1660 Ti is $60
USD more at $310, or 24% more money. There are of course cheaper options, the cards I’m
testing with are from the higher end of the spectrum. The 1660 launched at $219 USD, while
the 1660 Ti launched at $279 USD, so again a $60 difference in price there, is it worth
paying more for the Ti? When we just look at the difference between cards, you’re
paying 24 to 27% more for 15% more performance on average at 1080p, or 18% more at 1440p.
When we factor in the rest of the cost of a system though the percentage difference
lowers, say you’re spending $1000 on your PC for example, an extra $60 is only 6% more
for significantly more performance, so in that context it does seem more worthwhile.
With that in mind, if I was buying new today, I’d pick the 1660 Ti, mostly because it’s
giving fairly good results at 1440p which is a resolution I personally prefer. If you’re
just targeting 1080p though, as we’ve seen the 1660 is definitely capable even at higher
settings, and even still does ok in many games at 1440p. You’ve also got the option of
overclocking the 1660 to get extra performance too, although you could also overclock the
Ti. In my own testing I was able to get more out of my non Ti card, but that will vary
between cards.
As both the 1660 and 1660 Ti have only just launched you’ll probably have a hard time
finding them on the second hand market, but that’s also going to be an option for a
better deal in the future too if you don’t mind not having a warranty.
Let me know which card you’d pick down in the comments and why, the GTX 1660 Ti or 1660,
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