Not really sure this works as a 970 replacement. I'll have to peruse Bench to see what the difference between the 960 and 970 were to see if it's worth the money. Might need to wait another generation.... or refresh.
Going by current Newegg prices - the GTX 1070 and Vega56 can be had for just under $329 (original 970 pricing) and are both literally 2X faster in many Bench scenarios than the 970.
You can justify anything using used pricing. In a freak bit of luck, I got two used 1080Ti GPUs for $400 each last October, virtually eliminating any possible price/performance comparison. Assuming the OP bought the 970 new, it's a fair comparison to look at current $329 cards.
It's irrelevant what they paid for the 970. They already have it, so it's effective cost on whether to upgrade is what they can get for it when they sell it, or if they don't sell it, $0.
Of course it's not. He's not talking about going out and buying a 970 today at that price. The real question is if the increase in performance is worth the $150 or so it'll cost him to upgrade (assuming he nets ~$80 by selling the 970 for $100 on eBay. (I'm afraid that price is about to take a hit though.) This is the same question we're all asking ourselves. Original price of our current cards is irrelevant. It's all about current value.
Current value is all that really matters. "What is it worth today?" while I'm building my system.
Tech doesn't hold on to value. $1,000 Extreme Edition CPUs become worthless right about the same time the $200 midrange CPU does typically. The current Core ix going from dual core up to 28 core may throw a kink in that statement, but historically it has held true.
I'm saying for the money the 970 isn't a bad deal.
If the price drops more then that deal improves, SLI and go about your day.
I'm not talking about valid comparisons, apples to apples, none of that, just saying that today if I need a video card a used 970 is very cheap and performs pretty well. If you've already got one then SLI is a cheap upgrade.
For any of my broke buddies I'm recommending the 970. I'm not sure what I'd recommend new right now, I guess that ultimately comes down to the budget of the build. 2060 is looking pretty good though. It'll be much better in about six months after the price drops (hopefully).
My R9 280x still maxes or nearly maxes everything I play. Simply for power and thermal upgrades, as well as DX features, I'll probably "upgrade" to a GTX 1660, but that card is so much faster than this one, on less power, and this one already does everythingI need it to so....
That's the biggest problem I see for GPU manufacturers. Why do I need more GPU when there hasn't been a half decent game released in 10+ years?
I play Dark Souls 3, Rocket League, KSP and Mordhau. Mordhau is the most demanding but it looks great even at medium. Civilization is a great game, that already runs great. I just installed KOTOR with a ton of mods, that was fun, think it came out in 2003. Wanna do Mass Effect modded out next, what was that, 2008?
I don't think anyone needs a RTX anything, or anything above the GTX 1660ti. But more power to the people who buy that stuff, keep these guys funded I love their work! I'm just not rich enough to buy stuff without need motivating it. So when every modern game is udder crap, or from an Indie developer who knows how to code so it runs on 10 year old hardware... there's just no need for much more GPU power.
Or, it ties or bests the GTX 980 in 43 of 44 benchmarks. Not bad for a $219 card with a 3 year warranty (compared to whatever life one will get out of a 980 after years of mining...)
I tripped over a deal for 970 SLI, makes the 1660 even less appealing. 970 vs 1660 looks like the difference between high and ultra at 1440p or something, hardly worth $200.
The RX 580 is 179$. Making it 2.304$ per frame on techspot. They screw up again with their cost analysis. Also, you have 2 AAA games with it bundle. The RX 580 is still the value king hand down.
Don't get me wrong, this card is interesting, but is it groundbreaking in anything? No... if Nvidia was offering it at 170$, then that would be disruptive.
Probably only in the US, I saw Microcentre offering some RX 580 8gb at $168. The 8 GB Nitro+ is still $340 here. While the 1660 will start from $230. In the SEA region, only a few retailers in Australia have the RX 580 in the ~$200 region. So keep in mind, no one is gonna buy AMD with those prices outside of US.
eva02langley the AAA games they bundle with the cards are meaningless.. if you dont play them, or want them, so that is a moot point, and may not be a factor for some...
how do they even come up with the cost per frame?? never even heard of that metric before.....
Not bad. The price point is reasonable and the performance is good enough. I wish it had a lower TDP and I don't care at all for the triple slot form factor. Still, this _might_ be the GPU that lures me back to owning a desktop PC for gaming. It is still difficult to justify the costs given that PCs end up as second acts with crappy console ports and you pay more for the hardware just to get poorly optimized games a few months after everybody else has already played them.
honestly the selling point is the interface and things like high frame rate, high quality vr, a more customizable experience (sometimes this means fixing things that should just work though). playing everything at 180fps is a bit different than console. as well its up to personal preference whether you prefer a mouse or controller. many games on pc support both. all in all its a bit more involved and alot more expensive. and the game libraries are slightly different but i would say there are for sure enough games for pc.
I wasn't aware there was a PS5 on the horizon. Makes sense though given the amount of time current consoles have been on the market. That does end up making the decision. There's no point in building a desktop that'll be made obsolete by the next console generation as I'd have to go from ground up. I'm not playing that buy stuff and then within a year have to buy more stuff just to get passable FPS game. It's annoying so I'll just hunker down and wait to get a new console.
There really isn't much comparison. A console is designed for 30-60fps gaming, a controller and not a KB/M, and has zero modding culture and a much smaller game selection (RTSs are almost nonexistent for example). Heck, PC just got a free skyrim total conversion released that many people think is *better* than skyrim itself!
As for "made obsolete in no time" thats not the way it works anymore. Modern consoles are budget PCs with custom software installed. They use mostly off the shelf CPUs and GPUs now instead of the custom ASICs they used in the past. This means a decent PC build will likely outperform a console for the entire console generation or more (my i7 960 was still outperforming the PS4PRO, and only the xbox1x was faster and by then the PC was 7 years old). I upgraded to a 8700k with a 1070ti (350$ for the card at the time) and it will likely still outperform the next generation of consoles since all speculation has them locking in their hardware design using AMDs 2nd gen ryzen cpu design and vega gpu design.
Nvidias current and last gen cards will easily outperform the most likely upcoming consoles and AMDs ryzen 3rd gen and intels last two gens will easily outperform them as well.
If you only care about playing the latest AAA titles (COD, BF, rockstar stuff, etc) than a console is probably fine. Personally I prefer the much broader game selection, the near constant sales, the ability to share games with friends and family (steam), emulators, and the fact that I can still play, on my current PC, games I bought when the PS1 was new. I hope modern consoles maintain backwards compatibility this next gen, but they certainly don't have the wonderful granularity of upgrade path the PC has enjoyed for decades.
And last but not least, building and upgrading a gaming PC has gotten so easy even totally computer illiterate gamers can do it. Its a 1 or 2 hour plug and play "lego" affair at this point. That alone amazes me, especially when I think back to how involved the process was in the 90s (back before PCI made life so much easier).
Look, building a ground up PC with a 1660, as of now, is not better than buying a PS4 Pro. Microsoft and Sony are aiming for 4k @ 60 Htz, that's a given. One year from now, I totally believe 500$ PS5 will be able to democratize 4k.
As someone who does NOT have ADD, I did actually read what you said, and you have made some good points. To suggest that getting a console somehow gets you a better deal is so early 2000's it's not even funny.
Look, while you do make some good points here you are a bit off on some other points.
Console markets have always had custom hardware, and that includes the Xbox one and the PS4 as well. Current generation consoles are based on jaguar and Polaris cores, but don't think for a second that they are not custom solutions. Another thing to keep in mind is that consoles has a tendency of using cutting edge architectures, as in not this generation, but the next one (the Xbox 360 GPU is a good example here being a hybrid design somewhere between the x1950 and the hd2900). So the ps5 is unlikely to use zen+ with Vega 7nm as you suggested, but far more likely to utilize zen2 and Navi as the basis. Which is also what all the rumors have indicated.
I prefer computers to, but arguing that consoles=pc just because it's x86-64 based is just not true. Consoles will also no doubt be better value at their price point at launch, but they do lack any upgradability options. So going from a console to a pc if you don't already have one makes little sense if the budget is 500 and you are not aiming for that games in the RTS genre for example.
yeah, I'm really not that convinced about that 4k60 PS5 rumor using the RTX 2060 review here, and using all games, the Vega 56 averages 40.9, the Vega 64 averages 47.5, the RTX 2060 averages 43.5, the GTX 1070 ti averages 43.3, the GTX 1080 averages 47.1. with an average of all the GPUs being 44.4fps
If you think Sony and Microsoft is not aiming at 4k@60Hz, then what would be the point of even a new console since we have that already.
Also, console hardware is more efficient since it is dedicated for gaming only. Even with lower spec, you can achieve incredible result. Also, all games are develop on consoles first and botched as a PC port after nowadays. If you are a console person, as of now, unless you are putting down 700-800$ on a GPU, it will not get you any benefit... especially not a 1660 GTX.
it also depends on if the consoles even have any games some one would want to play... for me.. those games are not on consoles.. they are on a comp... not worth it for me to by a console as it would just sit under my tv unused..
@eva02langley: "...console hardware is more efficient since it is dedicated for gaming only."
smh... console hardware used to be more efficient for gaming when console hardware was composed of custom parts. Now, consoles use essentially the same parts as PCs, so that argument doesn't work anymore.
Fact of the matter is, consoles remain competitive in framerate by either cutting down on internal resolution, or graphic quality features, like AA, AF, AO, or in many cases, both res and features. Take a look at the face-offs conducted by the Digital Foundry over at Eurogamers.net.
@eva02langley: I also find it rather ironic that you, who has often criticized NVidia for not being open-sourced enough with their technologies, are making a case here for consoles that are completely proprietary and closed-off systems.
Faster, consume much less power, smaller and produce less noise than RX590 which cost same
Even if you ignore the performance advantage, the GTX 1660 is still better out of the two. No reason to buy big power hungry GPU when it has no performance advantage
What is it with Wolfenstein that kills the 900 series?
I mean they're still competitive in almost everything else, but Wolfenstein just buries the 900 series horribly. If it's that bad I'm glad I'm not addicted to that series. I had thought about picking up a copy, but damn...
they may be using some async techniques. the famous example is doom where many 900 series saw worse performance on vulkan due to async being a cpu based driver side implementation.
I think it's because it has FP16 code in the shaders - which Turing and newer AMD have hardware support for, but Pascal doesn't. It was AMD's trump card until Turing so you'll find a few AMD sponsored games use FP16.
"What is it with Wolfenstein that kills the 900 series?"
Memory capacity. It really wants more than 4GB when all of its IQ settings are cranked up, which leaves everything below the GTX 980 Ti a bit short on space.
EVGA warranties are usually 3 to 5 years and transferable. And as long as it works for a week or so after you install it its likely good forever at that point. Out of the 120+ video cards I've owned and installed over the past 25 years I've only see a handful fail and the majority of those were DOA right off out of the box.
Do you work for Nvidia by chance? I mean, they had $500 million less sales in Q4 last year due to (partly) the used market eating into their profits. I guess bashing the reliability of old products is a way to increase sales of the new, but it damages the brand.
If a $200 purchase would literally cause you massive financial pain if it broke, I would make the argument that you shouldn't be purchasing anything, regardless of warranty.
I would also make the argument that a 1070 that has lasted for years is probably more reliable than turing, which had failure problems at launch.
The true solution would be to actually release a product that increased performance over last gen at a better price, but that doesn't seem to happen with Nvidia anymore.
Enjoy the lower performance for more money. I'll keep gaming on my 1070 I picked up for $175.
RX590 was never a perf-per-dollar leader. RX580 still is according to TPU. TechSpot has the 1660 slightly ahead. Guess it depends on the seller and the price you can get. Does the 1660 offer any game addons? Seems like this is the first time in a while we have competition. Now we just need it for the 300€ range and we're golden. Let's see what Navi brings.
eva02langley and what if you dont want to play those games?? then what? RX580 starts at $320, 1660 $300 ( for preorder, price could change ) where i am ( canada ) i wish video cards were that inexpensive up here....
ebay is not really an answer, as some.. may not want to deal with the hassle of ebay, or even have an ebay account. and now a days, not all games can be resold. but that still doesnt add any " value " to the video card by adding specific games...
If you actually want these reviews to be useful to real people making actual upgrade decisions, you need to include far more older GPUs. All the mid and high end GPUs from the 700 and 900 series at least. Preferably an awful lot more than this.
It's always a fine balance between including older cards for context, and newer cards to showcase how it actually compares to other things you can buy (and the product it directly replaces). In this case we do have the GTX 960 and the R9 390 in these graphs; meanwhile for everything else, Bench can give you whatever comparisons you're looking for.
Unless I'm doing it wrong, bench is useless because the cards people want to compare are segregated into different bench years so you can't actually compare them. How does one compare a 770 and a 1660?
If all the benchmark data is in a database, might it be possible to make the charts dynamic, and have an "add card to this graph" option? Better yet, store a user's personal system (or import it from pcpartpicker) and do this automatically for logged-in users, since this is what a lot of people care about (and currently open multiple tabs to different websites in order to accomplish the same thing). That's the kind of value-add that'd get me to cough up a bit for a premium membership, if AT ever wanted to go down that route.
1660 Ti power usage: more for GPU, less for GDDR6. 1660: less for GPU (due to 2 fewer SMs), but more for GDDR5. Hence why overall power usage for both is the same. What I still don't understand is why all of these cards, despite being rated to draw under 150W, come with 8-pin power connectors; 6-pin would make far more sense and would make them compatible with many older systems.
amazing post ryan / nate!@# hoping you could answer a question beyond my knowledge for me. would the 1660 hardware-based encoder nvenc be at a disadvantage with the TU116 and GDDR5 changes? im not sure what effects the encoders performance. thank you very much for your time and knowledge. brady
This is looking like one hell of a good card for the money and the market. Faster than the RX 580 and RX 590, priced like a cheap 590 or average 580, less power draw, runs cooler, includes Nvidias (frankly) superior software and drivers. So right now either the GTX1070 used, or the GTX 1660 new, 1070 should be about the same price even used. Only cheaper ones I found were crypto mining cards and F that noise.
There are some technology differences but idk, you guys don't seem to go into great detail about the differences between GTX 1070 and GTX 1660 excluding game performance. Are there any notable DX features included in the newer card or is it just straight performance improvement?
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
77 Comments
Back to Article
oleguy682 - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
Not really sure this works as a 970 replacement. I'll have to peruse Bench to see what the difference between the 960 and 970 were to see if it's worth the money. Might need to wait another generation.... or refresh.Ryan Smith - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
On which note I've gone ahead and unlocked the GTX 1660 cards in bench.https://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/2456?vs=21...
The GTX 1660 is a good bit faster than the 970, but it may not be enough to satisfy your needs. Then again, this is a $219 card versus a $329 card.
nathanddrews - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
Going by current Newegg prices - the GTX 1070 and Vega56 can be had for just under $329 (original 970 pricing) and are both literally 2X faster in many Bench scenarios than the 970.0ldman79 - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
Considering the 970 is $100 on ebay right now...Roughly 85% of the performance.
nathanddrews - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
You can justify anything using used pricing. In a freak bit of luck, I got two used 1080Ti GPUs for $400 each last October, virtually eliminating any possible price/performance comparison. Assuming the OP bought the 970 new, it's a fair comparison to look at current $329 cards.Gigaplex - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
It's irrelevant what they paid for the 970. They already have it, so it's effective cost on whether to upgrade is what they can get for it when they sell it, or if they don't sell it, $0.Old Dog - Friday, March 15, 2019 - link
Of course it's not. He's not talking about going out and buying a 970 today at that price. The real question is if the increase in performance is worth the $150 or so it'll cost him to upgrade (assuming he nets ~$80 by selling the 970 for $100 on eBay. (I'm afraid that price is about to take a hit though.) This is the same question we're all asking ourselves. Original price of our current cards is irrelevant. It's all about current value.0ldman79 - Saturday, March 23, 2019 - link
^^This.Current value is all that really matters. "What is it worth today?" while I'm building my system.
Tech doesn't hold on to value. $1,000 Extreme Edition CPUs become worthless right about the same time the $200 midrange CPU does typically. The current Core ix going from dual core up to 28 core may throw a kink in that statement, but historically it has held true.
0ldman79 - Saturday, March 23, 2019 - link
I'm saying for the money the 970 isn't a bad deal.If the price drops more then that deal improves, SLI and go about your day.
I'm not talking about valid comparisons, apples to apples, none of that, just saying that today if I need a video card a used 970 is very cheap and performs pretty well. If you've already got one then SLI is a cheap upgrade.
For any of my broke buddies I'm recommending the 970. I'm not sure what I'd recommend new right now, I guess that ultimately comes down to the budget of the build. 2060 is looking pretty good though. It'll be much better in about six months after the price drops (hopefully).
Hrel - Saturday, March 30, 2019 - link
My R9 280x still maxes or nearly maxes everything I play. Simply for power and thermal upgrades, as well as DX features, I'll probably "upgrade" to a GTX 1660, but that card is so much faster than this one, on less power, and this one already does everythingI need it to so....That's the biggest problem I see for GPU manufacturers. Why do I need more GPU when there hasn't been a half decent game released in 10+ years?
I play Dark Souls 3, Rocket League, KSP and Mordhau. Mordhau is the most demanding but it looks great even at medium. Civilization is a great game, that already runs great. I just installed KOTOR with a ton of mods, that was fun, think it came out in 2003. Wanna do Mass Effect modded out next, what was that, 2008?
I don't think anyone needs a RTX anything, or anything above the GTX 1660ti. But more power to the people who buy that stuff, keep these guys funded I love their work! I'm just not rich enough to buy stuff without need motivating it. So when every modern game is udder crap, or from an Indie developer who knows how to code so it runs on 10 year old hardware... there's just no need for much more GPU power.
Flunk - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
And about 4 years of time. That's not a very good deal.flyingpants265 - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
While you're at it, can you make Bench compare multiple cards at the same time? This site seems oddly trapped in 2007 in some ways.catavalon21 - Friday, March 15, 2019 - link
Or, it ties or bests the GTX 980 in 43 of 44 benchmarks. Not bad for a $219 card with a 3 year warranty (compared to whatever life one will get out of a 980 after years of mining...)maroon1 - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
Just buy GTX 1660 Tiflyingpants265 - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
Just spend more moneybrunis.dk - Friday, March 15, 2019 - link
Just dont be homeless!TallestJon96 - Friday, March 15, 2019 - link
Just buy RTX 2080 TI0ldman79 - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
I was thinking the same.I tripped over a deal for 970 SLI, makes the 1660 even less appealing. 970 vs 1660 looks like the difference between high and ultra at 1440p or something, hardly worth $200.
Not yet, Nvidia...
celtiberian - Saturday, March 16, 2019 - link
I have a GTX 970 running full HD. I don't really need to upgrade now unless I plan to run higher resolutions or a VR set.With the CPU race, a CPU upgrade is more likely after zen 2 is released (still running the old reliable i5 2500k OC).
just4U - Sunday, March 17, 2019 - link
Every once in awhile I am on 2600K setups.. and can certainly see they are showing their age now.Cellar Door - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
At the moment this card offers better perf/$ then a RX 580 - which is impressive considering Nvidia's price antics this generation.eva02langley - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
No it is not.The RX 580 is 179$. Making it 2.304$ per frame on techspot. They screw up again with their cost analysis. Also, you have 2 AAA games with it bundle. The RX 580 is still the value king hand down.
https://static.techspot.com/articles-info/1811/ben...
Don't get me wrong, this card is interesting, but is it groundbreaking in anything? No... if Nvidia was offering it at 170$, then that would be disruptive.
Cellar Door - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
You are wrong, all the $179 580 cards are only 4GB. Please don't spread misinformation.Marlin1975 - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
https://www.microcenter.com/product/479525/red-dra...It was $169 last week, now its $179.
8Gb RX580s go for around $170-190 right now. The RX570 is as low as $140
eva02langley - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
The only thing you had to do is look at the price list on the first page to SEE that I am right and that YOU are spreading nonsense.flyingpants265 - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
There is no such thing as $/frame.ElDiomedes - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
Probably only in the US, I saw Microcentre offering some RX 580 8gb at $168. The 8 GB Nitro+ is still $340 here. While the 1660 will start from $230. In the SEA region, only a few retailers in Australia have the RX 580 in the ~$200 region. So keep in mind, no one is gonna buy AMD with those prices outside of US.Qasar - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
eva02langleythe AAA games they bundle with the cards are meaningless.. if you dont play them, or want them, so that is a moot point, and may not be a factor for some...
how do they even come up with the cost per frame?? never even heard of that metric before.....
Threska - Tuesday, April 2, 2019 - link
Not meaningless if one can sell all three games offsetting the purchase price.PeachNCream - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
Not bad. The price point is reasonable and the performance is good enough. I wish it had a lower TDP and I don't care at all for the triple slot form factor. Still, this _might_ be the GPU that lures me back to owning a desktop PC for gaming. It is still difficult to justify the costs given that PCs end up as second acts with crappy console ports and you pay more for the hardware just to get poorly optimized games a few months after everybody else has already played them.Opencg - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
honestly the selling point is the interface and things like high frame rate, high quality vr, a more customizable experience (sometimes this means fixing things that should just work though). playing everything at 180fps is a bit different than console. as well its up to personal preference whether you prefer a mouse or controller. many games on pc support both. all in all its a bit more involved and alot more expensive. and the game libraries are slightly different but i would say there are for sure enough games for pc.eva02langley - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
With PS5 coming in next year at 500$ with 4k@60Hz and Freesynch, I would not even bother.If you already have a desktop and want to upgrade, then yeah, makes sense.
PeachNCream - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
I wasn't aware there was a PS5 on the horizon. Makes sense though given the amount of time current consoles have been on the market. That does end up making the decision. There's no point in building a desktop that'll be made obsolete by the next console generation as I'd have to go from ground up. I'm not playing that buy stuff and then within a year have to buy more stuff just to get passable FPS game. It's annoying so I'll just hunker down and wait to get a new console.Bp_968 - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
There really isn't much comparison. A console is designed for 30-60fps gaming, a controller and not a KB/M, and has zero modding culture and a much smaller game selection (RTSs are almost nonexistent for example). Heck, PC just got a free skyrim total conversion released that many people think is *better* than skyrim itself!As for "made obsolete in no time" thats not the way it works anymore. Modern consoles are budget PCs with custom software installed. They use mostly off the shelf CPUs and GPUs now instead of the custom ASICs they used in the past. This means a decent PC build will likely outperform a console for the entire console generation or more (my i7 960 was still outperforming the PS4PRO, and only the xbox1x was faster and by then the PC was 7 years old). I upgraded to a 8700k with a 1070ti (350$ for the card at the time) and it will likely still outperform the next generation of consoles since all speculation has them locking in their hardware design using AMDs 2nd gen ryzen cpu design and vega gpu design.
Nvidias current and last gen cards will easily outperform the most likely upcoming consoles and AMDs ryzen 3rd gen and intels last two gens will easily outperform them as well.
If you only care about playing the latest AAA titles (COD, BF, rockstar stuff, etc) than a console is probably fine. Personally I prefer the much broader game selection, the near constant sales, the ability to share games with friends and family (steam), emulators, and the fact that I can still play, on my current PC, games I bought when the PS1 was new. I hope modern consoles maintain backwards compatibility this next gen, but they certainly don't have the wonderful granularity of upgrade path the PC has enjoyed for decades.
And last but not least, building and upgrading a gaming PC has gotten so easy even totally computer illiterate gamers can do it. Its a 1 or 2 hour plug and play "lego" affair at this point. That alone amazes me, especially when I think back to how involved the process was in the 90s (back before PCI made life so much easier).
eva02langley - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
You really think I am going to read that?Look, building a ground up PC with a 1660, as of now, is not better than buying a PS4 Pro. Microsoft and Sony are aiming for 4k @ 60 Htz, that's a given. One year from now, I totally believe 500$ PS5 will be able to democratize 4k.
PeachNCream - Friday, March 15, 2019 - link
Yeah, I'm gonna say TL;DR as well.D. Lister - Saturday, March 16, 2019 - link
@Bp_968As someone who does NOT have ADD, I did actually read what you said, and you have made some good points. To suggest that getting a console somehow gets you a better deal is so early 2000's it's not even funny.
Rainmaker91 - Sunday, March 17, 2019 - link
Look, while you do make some good points here you are a bit off on some other points.Console markets have always had custom hardware, and that includes the Xbox one and the PS4 as well. Current generation consoles are based on jaguar and Polaris cores, but don't think for a second that they are not custom solutions. Another thing to keep in mind is that consoles has a tendency of using cutting edge architectures, as in not this generation, but the next one (the Xbox 360 GPU is a good example here being a hybrid design somewhere between the x1950 and the hd2900). So the ps5 is unlikely to use zen+ with Vega 7nm as you suggested, but far more likely to utilize zen2 and Navi as the basis. Which is also what all the rumors have indicated.
I prefer computers to, but arguing that consoles=pc just because it's x86-64 based is just not true. Consoles will also no doubt be better value at their price point at launch, but they do lack any upgradability options. So going from a console to a pc if you don't already have one makes little sense if the budget is 500 and you are not aiming for that games in the RTS genre for example.
Orange_Swan - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
yeah, I'm really not that convinced about that 4k60 PS5 rumor using the RTX 2060 review here, and using all games,the Vega 56 averages 40.9, the Vega 64 averages 47.5, the RTX 2060 averages 43.5, the GTX 1070 ti averages 43.3, the GTX 1080 averages 47.1. with an average of all the GPUs being 44.4fps
eva02langley - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
If you think Sony and Microsoft is not aiming at 4k@60Hz, then what would be the point of even a new console since we have that already.Also, console hardware is more efficient since it is dedicated for gaming only. Even with lower spec, you can achieve incredible result. Also, all games are develop on consoles first and botched as a PC port after nowadays. If you are a console person, as of now, unless you are putting down 700-800$ on a GPU, it will not get you any benefit... especially not a 1660 GTX.
Qasar - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
it also depends on if the consoles even have any games some one would want to play... for me.. those games are not on consoles.. they are on a comp... not worth it for me to by a console as it would just sit under my tv unused..D. Lister - Saturday, March 16, 2019 - link
@eva02langley: "...console hardware is more efficient since it is dedicated for gaming only."smh... console hardware used to be more efficient for gaming when console hardware was composed of custom parts. Now, consoles use essentially the same parts as PCs, so that argument doesn't work anymore.
Fact of the matter is, consoles remain competitive in framerate by either cutting down on internal resolution, or graphic quality features, like AA, AF, AO, or in many cases, both res and features. Take a look at the face-offs conducted by the Digital Foundry over at Eurogamers.net.
D. Lister - Saturday, March 16, 2019 - link
@eva02langley: I also find it rather ironic that you, who has often criticized NVidia for not being open-sourced enough with their technologies, are making a case here for consoles that are completely proprietary and closed-off systems.maroon1 - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
Faster, consume much less power, smaller and produce less noise than RX590 which cost sameEven if you ignore the performance advantage, the GTX 1660 is still better out of the two. No reason to buy big power hungry GPU when it has no performance advantage
0ldman79 - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
What is it with Wolfenstein that kills the 900 series?I mean they're still competitive in almost everything else, but Wolfenstein just buries the 900 series horribly. If it's that bad I'm glad I'm not addicted to that series. I had thought about picking up a copy, but damn...
Opencg - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
they may be using some async techniques. the famous example is doom where many 900 series saw worse performance on vulkan due to async being a cpu based driver side implementation.Dribble - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
I think it's because it has FP16 code in the shaders - which Turing and newer AMD have hardware support for, but Pascal doesn't. It was AMD's trump card until Turing so you'll find a few AMD sponsored games use FP16.Ryan Smith - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
"What is it with Wolfenstein that kills the 900 series?"Memory capacity. It really wants more than 4GB when all of its IQ settings are cranked up, which leaves everything below the GTX 980 Ti a bit short on space.
AustinPowersISU - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
Used GTX 1070 still makes the most sense. You can easily get one for less than this card and have much better performance.Nvidia needs to do better.
eva02langley - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
It is still their best offering in term of price/performance from Turing. However, yeah, that should have been done way before.flyingpants265 - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
used cards have no warranty and arent a realistic option for most peopleBp_968 - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
EVGA warranties are usually 3 to 5 years and transferable. And as long as it works for a week or so after you install it its likely good forever at that point. Out of the 120+ video cards I've owned and installed over the past 25 years I've only see a handful fail and the majority of those were DOA right off out of the box.AustinPowersISU - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
Do you work for Nvidia by chance? I mean, they had $500 million less sales in Q4 last year due to (partly) the used market eating into their profits. I guess bashing the reliability of old products is a way to increase sales of the new, but it damages the brand.If a $200 purchase would literally cause you massive financial pain if it broke, I would make the argument that you shouldn't be purchasing anything, regardless of warranty.
I would also make the argument that a 1070 that has lasted for years is probably more reliable than turing, which had failure problems at launch.
The true solution would be to actually release a product that increased performance over last gen at a better price, but that doesn't seem to happen with Nvidia anymore.
Enjoy the lower performance for more money. I'll keep gaming on my 1070 I picked up for $175.
Mr Perfect - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
Page one paragraph three starts with "Turing our eyes to NVIDIA’s new card then"I can't decide if that's a typo or a pun.
Ryan Smith - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
I'm going to go with "both".Thanks!
atiradeonag - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
$219 1660 offers better perf/$ than both RX 580 and RX590, AMD your moveDeath666Angel - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
RX590 was never a perf-per-dollar leader. RX580 still is according to TPU. TechSpot has the 1660 slightly ahead. Guess it depends on the seller and the price you can get. Does the 1660 offer any game addons? Seems like this is the first time in a while we have competition. Now we just need it for the 300€ range and we're golden. Let's see what Navi brings.eva02langley - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
Like I mentioned, at 180$, the RX 580 stand at 2.30$, below the 1660... and you get Resident Evil 2 and DMC 5 for free.Qasar - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
eva02langley and what if you dont want to play those games?? then what?RX580 starts at $320, 1660 $300 ( for preorder, price could change ) where i am ( canada ) i wish video cards were that inexpensive up here....
Death666Angel - Sunday, March 17, 2019 - link
"what if you dont want to play those games?? then what?"Have you heard of this newfangled thing called "Ebay"?
Qasar - Sunday, March 17, 2019 - link
ebay is not really an answer, as some.. may not want to deal with the hassle of ebay, or even have an ebay account. and now a days, not all games can be resold. but that still doesnt add any " value " to the video card by adding specific games...romrunning - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
Triple-slot coolers pretty much kill it for mini-ITX systems. Usually they only have room for double-slot at most.damianrobertjones - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
Second hand 1070 all... day... long.TheCurve - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
Great review guys, loved it!Tilmitt - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
If you actually want these reviews to be useful to real people making actual upgrade decisions, you need to include far more older GPUs. All the mid and high end GPUs from the 700 and 900 series at least. Preferably an awful lot more than this.Ryan Smith - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
It's always a fine balance between including older cards for context, and newer cards to showcase how it actually compares to other things you can buy (and the product it directly replaces). In this case we do have the GTX 960 and the R9 390 in these graphs; meanwhile for everything else, Bench can give you whatever comparisons you're looking for.https://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU18/2293
Tilmitt - Friday, March 15, 2019 - link
Unless I'm doing it wrong, bench is useless because the cards people want to compare aresegregated into different bench years so you can't actually compare them. How does one compare a 770 and a 1660?
Ryan Smith - Friday, March 15, 2019 - link
Fair enough point on the Kepler cards. We haven't gone in and backfilled those yet. However all of the 900 series cards are in there.Hrel - Tuesday, March 19, 2019 - link
Doesn't seem to be any way to compare the R9 280x to the 1660 either, or the GTX1070.zeroidea - Monday, March 18, 2019 - link
If all the benchmark data is in a database, might it be possible to make the charts dynamic, and have an "add card to this graph" option? Better yet, store a user's personal system (or import it from pcpartpicker) and do this automatically for logged-in users, since this is what a lot of people care about (and currently open multiple tabs to different websites in order to accomplish the same thing). That's the kind of value-add that'd get me to cough up a bit for a premium membership, if AT ever wanted to go down that route.The_Assimilator - Friday, March 15, 2019 - link
1660 Ti power usage: more for GPU, less for GDDR6. 1660: less for GPU (due to 2 fewer SMs), but more for GDDR5. Hence why overall power usage for both is the same. What I still don't understand is why all of these cards, despite being rated to draw under 150W, come with 8-pin power connectors; 6-pin would make far more sense and would make them compatible with many older systems.Alistair - Friday, March 15, 2019 - link
They are still holding back. This would have been an incredible 7nm card. That's still what I want. Not interested.backpackbrady - Saturday, March 16, 2019 - link
amazing post ryan / nate!@# hoping you could answer a question beyond my knowledge for me. would the 1660 hardware-based encoder nvenc be at a disadvantage with the TU116 and GDDR5 changes? im not sure what effects the encoders performance. thank you very much for your time and knowledge. bradyHrel - Tuesday, March 19, 2019 - link
Suddenly Nvidia's pricing seems completely fair.Supercell99 - Thursday, March 28, 2019 - link
Chinese are done dumping after market GFX cards. Used market is drying upHrel - Saturday, March 30, 2019 - link
This is looking like one hell of a good card for the money and the market. Faster than the RX 580 and RX 590, priced like a cheap 590 or average 580, less power draw, runs cooler, includes Nvidias (frankly) superior software and drivers. So right now either the GTX1070 used, or the GTX 1660 new, 1070 should be about the same price even used. Only cheaper ones I found were crypto mining cards and F that noise.There are some technology differences but idk, you guys don't seem to go into great detail about the differences between GTX 1070 and GTX 1660 excluding game performance. Are there any notable DX features included in the newer card or is it just straight performance improvement?
Hrel - Saturday, March 30, 2019 - link
I think a year or so from now I'll pick one of these up, either 1660 or ti, will depend on then current pricing.