GTX 1660 Ti Vs. 2060 Super
This should be an easy win for the 2060 right? Let's see what kind of fight the 1660Ti puts up
AMD/Nvidia
Nvidia has had a long-standing reign when it comes to producing graphics cards, and although AMD has introduced some real contenders to the market in recent years, the RTX 2060 Super keeps a foot firmly at the higher-end of the GPU range.
Despite the fact that a lot of people had to warm up to the RTX 2060 Super at first, likely due to the boring branding, underwhelming launch, and lack of games boasting ray tracing hardware, they’ve since solidified their spot as one of the most value for money GPUs because of their impressive performance.
But how does it stand up to a graphics card known for its entry-level price point and good-quality, mid-range performance, which is the GTX 1660 Ti? The 2060 Super is certainly more expensive with a jump of over $100 in price but does this show in the execution?
That’s what this article is going to take a look at, taking factors such as architecture, memory, and resolution into consideration. Keep reading to find out which one is the better choice of GPU to upgrade your gaming PC.
Architecture
The RTX 2060 Super features an additional 256 CUDA cores compared to the RTX 2060 making the jump from 1920 to 2176. The Turing NVENC architecture is super efficient and offers improved performance over CPU encoding.
The GTX 1660 Ti also uses Turing NVENC and has a die that features Turing TU116. You’ll notice a huge reduction in the number of cores, as it only has 1536, but it still competes with the much slower RX 590 from AMD which is similarly priced.
With a base clock speed of 1470 MHz and a boosted speed of 1750 MHz when overclocked, the 2060 Super is more than matched by the 1660 Ti, which has a similar base clock speed of 1500 MHz and a boosted clock speed of 1770 MHz.
What’s most exciting about the 2060 Super graphics card is that it features the ray tracing and Tensor cores that are purposely excluded from the GTX 1660 Ti in order to keep costs down. If this is important to you, therefore, the 2060 Super is the better choice of GPU.
Although not many games are ray tracing compatible just yet, this definitely leaves room for it as it becomes more popular and more grames introduce it meaning the 2060 Super is also the more future-proofed option.
Cooling
There’s nothing worse than noisy components when you’re gaming, and powerful GPUs have been known to make a bit of a racket, especially if they have aggressive cooling systems. Luckily, both of these GPUs have a respectable 45.6-decibel rating and therefore won’t be enough to put you off mid-game.
The 1660 Ti has a maximum recorded temperature of 61C which is much lower than the 72C maximum of the 2060 Super, although this is likely due to the increased power consumption, which is a whopping 170 watts compared to the 120 watts of the 1660 Ti graphics card.
The 2060 Super has an advanced WINDFORCE 3X cooling system which includes alternate spinning fans, as well as 4 copper heat pipes that directly touches the GPU. Airflow is enhanced thanks to the triangular fan edge that guides air across the fan surface via the 3D stripe curve.
By comparison, the 1660 Ti card has a one-fan system encased by a thin fin stack and a copper thermal solution that touches the GPU. There are additional thermal pads above the plate that improve air circulation.
Dimensions
The dimensions of both graphics cards are almost identical with the 2060 Super GPU being ever so slightly larger in width, measuring 229mm x 113mm x 35mm compared to the 1660 Ti card’s 111mm width.
There’s a more notable difference in the size of the die, which is 284mm-squared for the 1660 Ti and a significantly larger area of 445 mm-squared for the 2060 Super. The latter also boasts a larger number of transistors with 10,800 million, where the 1660 Ti only has 6,600 million.
The 2060 Super features dual slots unlike the 2.5-slots design found on the superior RTX 2070 graphics card, drawing power from an 8-inch power connector. It features a number of display ports, such as DVI, HDMI, USB Type-C, and 2 X DisplayPort.
The 1660 Ti graphics card also connects to your system using a PCI-Express 3.0 x 16 interface and an 8-pin power connector. It doesn’t have as many ports as the 2060 Super card, but the ones it does include are DVI, HDMI, and 1 X DisplayPort.
Resolution/FPS
Here are some of the average frame rates of each GPU when tested at different resolutions against a number of different games:
| Resolution | GTX 1660 Ti | RTX 2060 Super |
|---|---|---|
| 1080p | 97.3 FPS | 115.8 FPS |
| 1440p | 71.7 FPS | 83.5 FPS |
| Ultrawide 1440p | 61.3 FPS | 71.6 FPS |
| 4k | 42.8 | 50.3 FPS |
You can clearly see that the RTX consistently outperforms the GTX 1660 Ti when it comes to average frame rates per second, which makes it the better choice of GPU for gaming purposes as there will be less lag when playing demanding games.
The GTX 1660 is best played at 1080p although can comfortably handle 1440p, whereas it will be pushed to the limits at 4k, which is where you might begin to see this graphics card struggle as most midrange GPUs do.
While the 2060 Super is also not designed for 4k gaming, the benchmarks for this GPU aren’t shockingly bad. Without overclocking or by using DLSS this could be stretched a little further, although not for the more demanding games.
Ray Tracing?
Ray tracing is an area that Nvidia has been proudly steaming ahead in, with AMD only recently releasing their own version of this hardware. The RTX 2060 Super GPU is compatible with DirectX Ray Tracing (DXR) and Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS).
The GTX 1060 Ti doesn’t feature ray tracing as its architecture doesn’t include the necessary ray tracing cores or Tensor cores. This does limit it slightly in terms of future-proofing as it’s expected that ray tracing will be a large part of future gaming. However, it’s also the reason it’s lower in price, which was the whole point.
VRAM
Memory is one of the categories where the 2060 Super takes home all prizes, as it beats out the 1660 Ti in every area. It’s better equipped to store high volumes of image data and helps to improve performance when gaming at higher resolutions.
The memory type for both of these GPUs is GDDR6, but the 2060 Super has 8GB of storage and operates using a 256-bit memory interface compared to the 1660 Ti which has a smaller 6GB of memory and is connected across a 192-bit memory interface.
The 2060 Super also has a much faster bandwidth of 448 Gbps which is almost double the 1660 Ti’s 288 Gbps, meaning you’ll enjoy smoother, speedier loading times during gameplay for a seamless gaming experience.
Conclusion
The RTX 2060 Super is undoubtedly the better graphics card if you can afford it, as the powerful GPU includes a number of useful features that the GTX 1660 isn’t compatible with, including ray tracing and DLSS. Despite the higher price point, it offers good value for money with improved cooling options and more ports.
For those looking to spend over $100 less on their GPU and don’t mind giving up ray tracing to lower the price, the GTX 1660 Ti is still a decent upgrade from the GTX 9-series. It still features Turing architecture which guarantees a certain quality of performance for a much more affordable price.