GTX 1660 Ti Vs RTX 2060

Nvidia’s GeForce GPUs have been dominating the market for a while now, with AMD desperately trying to bring out a competitive chip, while the GTX and RTX series are left to battle it out amongst themselves to be the GPU that holds the best value for money.

Nvidia seems to have realized their mistake in expecting gamers to pay a premium price for features that, while trailblazing, are not yet common practice, and the RTX 2060 graphics card is their way of bringing real-time ray tracing to an affordable graphics card.

It’s definitely worth thinking about if you’re in need of an upgrade, as it easily beats out the other cards in this price range (update, this article was written before the wide availability of the 30-series cards). The GTX 1660 Ti, however, is a major contender if you’re hoping to slash costs even further.

Admittedly, it doesn’t have all the features boasted by the RTX 2060,but it offers a vast improvement on its predecessor, the GTX 1060 Ti, without the eye-watering price point. But finding the right GPU for your gaming setup should be based on more than cost alone.

This article will compare the features and specifications of both graphics cards, focusing on architecture, VRAM memory, ray tracing compatibility, and overall performance to help you decide between the GTX 1660 Ti and the RTX 2060.

Although both of these Nvidia graphics cards feature the highly efficient Turing NVENC architecture, there are some core differences that set them apart and determine the level of performance you’ll be able to achieve with each GPU.

For example, the RTX 2060 has 1920 CUDA cores for stream processing and 240 Tensor cores, which means it can be used for real-time ray tracing and DLSS. In comparison, the GTX 1660 Ti has a smaller total of 1536 CUDA cores, but unlike the RTX 2060, it features no Tensor or ray tracing cores.

The extra cores of the RTX 2060 ensure smoother gameplay for more immersive gaming, but some industry experts are dubious about the ability of its Turing TU106 graphics processor to keep up with the demands of ray tracing seen in modern game titles.

Now let’s look at clock speeds:

GTX 1660 Ti

• Base clock speed – 1500 MHz
• Boosted clock speed – 1770 MHz

RTX 2060

• Base clock speed – 1356 MHz
• Boosted clock speed – 1680 MHz

As you can see, the GTX 1660 Ti is actually faster than the RTX 2060 when it comes to both base and boosted clock speeds. However, when the card is overclocked the gap between the two GPUs becomes smaller.

For the gamer obsessed with overclocking, a decent cooling system is an absolute necessity if you want to avoid overheating and potentially damaging your GPU while you squeeze it for optimum performance.

The GTX 1660 Ti features an advanced cooling system that effectively prevents the graphics card from overheating even during intense gaming sessions. The effective 85mm single-fan is surrounded by a thin fin stack and additional thermal pads located on the plate’s surface.

Comparably, the RTX 2060 features a more complex dual-axial cooling system with 16-blade fans to keep things cool, yet it still operates at a quiet volume.

Reaching anything over 85 degrees celsius should be avoided, although the RTX 2060 has a maximum temperature of 88 degrees Celsius, and the GTX 1660 Ti has a maximum of 95 degrees celsius.

It’s also worth checking out some of the replacement cooling systems that are compatible with your GPU, as these can help your graphics card stay cool as it shoulders more demanding task loads during certain games.

The exact measurements for the GTX 1660 Ti graphics card are 229mm inches in length and 35mm in height, and it features dual slots that span the 111mm width of the chip. Both GPUs share the same height and width, but the RTX 2060 is the longer card by a tiny 2mm.

With a die area of 445mm-squared and 10,800 million transistors, the GTX 1660 Ti also has a board power of 130 watts. The RTX 2060 boasts a higher 160-watts powerboard, a next-gen 6-phase power supply that allows for maximum overclocking

Both of these GPUs connect to the system via an 8-pin connector and they use a PCI-Express 3.0 x 16 interface. In terms of display outputs, the GTX 1660 Ti has fewer ports than the RTX 2060. This includes 1x DVI, 1 x HDMI, and 1 x DisplayPort, with an additional DisplayPort and an entirely new 1 x USB Type-C port.

Performance is going to play a large factor in which GPU can be called the better option, for obvious reasons, and the quality of the resolution/FPS will certainly affect this outcome.

While the GTX 1660 Ti is a huge improvement on the GTX 1070 that came before it, the GTX 1070 Ti is arguably closer to the RTX 2060 in terms of performance. With that being said, neither struggles particularly, and both performed well across the board, consistently pushing around 60 frames per second.

The GTX 1660 Ti does struggle when it’s played in 4K, but it offers excellent performance at 1080p and even decent frame rates when playing at 1440p, although the RTX 2060 manages better at this setting. Of the two, we’d recommend the RTX 2060 as there’s more room for future-proofing and you’ll enjoy faster, smoother gameplay with less chance of lags.

The AI-enhanced graphics of the RTX 2060 offer real-time ray tracing to sharpen up the shadow imagery for a more immersive gaming experience, as they provide even more realistic detail in your games.

Compared to their previous RTX series releases, which include the 2070, the 2080, and the 2080 Ti, the RTX 2060 is a much more reasonably priced entry-point to ray tracing and DLSS technology, and it delivers excellent performance.

If you’re looking to future-proof your GPU or if ray tracing is something you want to utilize sooner, the RTX 2060 is the clear winner as the GTX 1660 Ti doesn’t have the correct cores or architecture for this technology which is how it gets away with being so affordable.

You might think that there’s not a huge jump up from the 6GB GDDR5 memory found in the GTX 1660 Ti to the 6GB GDDR6 memory that’s held by the RTX 2060, but you’d be wrong in this assumption.

The newer and more efficient GDDR6 memory type is connected to the RTX 2060 using a 192-bit memory interface, and it runs comfortably at 14 Gbps for smooth operation. This is faster than the GTX 1660 Ti, which has 12 Gbps instead, meaning it can retrieve image data quicker to reduce loading time.

The GTX 1660 Ti uses the same 192-bit memory interface as the RTX graphics card, but there’s a big difference in the amount of memory bandwidth each GPU has. Comparably, the GXT 1660 Ti has 288 GB/s and the RTX 2060 has a much faster 336 GB/s.

If you can stretch your budget to include the RTX 2060, then this is the graphics card we’d recommend. You’ll be doing future-you a favor when more games start to incorporate real-time ray tracing, and it consistently outperformed the GTX 1660 Ti in a number of areas.

Although the GTX 1660 Ti sees a reduction in cores, memory, and other features, the reduction in price is very attractive to games with less of a budget, and it still offers excellent value for money if you can’t justify forking out for the RTX 2060.