PNY GTX 1660 Super: Perfect for 1080p

Kevin Hofer

31.1.2020

Translation: machine translated

The GTX 1660 Super is the perfect entry-level graphics card. You can play current titles smoothly in 1080p with high to ultra-high quality settings. But how does the GTX 1660 Super from PNY perform with just one fan?

The GTX 1660 Super graphics cards were released at the end of October 2019. The Super model replaces the standard 1660 and competes with the GTX 1660 Ti from Nvidia itself and the Radeon RX 5600 from AMD.

Graphics card

PNY GeForce GTX 1660 Super

6 GB

4

The card is tested on our DimasTech Easy V3.0 Benchtable with the following components:

Motherboards

ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Formula

AM4, AMD X570, ATX

65

RAM

EUR86,89

Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB

2 x 8GB, 3200 MHz, DDR4-RAM, DIMM

14

SSD

Corsair MP600

1000 GB, M.2 2280

296

Processors

AMD Ryzen 9 3900X

AM4, 3.80 GHz, 12 -Core

639

Facts and features

The GTX 1660 Super differs from its predecessor, the GTX 1660, in terms of video memory. It now has 6 GB GDDR6 with 14 Gbps instead of 6 GB GDDR5 with 12 Gbps. There are also 1408 Cuda cores, 88 texture units and 48 ROPs on board. The base clock is 1530 MHz and the boost clock is 1785 MHz.

Because the graphics card only has a 100-millimetre fan, it is also suitable for small-format PCs at 16.8 centimetres in length. It is connected to the power supply with an 8-pin PCIe connector. The power consumption is 125 watts. PNY recommends at least a 450 watt power supply unit. The interface is PCI Express 3.0 x16. HDMI, DisplayPort and DVI-D are each available as outputs.

The card is kept in plain black and has no RGB bells and whistles. I would not describe the card as beautiful and would therefore only install it in systems without a viewing window.

Synthetic gaming benchmarks and temperatures

Here are the results of the Time Spy and Fire Strike benchmarks:

In the open test bench, the 1660 Super reaches a maximum temperature of 65° Celsius. The temperature is between 60° and 65° when tested. I now also test the cards for noise emissions. To do this, I use the Testo sound level meter 815 31.5. at a distance of 30 centimetres and point the microphone directly at the fan. If I turn it up fully, I measure 48 dB. At 100 per cent, a slight metallic rattling can be heard. Fortunately, the fan rarely runs at the highest level, which is why the noise is only audible every now and then. When I run benchmarks with automatic fan control, I can never hear the rattling. This is because the fan never turns up fully in automatic mode. I therefore run the Time Spy benchmark again with the fan at 100 per cent power. I achieve a score of 6619, which is only slightly better. However, the temperature is lower: 61° Celsius at the most. During the tests, the card gets between 55° and 61° Celsius.

In addition, I also test the card with normalised volume. I set the fans to 40 dB at a distance of 30 centimetres. We humans find this volume pleasantly quiet. Expressed as a percentage, this means that the fan runs at 74 per cent. This gives me a score of 6594 in the Time Spy benchmark, which is the worst result of all three Time Spy runs. However, there are only around 0.4 percentage points between the worst and best result. The maximum temperature in this test is 66°. During the tests, the card warmed up between 61° and 66°. 26 per cent less fan power only accounts for just over 8 per cent less cooling performance.

Here are the results in detail:

Application: Puget Systems Photoshop benchmark

The Photoshop benchmark uses the following reference workstation as the basis for calculating the scores:

• Intel Core i9 9900K 8 Core
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 8GB
• 64GB of RAM
• Samsung 960 Pro 1TB

The results of the reference workstation can be used to estimate how well other systems perform. Our test benchmark with the PNY GTX 1660 Super achieves the following results:

Here are the results in detail:

The GTX 1660 Super performs surprisingly well. It even leads the overall score. This may be due to the fact that Photoshop has been optimised a little better for the Ryzen 3900 in the meantime. I have already planned night tests for the 5700 XTs and the 2080 Super in Photoshop. I will provide the updated results in an upcoming graphics card review.

Application: Puget Systems Premiere Benchmark

In contrast to the Photoshop benchmark, our test benchmark does not compete against a reference workstation. With the Premiere benchmark from Puget Systems, the score is calculated relative to the frame rate of the test videos. If the test video has an FPS of 29.97 and the system renders it at 29.97 FPS, this means 100 points. If it is only 14.98 FPS, there are also only 50 points.

The benchmark runs media in the formats 4K H.264 with 150 Mbps in 8 bit (59.94 FPS), 4K ProRes 422 16 bit (59.94 FPS) and 4K RED (59.94 FPS). He tested live playback in Adobe Premiere Pro and the export. A value of 100 is the maximum for live playback, as Premiere cannot play back the media faster than specified. For export, on the other hand, over 100 points are feasible, as rendering is not limited to the FPS of the media.

In addition, ten ProRes 422 clips are provided with effects that place a heavy load on the graphics card. Puget Systems calls this 4K Heavy GPU Effects. These clips are then played back and exported in Premiere. The same exists for Heavy CPU Effects, with effects that place a heavy load on the CPU. The GPU value is particularly relevant for the graphics card reviews. The CPU values are still listed for the sake of completeness.

Here are the results in detail:

So far, Nvidia graphics cards have been faster in Premiere. This also seems to be the case with the Navi cards. The much cheaper GTX 1660 Super leaves the 5700 XT behind.

Application: Puget Systems after-effects benchmark

In the Puget Systems After Effects benchmark, the benchmark scores are structured similarly to Photoshop. The following reference workstation serves as the basis for calculating the scores:

• Intel Core i9 9900K
• 128 GB RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 8GB

The results of the reference workstation can be used to estimate how well other systems perform. Our test benchmark with the 1660 Super achieves the following results:

Here are the results in detail:

Application: Puget Systems Benchmark Resolve

The scores of the Resolve benchmark from Puget Systems are also based on a reference workstation. To determine the scores, videos are rendered in 4K using the h.264 codec. The reference workstation is based on the following components:

• Intel Core i9 9900K
• A minimum of 32 GB RAM (not mentioned by Puget Systems)
• NVIDIA Titan RTX 24GB

In the 4K benchmark, I achieve the following results with our test benchmark and the GTX 1660 Super:

The results in detail:

In Resolve, the GTX 1660 Super is roughly on a par with the 5700 XT. For the price of the 1660 Super, this is a great result.

Blender

The Blender benchmark currently still has a problem with Nvidia graphics cards on our testbench. Unfortunately it always crashes. That's why I can't provide any results here.

Virtual reality

When it comes to VR, I'm still looking for a programme to test games myself. Unfortunately, Nvidia's FCAT VR doesn't work for us. So here are the results from VRMark and Superposition from Unigine. Please let me know in the comments column if you know of another good tool for benching VR games.

The games

In response to reader feedback, I have revised the Games section. Instead of four games, there are now nine games in the test pool. I have thrown out "Crysis 3" completely, and I am now only testing "Control" with raytracing-capable maps. "Control" is also the only game that I won't be using an in-game benchmark for testing. As I don't have all the tested cards available at the moment, I can only present the results of the GTX 1660 Super for most games. However, I will definitely carry out night tests and provide the data for the graphics cards that have already been reviewed.

Here are the results in detail:

The GTX 1660 Super delivers solid performance in all games at 1080p, with the exception of "Red Dead Redemption 2". Some games even run reasonably in 1440p. However, the card does not seem to feel comfortable with Vulkan. Compared to the other cards tested, the 1660 Super runs disproportionately slower.

Conclusion

Despite having only one fan, the PNY GTX 1660 Super remains cool in the synthetic benchmarks. This shows that entry-level cards do not necessarily need two fans for optimum cooling.

In application benchmarks, the PNY GTX 1660 Super delivers surprisingly good results compared to the more expensive Radeon RX 5700 XT. The card shines in games, especially at 1080p resolution. Games can also be played in 1440p with slight quality reductions. The card only has problems with the Vulkan API.

For the price, the card delivers good results. It is the perfect choice for a budget gamer PC. <p

Kevin Hofer

Senior Editor

kevin.hofer@digitecgalaxus.ch

From big data to big brother, Cyborgs to Sci-Fi. All aspects of technology and society fascinate me.

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