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ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Super AMP Review
New Software Features »Introduction
NVIDIA today released the GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER, a mid-range graphics card positioned between the GTX 1660 and GTX 1660 Ti, which were released earlier this year. The addition of the GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER is necessitated by changes across the competitive landscape, specifically AMD's announcement of the Radeon RX 5500 series, with which the competitiveness of the original GTX 1660 could buckle. The GTX 1660 SUPER is hence being launched at US$229, just $10 more than what the GTX 1660 commanded at launch and $50 cheaper than the GTX 1660 Ti.
The GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER has the same exact CUDA core count as the GTX 1660, at 1,408, and is based on the same 12 nm "TU116" silicon. The GPU clock speeds are unchanged, too, with 1530 MHz core and 1785 MHz GPU Boost. The SUPER-charging of this SKU begins with its memory subsystem. The GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER gets 6 GB of GDDR6 memory clocked at 14 Gbps, which is faster than even the 12 Gbps GDDR6 memory found on the GTX 1660 Ti and on par with that of the much pricier RTX 2060 in terms of memory bandwidth—336 GB/s, a massive 75 percent increase over the GTX 1660. With it, NVIDIA hopes to shore up performance by up to 20 percent without touching the CUDA core count and stepping on the toes of the GTX 1660 Ti.
The GeForce GTX 16-series exists to cater to the bulk of the sub-$300 market with solid FPS rates for games at 1080p, including the e-sports crowd. NVIDIA RTX hardware isn't available in this segment as the GPU would be too slow for real-time ray-tracing due to its size. DirectX Raytracing through software is available on all Turing cards, including the GeForce GTX 16, but at lower performance than what the "RTX" cards offer. The GTX 1660 also receives other architectural improvements, such as "Turing" CUDA cores, which offer concurrent integer and floating point execution, adaptive shading, and a unified cache.
In this review, we take a close look at the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER AMP, the company's premium factory-overclocked graphics card based on this GPU. The card features a compact design that favors broad compatibility and offers overclocked speeds of 1845 MHz GPU Boost. The card is priced at $250, a $20 premium over NVIDIA's MSRP for this SKU.
| Price | Shader Units | ROPs | Core Clock | Boost Clock | Memory Clock | GPU | Transistors | Memory | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RX 570 | $130 | 2048 | 32 | 1168 MHz | 1244 MHz | 1750 MHz | Ellesmere | 5700M | 4 GB, GDDR5, 256-bit |
| RX 580 | $180 | 2304 | 32 | 1257 MHz | 1340 MHz | 2000 MHz | Ellesmere | 5700M | 8 GB, GDDR5, 256-bit |
| GTX 1060 3 GB | $170 | 1152 | 48 | 1506 MHz | 1708 MHz | 2002 MHz | GP106 | 4400M | 3 GB, GDDR5, 192-bit |
| GTX 1060 | $210 | 1280 | 48 | 1506 MHz | 1708 MHz | 2002 MHz | GP106 | 4400M | 6 GB, GDDR5, 192-bit |
| RX 590 | $195 | 2304 | 32 | 1469 MHz | 1545 MHz | 2000 MHz | Polaris 30 | 5700M | 8 GB, GDDR5, 256-bit |
| GTX 1660 | $220 | 1408 | 48 | 1530 MHz | 1785 MHz | 2000 MHz | TU116 | 6600M | 6 GB, GDDR5, 192-bit |
| GTX 1070 | $300 | 1920 | 64 | 1506 MHz | 1683 MHz | 2002 MHz | GP104 | 7200M | 8 GB, GDDR5, 256-bit |
| RX Vega 56 | $300 | 3584 | 64 | 1156 MHz | 1471 MHz | 800 MHz | Vega 10 | 12500M | 8 GB, HBM2, 2048-bit |
| GTX 1660 Super | $230 | 1408 | 48 | 1530 MHz | 1785 MHz | 1750 MHz | TU116 | 6600M | 6 GB, GDDR6, 192-bit |
| ZOTAC GTX 1660 Super AMP | $250 | 1408 | 48 | 1530 MHz | 1845 MHz | 1750 MHz | TU116 | 6600M | 6 GB, GDDR6, 192-bit |
| GTX 1660 Ti | $275 | 1536 | 48 | 1500 MHz | 1770 MHz | 1500 MHz | TU116 | 6600M | 6 GB, GDDR6, 192-bit |
| GTX 1070 Ti | $450 | 2432 | 64 | 1607 MHz | 1683 MHz | 2000 MHz | GP104 | 7200M | 8 GB, GDDR5, 256-bit |
| RTX 2060 | $340 | 1920 | 48 | 1365 MHz | 1680 MHz | 1750 MHz | TU106 | 10800M | 6 GB, GDDR6, 192-bit |
| RX 5700 | $330 | 2304 | 64 | 1465 MHz | 1625 MHz | 1750 MHz | Navi 10 | 10300M | 8 GB, GDDR6, 256-bit |