Colorful iGame GTX 1660 SUPER Ultra Graphics Card Review

The Super series of graphics cards from Nvidia has received mixed feedback from enthusiasts. It was the company’s answer to AMD’s RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT 7 nanometer GPUs. The RTX 2060 and 2070 SUPER variants were welcomed by gamers as these cards showed a reasonable upside in performance compared to non-super counterparts. The RTX 2080 however, showed the lowest performance improvement in the whole SUPER line. Nvidia has announced 2 new SUPER graphics card that falls under the GTX 16 series lineup. The new GTX 1660 SUPER and GTX 1650 SUPER are Nvidia’s answer to the soon to be released RX 5500 from AMD.

GTX 1660 Super

The GTX 1660 SUPER is a beefed-up version of the vanilla GTX 1660 as they both use the same TU-116 GPU. Meaning, it has the same number of CUDA Cores, SMs, Texture units, and even clock speeds. The main difference is the GTX 1660 Super uses high bandwidth GDDR6 memory compared to the GTX 1660’s GDDR5 with only 192.1GB/sec of memory bandwidth. The 336GB/sec bandwidth on the GTX 1660 Super is slightly faster versus the GTX 1660 Ti’s memory.

The Nvidia slide shows that the GTX 1660 Super has a relative performance increase of 1.5x compared to the GTX 1060 and a 20% increase compared to the vanilla GTX 1660. The GTX 1660 Super doesn’t have a founder’s / reference edition similar to other GTX 16 series GPUs.

iGame GTX 1660 SUPER Ultra

Our GTX 1660 Super review unit came from Colorful, a popular GPU brand in China. We have the iGame GTX 1660 Super Ultra 6G. The front packaging shows the Knight persona with a Royal Never Give Up eSports team certification sticker. The back shows exclusive features of the iGame video card such as its iGame RGB lighting, fan turbo and, iGame Zone II software.

The iGame GTX 1660 Super uses a triple-fan cooling system. At first glance, it looks like a triple-fan version of ASUS’ Direct CU II coolers. The GPU is protected by a thick metal backplate that has diagonal cutouts for air to go out from the back.

The side shows the cooler extending to the length of the PCB. Typical Geforce GTX branding is shown on the left side with the iGame RGB logo in the center. The iGame GTX 1660 Super is powered by a single 8-pin PCIe connector.

There are only 3 video outputs available on the iGame GTX 1660 Super: Dual Link DVI-D, HDMI, and Display Port.  The lack of ports is to give way to the physical “turbo” button that ramps up the GPU’s fan speeds to achieve a more aggressive fan profile.

The Colorful iGame GTX 1660 Super has a higher rated boost clock than the reference model.

BENCHMARKS

The performance of the iGame GTX 1660 Super shall be evaluated using a mixture of synthetic and gaming benchmarks. Windows is updated to the latest stable build as well as drivers. BIOS settings are set to UEFI default as well as each individual GPUs’ clock and fan speeds.

TEST BENCH

Processor: Intel Core i9 9900K @ 5Ghz
Cooling: NZXT Kraken X62 280mm AIO
Motherboard: ROG Strix Z390-F Gaming
Memory: HyperX Predator 16GB  3200Mhz
Storage: SanDisk 512GB M.2 SSD
PSU: Corsair HX1200i
GPU: iGame GTX 1660 SUPER | ASUS RX 580 | Sapphire RX 570
OS: Windows 10 Pro Build 1903
Drivers: GeForce 441.07 | Adrenalin 2019 19.10.2

3DMARK

3DMark is the go-to benchmark for gamers because of the ability to share and compare results online. We used Time Spy DX 12 benchmark and Fire Strike DX 11 benchmark and opted out of Port Royal since all the GPUs used in this review do not support Ray Tracing.

DOTA 2

Dota 2 is one of the most popular games globally that said, chances are you’ll be playing one of the popular F2P titles. Our benchmark sequence is based on a replay of OG vs Liquid in the TI9 grand finals from the team fight that happened on 28:30 to 29:30.

Far Cry 5

FarCry 5 is an FPS game published by Ubisoft and uses the Dunia engine. It heavily relies on and takes advantage of DirectX 11 to render a realistic environment that makes it taxing to both the CPU and GPU.

Rainbow Six Siege

Rainbow Six Seige is one of the few popular AAA games that’s still popular in 2019 due to its competitive gameplay mechanics. R6S uses the AnvilNext game engine, which is developed by the game’s publisher, Ubisoft. As of writing, Rainbow Six Siege is currently the most popular Tom Clancy title beating out Wildlands, Breakpoint and even, Division 2.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is arguably the most anticipated game of the year. It’s the first cross-play compatible game in the series. COD:MW is developed by Infinity ward using a new IW engine and is published by Activision. The game uses DX 12 by default which makes it a good choice to include in our benchmark suite.

Apex Legends

Apex Legends is a character-based Free-to-play battle royale game developed by Respawn Entertainment, the makers of Titanfall and Titanfall 2. It utilizes a modified version of Valve’s Source Engine

TEMPERATURES

The peak temperature recorded during our time with the GTX 1660 Super is at 75c. Despite being the highest, this is not a concern as there’s plenty of room for optimization to make it cooler. Turbofan speeds have not been enabled as well as a custom fan curve.

CONCLUSION

Performance-wise, the GTX 1660 Super sits just slightly-lower than the GTX 1660 Ti. The faster memory found on the GTX 1660 Super makes a big difference in performance as it’s able to keep up with the GTX 1660 Ti that has the upper hand in CUDA cores, SMs, and clock speeds. Apex Legends is the only game where the GTX 1660 Ti pulls ahead of the GTX 1660 Super at more than 20 fps. The GTX 1660 Super outperforms the current RX 500 series from AMD and is able to cannibalize on Nvidia’s GTX 1660 Ti, especially the OC editions. The faster GDDR6 bandwidth upgrade on the 1660 Super is a clear indicator that it’s definitely made to undercut AMD’s upcoming 7nm RX 5500 series based on the RDNA architecture.

The GTX 1660 Super is aimed for individuals rocking x60 or x70 series GPUs who are looking to upgrade to a mid-tier graphics card. Nvidia aims old GTX 1060 and GTX 1050 Ti users to jump to the latest GTX Super series to enjoy exclusive Turing-based features. First Time PC Builders, on the other hand, can enjoy custom PCB or OC versions of the GTX 1660 Super that also offers non-generic/bland-looking aesthetics without the heavy performance loss if they had gone for the GTX 1660 Ti.

The iGame GTX 1660 Super takes advantage of the TU116 GPU paired with the enhanced high-bandwidth GDDR6 memory to close the gap between the Titanium version. That said, the GTX 1660 Super presents a unique the value proposition of the GTX 1660 Super is very attractive considering the current prices of the GTX 1660 which starts at the same $220 or Php 12,000 and the GTX 1660 Ti starting at $280 or Php 15,000. The Php 2,000 or 16 percent price premium of the GTX 1660 Super entails a performance very near to the GTX 1660 Ti at a lower price.

Grant Soriano

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Grant is a Financial Management graduate from UST. His passion for gadgets and tech crossed him over in the industry where he could apply his knowledge as an enthusiast and in-depth analytic skills as a Finance Major. His passion allows him to earn at the same time help Gadget Pilipinas' readers in making smart, value-based decisions and purchases with his reviews and guides.