Palit GTX 1660 SUPER GamingPro OC Review

As has become the norm, we knew pretty much everything there was to know about GTX 1660 SUPER thanks to a myriad of leaks. That said, the graphics card has been officially announced today and we have two reviews for launch day, with this article focused on Palit's 1660 SUPER GamingPro OC model. It's a dual-fan, factory overclocked model, but how does it stack up against the competition?

If you've been living under a rock for the last few weeks, it is very easy to summarise what Nvidia has done with the GTX 1660 SUPER – take a vanilla GTX 1660, swap out the slower GDDR5 memory for improved GDDR6 modules, and you have a GTX 1660 SUPER.

That means the TU116 GPU at the heart of the GTX 1660 is entirely unchanged – it's the same Turing architecture, it still sports 22 SMs and 1408 CUDA Cores, and there's still no RT or Tensor cores as per the RTX 20-series cards. It's purely the upgrade to G6 memory from G5 which makes this a ‘SUPER' card.

I'd also like to just clarify where the 1660 SUPER sits in Nvidia's product stack, as it is now a very busy line-up. Put simply, GTX 1660 SUPER, with a £209.99 MSRP, slots in between GTX 1660 (£199) and GTX 1660 Ti (£259). Neither the GTX 1660 or GTX 1660 Ti are being phased out according to Nvidia, but while there will be no official price cut to the GTX 1660, Nvidia does expect prices to fall naturally as a result of 1660 SUPER entering the market.

We already mentioned how the only core change to the GTX 1660 is the upgraded 14Gbps GDDR6 memory, and that improves total memory bandwidth from 192.1GB/s to 336 GB/s.

Additionally, while there is no reference card per se, Nvidia did release ‘reference spec', so we can see that the Palit GamingPro OC model for review here has been factory overclocked by 45MHz, up to 1830MHz boost.

Lastly, with what can only be a consequence of the change in memory, it is also worth noting that 1660 SUPER has a Total Graphics Power (TGP) rating of 125W, a 5W increase over the vanilla 1660.

The Palit GTX 1660 SUPER GamingPro OC ships in a black box, with ‘Palit' written in gold text across the front. There's no image of the graphics card itself here.

Inside, we only get a single accessory in the form of a quick start guide – not even a driver disk is included. We don't mind this too much, as people should really be downloading the latest drivers directly from the Nvidia website anyway.

Getting a look at the card itself (and while I can't confirm this), I am fairly certain that Palit is re-using the exact same design as its 1660 Ti Dual OC card. That means it is a relatively compact card, with 2x 90mm fans for cooling.

The shroud is made from black plastic, and while it looks fine I would've preferred matte plastic instead of the glossy sections used here, but that is personal preference. It is an all-black design, however, with no colourful accents at all, so you'd have no issues installing this in a colour-coordinated build.

As for dimensions, I don't have official measurements from Palit for the GamingPro OC – but the 1660 Ti Dual we mentioned above is listed at 235 x 115 x 40 mm and I have confirmed those dimensions for the GamingPro OC with a tape measure. So it's certainly a compact card, it's ‘only' 2 slots thick, and it should fit in all but the tiniest of cases of the market.

On the front side of the shroud we can see the GeForce GTX branding, as well as two exposed copper heatpipes. We can also get a look at the full-length backplate that Palit has fitted to the card – it's made of plastic as is typical for cards at this price point, but that will still provide some protection from a leaky all-in-one cooler, and I also think it's simply more attractive than looking onto the back of a PCB.

Power requirements for 1660 SUPER are 1×8 pin connectors as standard, as is the case here, while Palit's display outputs consist of 1x DisplayPort, 1x HDMI and 1x DVI.

Looking at the card's PCB, we can see Palit has opted for a 3+2 VRM design, while the new GBDDR6 memory is supplied by Micron – model code ‘9PA77D9WCW'. As there have no changes to the GPU itself, this carries the same ‘TU116-300-A' labelling as the vanilla GTX 1660.

As for the heatsink/cooler, Palit's design is slightly unusual here as there is a single contact plate for the VRAM, the GPU die and the VRM. This transfers heat to a single fin stack underneath, with two 6mm copper heatpipes. It's not the biggest heatsink I've ever seen, so it will be interesting to see how the card performs in terms of its GPU temperatures later in the review.Our newest GPU test procedure has been built with the intention of benchmarking high-end graphics cards. We test at 1920×1080 (1080p), 2560×1440 (1440p), and 3840×2160 (4K UHD) resolutions.

We try to test using the DX12 API if titles offer support. This gives us an interpretation into the graphics card performance hierarchy in the present time and the near future, when DX12 becomes more prevalent. After all, graphics cards of this expense may stay in a gamer’s system for a number of product generations/years before being upgraded.

We tested the RX Vega64 and Vega56 using the ‘Turbo‘ power mode in AMD’s WattMan software. This prioritises all-out performance over power efficiency, noise output, and lower thermals.

Driver Notes

Test System

We test using the Overclockers UK Germanium pre-built system, though it has been re-housed into an open-air test bench. You can read more about it over HERE.

Comparison Graphics Cards List

Software and Games List

We run each benchmark/game three times, and present averages in our graphs.

3DMark Fire Strike is a showcase DirectX 11 benchmark designed for today’s high-performance gaming PCs. It is our [FutureMark’s] most ambitious and technical benchmark ever, featuring real-time graphics rendered with detail and complexity far beyond what is found in other benchmarks and games today.

Palit's 1660 SUPER gets off to a good start in 3DMark Fire Strike, where it outscores the vanilla GTX 1660 by 15%. The difference isn't as great for the DX12 Time Spy test, where the 1660 SUPER is 12% faster, but it's a healthy lead nonetheless.

3DMark Port Royal is the world’s first dedicated real-time ray tracing benchmark for gamers. You can use Port Royal to test and compare the real-time ray tracing performance of any graphics card that supports Microsoft DirectX Raytracing. As well as benchmarking performance, 3DMark Port Royal provides a realistic and practical example of what to expect from ray tracing in upcoming games.

While there's no specific ray tracing hardware that forms part of the 1660 SUPER GPU, the card does support Microsoft's DXR API – so it can run 3DMark Port Royal. Palit's GamingPro OC is some way behind the entry-level RTX GPU, the RTX 2060, but it outperforms 1660 by 5% here.

Battlefield V is a first-person shooter video game developed by EA DICE and published by Electronic Arts. Battlefield V is the sixteenth instalment in the Battlefield series. It was released worldwide for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on November 20, 2018. (Wikipedia).

We test using the Ultra preset, DX12 API.

In our first game of the day, the GamingPro OC is off to a flier, outperforming the vanilla 1660 by 16% on average. It's also just 3% slower than the 1660 Ti here.

Tom Clancy's The Division 2 is an online action role-playing video game developed by Massive Entertainment and published by Ubisoft. The sequel to Tom Clancy's The Division (2016), it is set in a near-future Washington, D.C. in the aftermath of a smallpox pandemic, and follows an agent of the Strategic Homeland Division as they try to rebuild the city. (Wikipedia).

We test using the Ultra preset, but with V-Sync disabled, DX11 API.

When playing The Division 2, we saw smaller gains for 1660 SUPER versus the 1660 – 7% on average. It's also 5% slower than the 1660 Ti here, which is the biggest gap between those two cards we saw across all of our testing today.F1 2019 is a racing video game based on the 2019 Formula One and Formula 2 Championships. The game is developed and published by Codemasters and is the twelfth title in the Formula One series developed by the studio. The game was announced by Codemasters on 28 March 2019. (Wikipedia).

We test using the Ultra High preset, with TAA and 16x Anisotropic Filtering, DX12 API.

In a very similar manner to The Division 2, Palit's 1660 SUPER is 7% faster than the 1660 in F1 2019. It's also 4% slower than the 1660 Ti, but 8% faster than RX 590.

Far Cry New Dawn is an action-adventure first-person shooter developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. The game is a spin-off of the Far Cry series and a narrative sequel to Far Cry 5. It was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on February 15, 2019. (Wikipedia).

We test using the Ultra preset, with the  HD Textures pack, DX11 API.

Things pick up again when testing Far Cry New Dawn, with 1660 SUPER coming in 12% faster than the 1660. It's just 3% slower than the 1660 Ti, too.

Gears 5 is a third-person shooter video game developed by The Coalition and published by Xbox Game Studios for Microsoft Windows and Xbox One. It is the sixth instalment of the Gears of War series, and is the second Gears of War game not to be developed by Epic Games.

We test using the Ultra preset, with Best Animation Quality (instead of Auto), DX12 API.

It's another 12% lead for 1660 SUPER over vanilla 1660 in Gears 5, while it is again 4% slower than 1660 Ti. Up against Vega 56, 1660 SUPER trails by 13%.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands is a tactical shooter video game developed by Ubisoft Paris and published by Ubisoft. It was released worldwide on March 7, 2017, for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, as the tenth instalment in the Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon franchise and is the first game in the Ghost Recon series to feature an open world environment. (Wikipedia).

We test using the Very High preset, DX11 API.

There's another big win for 1660 SUPER here, proving 16% faster on average than the 1660, or just 2% slower than 1660 Ti. It's also 23% faster than RX 590 in this title.

Metro Exodus is a first-person shooter video game developed by 4A Games and published by Deep Silver in 2019. It is the third instalment in the Metro video game series based on Dmitry Glukhovsky's novels, following the events of Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light. (Wikipedia).

We test using the Ultra preset, but with Hairworks and Advanced PhysX turned off, DX12 API.

Metro Exodus seems to favour the higher-speed GDDR6 memory more and more as we increase the resolution – at 1080p, 1660 SUPER is 11% faster than 1660, but that lead stretches to 18% at 4K.

Middle-earth: Shadow of War is an action role-playing video game developed by Monolith Productions and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. It is the sequel to 2014’s Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, and was released worldwide for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on October 10, 2017. (Wikipedia).

We test using the Very High preset, DX11 API.

Middle Earth: Shadow of War has the biggest lead for Palit's 1660 SUPER versus the vanilla 1660, as it comes in 18% faster on average in this title. It's also 2% slower than 1660 Ti here.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is an action-adventure video game developed by Eidos Montréal in conjunction with Crystal Dynamics and published by Square Enix. It continues the narrative from the 2013 game Tomb Raider and its sequel Rise of the Tomb Raider, and is the twelfth mainline entry in the Tomb Raider series. The game released worldwide on 14 September 2018 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. (Wikipedia).

We test using the Highest preset, with AA disabled, DX12 API.

1660 SUPER beats 1660 by 13% in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and also closes the gap significantly on Vega 56 in this title – it's just 4% slower here.

Total War: Three Kingdoms is a turn-based strategy real-time tactics video game developed by Creative Assembly and published by Sega. As the 12th mainline entry (the 13th entry) in the Total War series, the game was released for Microsoft Windows on May 23, 2019.

We test using the Ultra preset, DX11 API.

Our last game of the day pretty much sums things up for us, with the GamingPro OC proving 15% faster than 1660 and 2% slower than 1660 Ti.

Here we present the average clock speed for each graphics card while running the 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra stress test for 30 minutes. We use GPU-Z to record the GPU core frequency during the Fire Strike Ultra runs. We calculate the average core frequency during the 30 minute run to present here.

With a rated boost clock of 1830MHz, the GamingPro OC does very well to exceed this by 98MHz on average. It's about 30MHz slower than our Gigabyte 1660 SUPER, the review of which has also gone live today, which explains the small performance advantage we saw for the Gigabyte card during our games testing.

For our temperature testing, we measure the peak GPU core temperature under load, as well as the GPU temperature with the card idling on the desktop. A reading under load comes from running the 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra stress test for 30 minutes. An idle reading comes after leaving the system on the Windows desktop for 30 minutes.

Despite the smaller heatsink Palit has used for the GamingPro OC, thermal performance is very good, with the GPU peaking at 65C during our 30 minute stress test. This is just 1C hotter than the triple-fan Gigabyte Gaming OC 6G we have also reviewed today, so that is very good news for Palit.

Similarly, we see no points of concern from our thermal imaging camera – do bear in mind, though, the backplate is made of plastic so this won't act as a heat-spreader unlike a metal backplate.

We take our noise measurements with the sound meter positioned 1 foot from the graphics card. I measured the noise floor to be 32 dBA, thus anything above this level can be attributed to the graphics cards. The power supply is passive for the entire power output range we tested all graphics cards in, while all CPU and system fans were disabled.

A reading under load comes from running the 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra stress test for 30 minutes. An idle reading comes after leaving the system on the Windows desktop for 30 minutes.

When looking at noise levels we can see part of the reason why Palit's card runs so cool, despite its small heatsink – the fans do have to spin a little faster than I'd like, producing just over 44dB of noise. This isn't really that loud, but it is audible and the Gigabyte 1660 SUPER is noticeably quieter.

For reference, the two fans ramped up to 57%, or 1980rpm, when under load. There's no idle fan-stop mode either, as the fans instead would keep spinning at or around 1000rpm regardless of the GPU load.

We measure system-wide power draw from the wall while the card is sat idling at the Windows 10 desktop for 30 minutes. A reading under load comes from running the 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra stress test for 30 minutes.

Power draw is favourable for the GamingPro OC, as we see the card pull just 10W more than the Gigabyte 1660 – and almost 30W less than Gigabyte's 1660 SUPER.

We used MSI Afterburner to overclock the Palit 1660 SUPER. Our best result came with +160MHz core offset, and +900MHz memory offset.

Average clock speed under load

This overclock resulted in our graphics card averaging 2068MHz under load, 140MHz faster than its stock behaviour.

Games

This extra frequency resulted in gains of 8-9% across our games and 3DMark scores, so again pretty typical of a Turing card.

Here, we take a further look at the impact of our overclock, looking at the increased temperatures, acoustics and power draw.

Temperatures

Acoustics

Power consumption

Overview

The GamingPro OC did well to handle the extra frequency from the GPU. It ran 2C hotter which is nothing to worry about, though noise levels did rise to 46.5dB which is getting a little loud for my tastes, but it's still not terrible. Lastly, power draw jumped up by 13W, so a pretty negligible result there as well.

We heard pretty much everything there was to hear about GTX 1660 SUPER in the weeks building up to the official launch, but today the card has been announced and we have reviews of two cards – this review has been looking at Palit's GamingPro OC, but if you want to look at the Gigabyte Gaming OC 6G you can find that over here.

First, let's just make it clear what we have with 1660 SUPER – it's not a new architecture, or even a new Turing GPU. It is simply a vanilla GTX 1660, but with faster GDDR6 memory instead of the older GDDR5 memory. That's it – so any performance gains come purely as a result of the memory, as the GPU itself has not changed at all.

Despite that, the Palit GamingPro OC offers some decent performance improvements over the GTX 1660. Averaged across all of our testing today, this Palit 1660 SUPER is actually 13% faster than the GTX 1660, enough to give a noticeably smoother gaming experience. In fact, that means 1660 SUPER is very close to the 1660 Ti in terms of performance, with Palit's card proving 3% slower on average, but no more than 5% slower at most.

That means it could be a good card to upgrade to if you have been holding onto that trusty GTX 1060 6GB for a few years now – the GamingPro OC 1660 SUPER is 41% faster than that card. To provide a few extra comparisons, this Palit 1660 SUPER is 16% faster than RX 590, 16% slower than RTX 2060 Founders Edition and 13% slower than Vega 56.

By and large, Palit has build a good card, too. Thermal performance is the most impressive area for this card, as the GPU peaked at just 65C under load, despite it being a compact design. The only slight downside to that is the fans do have to spin a little faster than I'd like, so while the card isn't loud per se, there are noticeably quieter cards out there, including the Gigabyte 1660 SUPER we have reviewed today.

The GamingPro OC also overclocked about as well as we'd expect, the core reached about 2070MHz under load while the GDDR6 memory was stable at 15.8Gbps. This saw frame rates improve by 8-9% in the games we tested, so decent overall but nothing more than we have seen from other Turing cards.

Wrapping things up, to me it is clear that Nvidia has a very good product on its hands with the GTX 1660 SUPER. It may not be too exciting, with just a memory change versus the vanilla GTX 1660, but that alone is enough for the GamingPro OC to outperform the 1660 by 13% on average. That means it is just 5% slower at most when compared to 1660 Ti, despite costing £50 less. For me, that basically puts 1660 Ti out to pasture as the performance difference is very slim between the two cards, but you're saving about 20% by going for the 1660 SUPER.

AMD is also in need of a direct competitor to this card, as at present it doesn't really have a true rival to the 1660 SUPER. RX 590 has recently seen prices drop as low at £175, but that card is still 14% slower on average than 1660 SUPER, so it's a definite step down in terms of performance. Vega 56 does come in 15% faster, but availability of those cards is dropping, and even if you can find a decent-looking card online, prices are typically 20%+ higher than 1660 SUPER.

That means 1660 SUPER is the best option if you are looking for a new graphics card at or around the £210 price point. It's so close to the 1660 Ti in terms of performance that the gaming experience is going to be indistinguishable between the two, but you save £50 by going with the 1660 SUPER. It's not a super sexy launch, sure, but the consumer is getting more for their money than they would have done this time last week.

As for Palit's GTX 1660 SUPER GamingPro OC, it's a capable card and I'd be happy to put this in my own high refresh-rate 1080p gaming system. I'm still waiting on a confirmed price for this model ahead of launch, but provided the card can be found reasonably close to the MSRP, it's well worth buying.

You can view the whole range of GTX 1660 SUPER cards at Overclockers UK HERE.

Pros

Cons

KitGuru says: GTX 1660 SUPER is a very good option to have around the £210 price point, and as long as the GamingPro OC isn't too much more expensive than that it is well worth picking up.

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