PNY GeForce GTX 1660 6GB XLR8 gaming overclocked edition graphics card review

PNY GeForce GTX 1660 6GB XLR8 gaming overclocked edition graphics card review

Is it worth investment to buy PNY GeForce GTX 1660? It delivers high-frame rate Full HD gaming, and even allows for very smooth QHD experiences even with the latest games. Of course, if you’re looking to inject the latest tech into your games, ray tracing and DLSS remain exclusive features found on Nvidia RTX cards – and the GeForce RTX 2060 is also just barely more expensive than this part. Find everything you need to know in PNY GeForce GTX 1660 6GB XLR8 gaming overclocked edition graphics card review.

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Pros & Cons

PROS

  • Runs cool and quiet
  • Solid overclocking performance.
  • Fine design for compact PC cases.
  • Impressive, silky-smooth 1440p gaming
  • Major performance upgrade over GTX 1060
  • Very short 6.61-inch length for mITX cases

CONS

  • No DisplayPort output.
  • Runs hot for such a small card.
  • GDDR6 memory is limited to 12Gbps speeds
  • Only 1 HDMI and DisplayPort

Specs – PNY GeForce GTX 1660 6GB XLR8 gaming overclocked edition graphics card

  • PNY Part Number VCG16606SSFPPB-O
  • CUDA Cores 1408
  • Clock Speed 1530 MHz
  • UPC Code 751492632681
  • Memory Size 6GB GDDR6
  • Memory Interface 192-bit
  • Boost Speed 1830 MHz
  • Memory Speed (Gbps) 14
  • Outputs DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0b, DVI-D
  • Multi-Screen Yes
  • Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) 336
  • TDP 125 W
  • NVLink Not Supported
  • Power Input One 8-pin
  • Bus Type PCI-Express 3.0 ×16
  • Resolution 7680 × 4320 @60Hz (Digital)1
  • Card Dimensions 6.61” × 4.96” × 1.57”; Dual-Slot
  • Box Dimensions 12.39” × 2.26” × 7.13”

Price

Nvidia says GeForce GTX 1660 Ti cards will start at $279 / £259 / AU$469 and thankfully PNY decided its XLR8 Gaming OC variant will cost the same amount.

Surprisingly, this new GPU is even cheaper than the $299 / £249 / AU$499 Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 it’s replacing. But, what’s more important is that the 1660 Ti is also much less expensive than the lowest priced RTX card, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060, which runs for $349 / £329 / AU$599 if you were to buy the company’s own Founders Edition.

Compare PNY GeForce GTX 1660 6GB XLR8 gaming overclocked edition graphics card

PNY GeForce® GTX 1660 6GB XLR8 Gaming Overclocked Edition Graphics CardASUS TUF Gaming NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 OC Edition Graphics Card
Graphics Card InterfacePCI-Express x16PCI-Express x16
Graphics CoprocessorNVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650
Graphics Ram Size6 GB4 GB
Graphics RamGDDR5GDDR6
Hardware InterfacePCI Express x4PCI Express x8
Included ComponentsGeForce® GTX 1660 Series graphics cardsTUF-GTX1650-O4GD6-P-GAMING Graphics card, speedsetup manual
Memory Bus Width192 bits128 bits
Memory Clock Speed1530 MHz1785 MHz

PNY GeForce GTX 1660 6GB XLR8 gaming overclocked edition graphics card review

Design

PNY’s graphics card measures a mere 6.61 inches long. NVIDIA has included an 8-pin power connector on the GTX 1660 as it requires a little more power under load than its Turing entry-level sibling, the GTX 1650. However, the GTX 1660 has fewer shaders and texture units than the GTX 1660 Ti,

Ports

You won’t find a backplate, a dual BIOS switch, or flashy RGB lights like you do on the Asus Dual EVO OC. The PNY GTX 1660 Super Single Fan is a simple, solidly built graphics card with singular DVI, DisplayPort, and HDMI connections. 

Frame rate

Users looking for a slicker 60 fps experience will be better off lowering their resolution to QHD (2,560 x 1,440). At a 2K resolution while maintaining Ultra quality settings, Anthem ran at 40-50 fps and Resident Evil 2 rendered at an even smoother 60-80 fps.

Outside of our traditional testing we found the PNY GTX 1660 was mighty enough to handle Anthem and Resident Evil 2 at a playable 30 fps – though sometimes the frame rate veers between plus and minus 10 fps – with both titles set to 4K and Ultra quality settings. 

Temperature

We encountered no temperature issues with the XLR8 Gaming OC during our tests. Core temperatures peaked at 76 °C even with its PT set to 107%, although the PCB reached 86 °C. This is still within safe limits, though. Reducing the PT to 100% resulted in temperatures dropping to 80 °C on the back of the PCB too.

Cooling

An aluminum heatsink sits underneath a single-fan cooler and a shell of black plastic, all in a card that measures just under 6 inches long and 1.5 inches thick. Despite the missing outputs on the back edge, the PNY card is still a double-slot design, due to the width of its cooling-fan casing. 

Power consumption

PNY allows the power target (PT) of the GPU to be increased to 107%, which results in a peak TDP of 128.4 W. We confirmed this during our tests, while our test system peaked at 258 W under load too.

Overclocking

The XLR8 Gaming OC remains close to NVIDIA reference clock speeds. The card can hit 1,830 MHz though, which is 45 MHz higher than the 1,785 MHz reference boost clock. Its 1,530 MHz base clock is unchanged though, as is its 2,000 MHz VRAM clock speed. Correspondingly, the XLR8 Gaming OC has the same 192.1 GB/s memory bandwidth as other GTX 1660 cards.

Alternate of PNY GeForce GTX 1660 6GB XLR8 gaming overclocked edition graphics card

GeForce RTX 3060 Ti

SPECIFICATIONS

GPU: Ampere (GA104)GPU Cores: 4864Boost Clock: 1,665 MHzVideo RAM: 8GB GDDR6 14 GbpsTDP: 200 watts

Pros

+Beats the 2080 Super for $300 less+Good overall value (fps/$)+Great for RT at 1440p with DLSS

Cons

-Sold out and currently overpriced-4K is a a stretch even with DLSS-8GB might not be ‘enough’ VRAM long term

Nvidia’s Ampere march continues with what might just be the best of the bunch. The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti has all the same features as the other 30-series GPUs, with a starting price of just $399. In theory, of course, as it naturally sold out just as quickly as all the other new graphics cards. Currently, the typical eBay price sits at around $850, more than double the nominal MSRP.

The 3060 Ti ends up beating the previous gen 2080 Super in performance, winning every test we ran. It’s also only about 9 percent slower than the 3070 but costs 20 percent less. If you’re still sitting on a GTX series or similar GPU, like a GTX 1070 or RX Vega 56, the 3060 Ti is up to twice as fast — sometimes even more, in the latest games.

The only real concern is the lack of VRAM. 8GB is enough, for now, but some games are starting to push beyond that threshold. Of course you can drop the texture quality a notch, and you might not even notice the difference, but deep down inside you’ll feel regret. (Not really — high settings often look indistinguishable from ultra settings.)

AMD’s more recent RX 6600 and RX 6600 XT give the 3060 Ti some competition, but Nvidia’s part is still faster, particularly in ray tracing games. Then again, The RX 6600 XT currently sells for over $250 less than the 3060 Ti — not that you should pay such prices for either card. There’s nothing else that can challenge the 3060 Ti at anything close to the $399 price point. It’s 35-45 percent faster than the 2060 Super, and 25-30 percent faster than the RX 5700 XT, all for the same nominal asking price.

The biggest concern right now is just finding one of these cards for sale. Mining performance pretty much matches the 3070 (at least for the non-LHR models) and AMD’s latest gen cards, which means prices are still horribly inflated. Also, 8GB feels a bit stingy, considering the GTX 1070 had that much memory over five years ago.

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