Hardware & Technical Nvidia 1660 Ti - the new 'sweet spot' GPU?

[Morbad]

A decent mid tier card should be around 350$ CAD and instead its around 450$ CAD. This increase isn't due to "lack of competition" or due to "inflation" but a direct result of crypto mining.

From 2008 through 2013 CAD and USD had rough parity in value. After that, the exchange rate shifted in favor of USD and prices eventually followed. A big part of the inflated CAD prices you see are because the USD has been hovering at around 1.30 CAD for several years.

There are new price tiers on top of the standard segments that historically have only been filled intermittently, but if I ignore the extreme high-end where there is zero competition, GPU prices look very similar to what they were in 2014-2015, before the latest run on mining GPUs.

If I adjust for inflation, they don't even look that different from 2007, which was another period where there was little competition at the extreme high-end.

An example from October 2015 - https://www.techspot.com/review/1075-best-graphics-cards-2015/

Same segments today are priced very closely and I can get a brand new 1660 Ti for less than what I would have paid for a GTX 970 in late 2015.

 

[Speedcuffs]

Of course this thing his the market mere months after I've upgraded to a 1060 6gb. Though I think while playing 1080p the 1060 is more than adequate for Elite Dangerous.

Yep, it's fine. I bought one end of January, £200.
Moved from PS4 to PC, it looks great.
If the 1660 was out I would have got one. Meh.

 

[Space Dandy]

From 2008 through 2013 CAD and USD had rough parity in value. After that, the exchange rate shifted in favor of USD and prices eventually followed. A big part of the inflated CAD prices you see are because the USD has been hovering at around 1.30 CAD for several years.

There are new price tiers on top of the standard segments that historically have only been filled intermittently, but if I ignore the extreme high-end where there is zero competition, GPU prices look very similar to what they were in 2014-2015, before the latest run on mining GPUs.

If I adjust for inflation, they don't even look that different from 2007, which was another period where there was little competition at the extreme high-end.

An example from October 2015 - https://www.techspot.com/review/1075-best-graphics-cards-2015/

Same segments today are priced very closely and I can get a brand new 1660 Ti for less than what I would have paid for a GTX 970 in late 2015.

Problem is the 1660ti is overpriced for what it is. The new line is really the rtx cards and they should be the ones setting the standard. The 2060 is/should be the low tier, 2070 mid tier and then 2080 high tier cards...this is where you can see how they are jacking up the MSRP really then offering some below low tier card.

You should be comparing the 1660ti to the gtx 960 IMO.

 

[Morbad]

Problem is the 1660ti is overpriced for what it is. The new line is really the rtx cards and they should be the ones setting the standard. The 2060 is/should be the low tier, 2070 mid tier and then 2080 high tier cards...this is where you can see how they are jacking up the MSRP really then offering some below low tier card.

You should be comparing the 1660ti to the gtx 960 IMO.

The 2060 is not, and could not, be a low end card. The part is already borderline, as far as horsepower required to leverage any of the RTX features goes.

The RTX line couldn't exist in any other market. Only the utter lack of high-end competition has made it viable to spend so many transistors on such a niche use, on such a manufacturing process, and put them in consumer SKUs.

As for the generational comparison, the GTX 1660 Ti is a better ~300 dollar card today than the GTX 970 was in 2015. In games contemporaneous to each card, the 1660 Ti can run higher IQ at higher frame rates. We could also stick the Vega 56 into this comparison, when you can find them in stock, as it performs on par with the RTX 2060 in most cases, yet is only slightly more expensive than the 1660 Ti, and is in the same price segment at the 970 was.

Next week you can compare the 1660 non Ti to the GTX 960, but until the the current closest equivalent is the 1060, not the 1660 Ti.

 

[Zak Gordon]

Performance wise i'm 100% happy with the 1660 Ti (maybe 8GB vram would have been nice?). It's compute power and power usage seems exactly what i'm looking for in a new GPU.

However it still 'feels' a bit high price wise. The top end models are too near the price of the RTX2060 which shows that maybe Nvidia have priced it a little too high? Off course they will use their near monopoly to get as much profit as possible, but for my money i'll only look to get a 1660 Ti in the sales, with about a £30-£50 discount. That to my mind is a fair price for the card.

 

[FreezeFIN]

Spoiler

IMO I have found my sweetspot, and it is nVidia 1070 Ti Strix Advanced 8 Gb

 

[Space Dandy]

The 2060 is not, and could not, be a low end card. The part is already borderline, as far as horsepower required to leverage any of the RTX features goes.

The RTX line couldn't exist in any other market. Only the utter lack of high-end competition has made it viable to spend so many transistors on such a niche use, on such a manufacturing process, and put them in consumer SKUs.

As for the generational comparison, the GTX 1660 Ti is a better ~300 dollar card today than the GTX 970 was in 2015. In games contemporaneous to each card, the 1660 Ti can run higher IQ at higher frame rates. We could also stick the Vega 56 into this comparison, when you can find them in stock, as it performs on par with the RTX 2060 in most cases, yet is only slightly more expensive than the 1660 Ti, and is in the same price segment at the 970 was.

Next week you can compare the 1660 non Ti to the GTX 960, but until the the current closest equivalent is the 1060, not the 1660 Ti.

No the 1XXX line is the last gen cards and the 9xx cards are the gen before that line...if you use logic and follow in that vein the newest gen cards are the 2xxx cards.

Nvidia wants to drop the gtx line of cards to push the rtx tech and they want to do so at inflated pricing so..the only reason for the 1660ti is because they may have thought that many of us would balk at the rtx line and the new pricing structure they would like to impose.

The fact that the 1660 is a better card than a card that 2 gen back is of no consequence.....new gen cards are SUPPOSE to be better than their predecessors.

Forget price for a moment and use logic, the last gen card are the 1060, 1070 and 1080 they are also low, mid and high tier cards, this is a no brainer. The next gen cards should have been gtx 2060, gtx2070 and gtx2080 gpu BUT nvidia wanted to push rtx tech on us so we got rtx cards with unproven tech at inflated prices....that's on nvidia not us.

Now they are back peddling and giving us gtx1660ti which is not as good as a rtx2060 but at previous gen mid tier pricing when really this is a low tier card. The mid tier gtx card of this gen should really be a gtx1770ti if they really want to stick in a "new" line of cards between the 1xxx and 2xxx lines of cards.


If you look at the chip, tu116, in the 1660 it's really a cut down version of the tu106 used in the 2060 without tensore and rt cores. Furthermore if you look closely the tu116 chip looks similar to the gp104 chip used in the 1060 but with a die shrink from 16nm to 12nm along with a bump from gddr5 to gddr6.

This IMO makes the 1660ti a low tier card.

 

[Morbad]

No the 1XXX line is the last gen cards

The 1660 Ti is Turing, the same architectural generation as the RTX line, they've just thrown out the RT cores, for good reason.

Regardless, even 'last gen' parts are current until they've been replaced, and this hasn't been done in the low-end segments yet.

Nvidia wants to drop the gtx line of cards to push the rtx tech

And they know they can't do this because the bulk of turings new features are dead weight in the bulk of consumer apps and lower-end Turing parts would both damage the RTX brand by not being able to do anything RTX and damage their margins by costing more than

The fact that the 1660 is a better card than a card that 2 gen back is of no consequence.....new gen cards are SUPPOSE to be better than their predecessors.

I didn't say it was a better card than two gens back in absolute terms.

I said the 1660 Ti is better at 2019 games than the GTX 970 was at 2015 games. It's a better value now than the 970 was then. Not only is it better in absolute terms, it's better in terms of it's potency in it's segment.

Forget price for a moment and use logic[/QUITE]

Price is what defines market segment and there is no more rational, logical way to do so.

the last gen card are the 1060, 1070 and 1080 they are also low, mid and high tier cards, this is a no brainer.

The 1060 is firmly in the upper mainstream segment and the 1060 is current for another week because it hasn't been replaced.

They use an older architecture than Turing, which is in the entire RTX line up and the 1660 Ti, but architecture isn't what defines segment or what products are current, price and what is being sold is.

if they really want to stick in a "new" line of cards between the 1xxx and 2xxx lines of cards.

They don't. They want to replace Pascal, but they don't have anything to replace the low-end Pascal parts with and they probably won't, until 7nm.

Low end Pascal and mid to high-end Turing will likely remain contemporaneous until they are both replaced.

If you look at the chip, tu116, in the 1660 it's really a cut down version of the tu106 used in the 2060 without tensore and rt cores. Furthermore if you look closely the tu116 chip looks similar to the gp104 chip used in the 1060 but with a die shrink from 16nm to 12nm along with a bump from gddr5 to gddr6.

Turing is more than tensor and RT cores, but the TU106 (third largest consumer Turing die) and 116 (fourth largest) die flavors are generationally speaking, analogous to GP106 (third largest consumer Pascal) and GP107 (fourth), not GP104 (second). So, architecturally, they are even lower end, relative to their contemporaries.

This IMO makes the 1660ti a low tier card.

It targets the 300 dollar segment and highly competitive in that segment. 300 dollars is not a low-end segment, it's firmly upper mainstream. It might be a low end part at some point before it's replaced, or not, but today it definitely is not.

All the generational and architectural stuff is purely academic and rightly irrelevant to the majority of consumers. What matters is how much you have to pay for it, and what it can do.

 

[Space Dandy]

The 1660 Ti is Turing, the same architectural generation as the RTX line, they've just thrown out the RT cores, for good reason.

Regardless, even 'last gen' parts are current until they've been replaced, and this hasn't been done in the low-end segments yet.



And they know they can't do this because the bulk of turings new features are dead weight in the bulk of consumer apps and lower-end Turing parts would both damage the RTX brand by not being able to do anything RTX and damage their margins by costing more than



I didn't say it was a better card than two gens back in absolute terms.

I said the 1660 Ti is better at 2019 games than the GTX 970 was at 2015 games. It's a better value now than the 970 was then. Not only is it better in absolute terms, it's better in terms of it's potency in it's segment.

Forget price for a moment and use logic

Price is what defines market segment and there is no more rational, logical way to do so.



The 1060 is firmly in the upper mainstream segment and the 1060 is current for another week because it hasn't been replaced.

They use an older architecture than Turing, which is in the entire RTX line up and the 1660 Ti, but architecture isn't what defines segment or what products are current, price and what is being sold is.



They don't. They want to replace Pascal, but they don't have anything to replace the low-end Pascal parts with and they probably won't, until 7nm.

Low end Pascal and mid to high-end Turing will likely remain contemporaneous until they are both replaced.



Turing is more than tensor and RT cores, but the TU106 (third largest consumer Turing die) and 116 (fourth largest) die flavors are generationally speaking, analogous to GP106 (third largest consumer Pascal) and GP107 (fourth), not GP104 (second). So, architecturally, they are even lower end, relative to their contemporaries.



It targets the 300 dollar segment and highly competitive in that segment. 300 dollars is not a low-end segment, it's firmly upper mainstream. It might be a low end part at some point before it's replaced, or not, but today it definitely is not.

All the generational and architectural stuff is purely academic and rightly irrelevant to the majority of consumers. What matters is how much you have to pay for it, and what it can do.

It's clear we wont agree with each other but if we cut out the marketing spin which is most of your post and look at it purely from a tech standpoint, I am correct and you even agree with me even though your spinning it different, and saying stuff in the first half of your post which I already said as if you are somehow correcting me, then using the "marketing spin" to try and refute what I said about the chip themselves.

All the generational stuff/comparison is hogwash as well as, and I quote here, "So, architecturally, they are even lower end, relative to their contemporaries." comment.

You even see, as it is implied, in the nvidia naming convention...gtx760 replaced by the gtx 960 replaced by the gtx1060 replaced by the ....rtx2060 but fail (and you agree here by implying so with this comment, "they've just thrown out the RT cores, for good reason." ) so replaced by the gtx1660ti..yet somehow you and the nvidia marketing spin experts want to make us believe it some how replaces the 1070?

The real replacement for the 1070 is and should be...follow the logic not influenced by spin here....gtx770 replaced by gtx970, replaced by gtx1070 replaced by rtx 2070 but again fail so we should get gtx1770ti.


gtx760→gtx960→gtx1060 all low end cards relative to their lines, call it the "high end" of the "low tier" if you must confuse the issue but that's what they are, low tier cards, and therefore rtx 2060 is too and so is the 1660ti.

 

[Morbad]

Price point being the defining factor of market segment isn't spin and neither is the demonstrable price/performance ratio of the 1660 Ti.

If you want to buy a product based on arbitrary naming conventions or esoteric architectural features rather than what actually matters, that's your prerogative.

 

[Space Dandy]

Price point being the defining factor of market segment isn't spin and neither is the demonstrable price/performance ratio of the 1660 Ti.

If you want to buy a product based on arbitrary naming conventions or esoteric architectural features rather than what actually matters, that's your prerogative.

And if you want to blindly accept, without looking at the hardware itself, that something that clearly should be a replacement for the 1060 but nvidia wants you to believe is replacing the 1070 (and thus priced accordingly) then that's your right to believe but that doesn't make it so. Doesn't mean the rest of us are wrong.

Reminds me when you go to buy a nice sound system and the guy trying to sell stuff to you don't know what they are talking about and starting using marketing terms and phrases to confuse you when you ask about speaker wattage but don't know what you mean when you ask for wattage RMS instead of peak to peak and don't know what that means or look like on a sine wave....

 

[Morbad]

I'm not sure how you inferred any of that from anything I posted.

I'm advocating the use of two metrics to determine what GPU one should get: price and performance. Other factors mostly range from the trivial to the utterly irrelevant to most people.

You don't need to know anything other than performance to realize that replacing a 1070 with a 1660 Ti is not going to be wise.

 

[Space Dandy]

I'm not sure how you inferred any of that from anything I posted.

I'm advocating the use of two metrics to determine what GPU one should get: price and performance. Other factors mostly range from the trivial to the utterly irrelevant to most people.

You don't need to know anything other than performance to realize that replacing a 1070 with a 1660 Ti is not going to be wise.

I'm not using any metrics to determine what one should get period, that was never the point of anything I typed nor I am saying anyone is anything in their choice of purchase as that's all subjective and highly reliant on how much spare cash you have to burn etc etc.

I never claimed price/performance wasn't a good metric to determine one's purchase but then like I said I wasn't speaking about the why one should buy something.


I was just talking theoretically and stating that IMO theoretically the 1660ti is really the successor to the 1060 which IMO was last gens low tier card just like the gtx 760 I have in one pc right now was a the low tier card nvidia was offering back when I bought it instead of the gtx770 or the gtx780.

 

[Zak Gordon]

And news on the non Ti version of the 1660:

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1660-turing-tu116,6027.html

I'll post it in the OP as well for a more complete post

 

[Morbad]

And news on the non Ti version of the 1660:

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1660-turing-tu116,6027.html

I'll post it in the OP as well for a more complete post

Launched a few days sooner than I was expecting.

A little bit too slow and a little too close to the price of the 1660 Ti (at least for the ones still in stock) for me to recommend it.

 

[Zak Gordon]

The price is much more palatable for me than the current 1660Ti's (certainly the more expensive end), £200 (or there-abouts) is a comfortable maximum for me to spend on a GPU (historically i tend to focus around the sub £150 range), so the price is fine but as you say in comparison to the Ti's (the cheaper end) it's performance vs is not so attractive.

Still it is better than the 1060 it directly replaces, and for that money and performance for many it will be 'good enough'.

For myself it is all about the TDP/Cost/Perfomance balance (in that order of priority), so unless i can find some great 'Black Monday/etc' deals on the 1660 Ti, it may mean my next build (a few years off in truth) could have a plain 1660 instead? Depends what AMD can do in the meantime in relation to my GPU preferences (TDP/Cost/Performance)?

 

[Patrick_68000]

The price is much more palatable for me than the current 1660Ti's (certainly the more expensive end), £200 (or there-abouts) is a comfortable maximum for me to spend on a GPU (historically i tend to focus around the sub £150 range), so the price is fine but as you say in comparison to the Ti's (the cheaper end) it's performance vs is not so attractive.

Still it is better than the 1060 it directly replaces, and for that money and performance for many it will be 'good enough'.

For myself it is all about the TDP/Cost/Perfomance balance (in that order of priority), so unless i can find some great 'Black Monday/etc' deals on the 1660 Ti, it may mean my next build (a few years off in truth) could have a plain 1660 instead? Depends what AMD can do in the meantime in relation to my GPU preferences (TDP/Cost/Performance)?

Yes ! To play in 1920 * 1080, why take more expensive ?

However as stated in the article, do not consider higher resolutions with this card.

Many users have a 1920 * 1080 screen and still for a long time.

Changing screen resolution may require a large investment (screen, graphics card, power supply).

 

[Zak Gordon]

And a comparison from Jayz2cents on the whole 1660/1660 Ti range:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2R410yySUY

And a very thorough roundup from Tech Deals:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx9jhnKd_zs

 

[marx]

@ Patrick_68000: Exactly. What many people in the West don't seem to realise is that elsewhere, both GPUs and screens cost more and wages are less. For example, let's just stay in the EU and look at Eastern European countries: wages are roughly half that of the Western European countries (on purchasing power parity), hardware prices for enthusiast gamer stuff (as in, anything above the mid range of GTX 1060 / RX 580, or screens above 1080p and/or 60 Hz) tend to be around +20-25%. Now, many gamers in the West already complain about high-end cards costing too much, so imagine the comparison elsewhere. Now, one can spend a decent amount of money on a mid-range setup of a new GTX 1060 or RX 580 and an 1080p@60 Hz monitor, or they could spend several times that on high-end cards, better resolution and/or refresh rate. Oh, and add a power supply there too, since you'd probably need to upgrade that as well. So it costs several times more, but does it look "several times" better? Personally, I don't think it does - and my gaming screen is an IPS 1440p@144 Hz.

As such, it's little wonder that globally, the GTX 1060 and 1050 Ti seem to be the sweet spots, and for AMD, the RX 580. For example, see the Steam hardware survey. Maybe the 1660 Ti will become the new sweet spot in, say, 3-4 years' time - unless AMD's new Navi will have an even better price-to-performance ratio, nor nVidia pushes out something even better.

 

[Patrick_68000]

@ Patrick_68000: Exactly. What many people in the West don't seem to realise is that elsewhere, both GPUs and screens cost more and wages are less. For example, let's just stay in the EU and look at Eastern European countries: wages are roughly half that of the Western European countries (on purchasing power parity), hardware prices for enthusiast gamer stuff (as in, anything above the mid range of GTX 1060 / RX 580, or screens above 1080p and/or 60 Hz) tend to be around +20-25%. Now, many gamers in the West already complain about high-end cards costing too much, so imagine the comparison elsewhere. Now, one can spend a decent amount of money on a mid-range setup of a new GTX 1060 or RX 580 and an 1080p@60 Hz monitor, or they could spend several times that on high-end cards, better resolution and/or refresh rate. Oh, and add a power supply there too, since you'd probably need to upgrade that as well. So it costs several times more, but does it look "several times" better? Personally, I don't think it does - and my gaming screen is an IPS 1440p@144 Hz.

As such, it's little wonder that globally, the GTX 1060 and 1050 Ti seem to be the sweet spots, and for AMD, the RX 580. For example, see the Steam hardware survey. Maybe the 1660 Ti will become the new sweet spot in, say, 3-4 years' time - unless AMD's new Navi will have an even better price-to-performance ratio, nor nVidia pushes out something even better.

Yes, the times are hard for the majority of people.

Buying graphics cards beyond 1060/1070 remains a privilege.