Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super revealed, up to 20% faster than GTX 1660 for $229

Finally, the GeForce GTX series has gone Super. Nvidia has taken the wraps off of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super 6GB, a direct replacement for the current Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660.

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super has launched today, October 29th, priced at $229. In terms of performance it sits right between the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 and the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti 6GB. As a GTX video card, rather than RTX, the GTX 1660 Super won’t be capable of real-time raytracing.

Exactly as per the rumours, the GeForce GTX 1660 Super is identical to the vanilla GeForce GTX 1660 aside from its faster GDDR6 VRAM. It utilises the exact same cut down TU116-300 GPU and has 1408 CUDA Cores, a base clock speed of 1530 MHz and a boost clock of 1785 MHz. Reiterating the earlier point, the GeForce GTX 1660 Super elevates itself above the GTX 1660 thanks to its use of faster 6GB GDDR6 memory, rather than previous-gen GDDR5. This ups the memory speed to 14GHz, increasing the memory bandwidth from 192GB/s up to 336GB/s, a performance improvement of 75%.

	GeForce GTX 1650	GeForce GTX 1650 Super	GeForce GTX 1660	GeForce GTX 1660 Super	GeForce GTX 1660 Ti
Architecture	TU117	TU116	TU116-300	TU116-300	TU116-400
Process	12nm	12nm	12nm	12nm	12nm
CUDA Cores	896	1280	1408	1408	1536
TMUs	56	80	80	80	96
ROPs	32	32	48	48	48
Base Clock	1485 MHz	1530 MHz	1530 MHz	1530 MHz	1500 MHz
Boost Clock	1665 MHz	1725 MHz	1785 MHz	1785 MHz	1770 MHz
Memory	4GB GDDR5	4GB GDDR6	6GB GDDR5	6GB GDDR6	6GB GDDR6
Memory Interface	128-bit	128-bit	192-bit	192-bit	192-bit
Memory Speed	8 GHz	14 GHz	8 GHz	14 GHz	12 GHz
Memory Bandwidth	128 GB/s	192 GB/s	192 GB/s	336 GB/s	288 GB/s
Price	$149	TBA	$219	$229	$279

But what does this all mean for performance? Well, Nvidia is claiming up to 20% performance gains when compared to the GeForce GTX 1660, as well as up to 50% raster than the previous-gen GeForce GTX 1060 6GB. The key words to focus on here are “up to” as in terms of real world gaming performance, the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti is only about 15-20% faster than a GeForce GTX 1660. The GTX 1660 Super absolutely shouldn’t be as fast as a GTX 1660 Ti so we’re instead probably looking at typical frame rate gains right in between those two video cards, ie the GTX 1660 Super should, on average, be about 10% faster than a GTX 1660, and 5-10% slower than a GTX 1660 Ti. However, initial benchmark tests indicate the GTX 1660 Super is capable of going toe-to-toe with the GTX 1660 Ti in a few instances.

Nvidia also makes the claim that as the more complex shaders used by Turing become more popular, this should allow Turing to pull even further away. This would mean that, over time, the GeForce GTX 1660 Super’s performance will distance itself from the GeForce GTX 1060. This line of thinking should apply to all Turing GPUs, although it’s all ifs and buts at this stage.

In terms of the target audience for a GeForce GTX 1660 Super, this is squarely aimed at the 1080p PC gamer. It will deliver great price to performance for its $229 price tag at 1920 x 1080 screen resolution. The addition of faster GDDR6 VRAM should help performance in video memory hungry titles. But, the GTX 1660 Super’s fast VRAM probably won’t help much at higher resolutions such as 1440p. It’s a card built for 1080p fires and foremost, while 1440p gamers should be looking toward the GeForce RTX range of AMD’s Radeon RX 5700 series.

Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1660 Super is available at a starting price of $229, although prices may vary depending on the various AIB models available. That makes it $10 more expensive than a standard GeForce GTX 1660, indicating the 1660 Super is likely a direct replacement. Nvidia claims the three graphics cards will co-exist but this will surely have to depend on a price cut for the GeForce GTX 1660.

If you’re on the hunt for a GeForce GTX 1660 Super, availability is today. This is a hard launch and board partners are offering their own custom GeForce GTX 1660 Super video cards as of right now.