GTX 1660 in 2023, Still Worth Buying?

The GTX 1660, released in 2019, was targeted towards gamers who wanted to play games at 1080P and was popular with streams because it featured Nvidia's new at the time turing encoder. It has 1408 Cuda cores, 6GB of GDDR5 memory running through a 192-bit bus. It features Nvidia's turing encoder 2. It has one 8 pin PCIe power connector, and Nvidia recommends at least a 300-watt PSU to power this thing. It is actually incredibly efficient, and all testing is done on our test bench.

We tested the GTX 1660 at 1080p as we think this is the best resolution for this graphics card, although it could possibly get away with 1440p in some titles. We used Unigen Superposition, and in the 1080p medium benchmark, it got 10,225 which is pretty respectable. Cyberpunk 2077 was tested next, and it got 59 FPS on average and 49 FPS for the one percent low on the medium preset with high textures enabled. F1 22 was tested on the high preset, and it got 114 FPS on average with 83 FPS for the one percent low. God of War was tested on the original preset, which is similar to the original PS4's preset. It got 74 FPS on average with 57 FPS for the one percent low. Forza Horizon 5 was tested on the high preset, and it got 87 FPS on average with 74 FPS for the one percent low.

Horizon Zero Dawn on the high preset, and in the in-game benchmark, it got 74 FPS on average with 55 FPS for the one percent low. The GTX 1660 is a great graphics card for 1080p gaming, and it performed well in all the games we tested. Next, Fortnite, setting it to the medium preset, which provided a good balance between quality and performance. The game performed well, with an average of 145 FPS and a one percent low of 80 FPS on DirectX 11. We recommended not using performance mode and avoiding DirectX 12, as it can be messy on older GPUs.

GTA 5 was the next game we benchmarked, using the very high preset with two times msaa for both reflections and anterior leasing, and no advanced settings. The game performed very well, with an average of 98 FPS and a one percent low of 71 FPS. It's a game we recommend playing, especially on a 5m server.

We tested Assassin's Creed Valhalla on two quality settings, starting with the high preset. It performed well with an average of 50 FPS and a one percent low of 38 FPS, but we recommended switching it to the medium preset for better performance. With the medium preset, the game averaged 64 FPS with a one percent low of 50 FPS. We also recommended raising some sections to high without losing graphical fidelity.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 2022 was tested on the balance preset with high textures, which got an average of 68 FPS and a one percent low of 42 FPS in the in-game benchmark. We recommended not lowering the texture settings, as they don't affect the frame rate as long as you have the required VRAM.

Rainbow Six Siege was set to the very high preset, which isn't recommended for a shooter like Siege, but it still performed very well. The game averaged 177 FPS with a one percent low of 142 FPS, and the frame consistency was great.

Finally, we tested The Witcher 3 on the high preset with the GTX 1660, which got an average of 68 FPS and a one percent low of 51 FPS. It's a game that recently got enhanced, and while we were disappointed with some of the optimizations, it's still a great experience.

Overall, the GTX 1660 graphics card surprised us with its performance in every game we tested. It's an affordable card that provides a great gaming experience, especially if your expectations are in line. It may be overshadowed by the 1660 super, but it still has plenty of life left in it. If you're playing a triple-A game or an esports title, the GTX 1660 will perform well.