NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 6 GB GDDR5 Graphics Card Review Ft. MSI Gaming X ($249) and Ventus XS ($219) – The Best Turing Card For Budget Gamers?

NVIDIA introduced their Turing GPU architecture last year, taking a complete departure from traditional GPU designs and creating a hybrid architecture that would include a range of new technologies to power the next-generation immersive gaming experiences.

While initially announced with Quadro lineup under the new Quadro RTX brand, we all knew that the Turing architecture was coming to the GeForce lineup. It arrived in the GeForce lineup a few months later under the new GeForce RTX branding. NVIDIA’s first big naming departure since two decades of GeForce GTX.

The GeForce RTX 20 series was the enablement of real-time raytracing which is the holy grail of graphics and something NVIDIA spent 10 years to perfect. In addition to raytracing, NVIDIA also aims to place bets on AI which will play a key role in powering features such as DLSS or Deep Learning Super Sampling, a unique way of offering the same quality as the more taxing MSAA AA techniques at twice the performance.

NVIDIA has announced for cards under the GeForce RTX 20 series family, the flagship GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, the Enthusiast GeForce RTX 2080, the high-performance GeForce RTX 2070 and the main-stream GeForce RTX 2060. Now, NVIDIA is looking to offer Turing under more reasonable prices but also going back to the good-old GeForce GTX branding and for good reasons. While GeForce RTX and GeForce GTX will exist alongside each other in this generation, the GeForce GTX lineup as the name suggests would be aiming for raw performance over the graphics intensive RTX features which only the RTX card support.

Last month, I tested the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, the first of the GeForce 16 series and Turing GTX lineup. The card hit an MSRP of $279 US which essentially meant that it replaced the GTX 1060 6 GB models. Today, I will be taking a look at the GeForce GTX 1660. The latest NVIDIA entrant with Turing GPU at a reference MSRP of $219 US which just about matches the GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB price point from two years ago and promises to deliver better performance at 1080p resolution at higher power efficiency than before.

When it comes to pricing, the GeForce RTX 20 series are some of the most costly cards NVIDIA has offered to consumers. The GeForce GTX 1660 Ti and GeForce GTX 1660, on the other hand, try to keep budget and more mainstream audiences in mind by offering a price closer to the GeForce GTX 1060 which became a popular gaming card on Steam due to its $249 price point. Following is the current per segment price structure of the entire NVIDIA Turing lineup compared to its predecessors.

NVIDIA GeForce GPU Segment/Tier Prices

Graphics Segment	2014-2015	2015-2016	2016-2017	2017-2018	2018-2019
Titan Tier	Titan X (Maxwell)	Titan X (Pascal)	Titan Xp (Pascal)	Titan V (Volta)	Titan RTX (Turing)
Price	$999 US	$1199 US	$1199 US	$2999 US	$2499 US
Ultra Enthusiast Tier	GeForce GTX 980 Ti	GeForce GTX 980 Ti	GeForce GTX 1080 Ti	GeForce RTX 2080 Ti	GeForce RTX 2080 Ti
Price	$649 US	$649 US	$699 US	$999 US	$999 US
Enthusiast Tier	GeForce GTX 980	GeForce GTX 1080	GeForce GTX 1080	GeForce RTX 2080	GeForce RTX 2080
Price	$549 US	$549 US	$549 US	$699 US	$699 US
High-End Tier	GeForce GTX 970	GeForce GTX 1070	GeForce GTX 1070	GeForce RTX 2070	GeForce RTX 2070
Price	$329 US	$379 US	$379 US	$499 US	$499 US
Mainstream Tier	GeForce GTX 960	GeForce GTX 1060	GeForce GTX 1060	GeForce GTX 1060	GeForce RTX 2060 GeForce GTX 1660 Ti GeForce GTX 1660
Price	$199 US	$249 US	$249 US	$249 US	$349 US $279 US $219 US

For this review, I will be taking a look at two custom models from MSI, the GeForce GTX 1660 Gaming X and the GeForce GTX 1660 Ventus XS. Both cards are based on a complete custom design and feature high-end cooling system to keep the GPU running cool. In terms of the price model, the GeForce GTX 1660 Gaming X has a price of $249 US ($30 over reference) while the Ventus XS OC matches the $219 US price point.

With just a few bucks of asking price over the reference models, the custom variants offer a range of features such as triple fan coolers, bulky heatsinks, and custom PCBs allowing for better heat dissipation, higher air flow and more overclocking performance and clock stability at their respective boost clocks which will be higher compared to the reference variants. The main barrier with overclocking on Turing GPUs is by far the power limit and those that offer the highest power limits out of the box are generally the ones with the best overclocking potential and performance output.

In case you want to read our full NVIDIA Turing GPU architecture and RTX/DLSS features deep dive, head over to this link.[nextpage title=”NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 and Turing TU116 GPU”]

While we have already detailed the Turing GPU architecture, it should be pointed out that the TU116 GPU, while it shares the same DNA as the Turing architecture has some big changes to what’ve seen on the GeForce RTX 20 series cards.

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Based on the 12th Generation Turing GPU architecture, the TU116 GPU found on the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti and the GeForce GTX 1660 features the same shader innovations that were introduced on Turing but to balance it out in terms of power, cost and performance, a few adjustments had to be made. This is done through the exclusion of RT cores and Tensor cores on the GeForce GTX cards with Turing architecture. It is pointed out that the Turing architecture on GeForce GTX still delivers improved performance & better efficiency compared to its predecessor while supporting concurrent floating point and integer Ops.

So let’s talk about the balanced architecture design of the Turing TU116 and how it still manages to improve upon its Pascal based predecessors. The first thing to mention is the three big changes in the Turing SM. The revamped structure of the Turing TU116 SM enables processing of FP32 & INT operations concurrently through the use of dedicated cores within the SM. The list of features that Turing TU116 GPU adds over Pascal GP106 include:

• Concurrent FP and INT operations
• Variable Rate Shading
• Unified Cache Architecture
• GDDR6 Memory Subsystem
• Dedicated FP16 Cores
• Turing NVENC Support

The Turing SM can also perform FP16 operations at double the rate of FP32. The Turing TU116 GPU is rated at 11 TOPs (FP+INT), 11 TFLOPs FP16 and an improved bandwidth that is resultant of the higher cache size of 1.5 MB compared to just 480 KB on the Pascal GP106 GPU.

If we look at some modern gaming titles, then we can see that developers are widely mixing floating point operations with integer instructions. For every 100 instructions in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, for example, 62 are floating point and 38 integers, on average. In previous GPUs, the floating point math datapath in the SM would sit idly whenever one of these non-FP-math runs.

Turing adds a second parallel Integer execution unit never to ever CUDA core that executes these instructions in parallel with floating point math. This would allow the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti and GTX 1660 graphics card to deliver a 1.5x performance improvement over the GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB & 3 GB models in Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

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Now coming to the raw specifications of the GeForce GTX 1660 graphics card. The TU116 GPU is fabricated on the TSMC’s 12nm FFN (FinFET NVIDIA) process node. It features 3 GPCs, 12 TPCs, and 22 Turing SMs. Each SM contains 64 cores which equal to a total of 1408 CUDA Cores. There’s also 88 Texture Units and 48 Raster Operation Units on the card. The base clock is maintained at 1530 MHz while the boost clock is maintained at 1785 MHz. You can tell from the specifications that the GTX 1660 has a slightly cut down TU116 SKU compared to the GTX 1660 Ti.

The card would feature 6 GB of GDDR5 VRAM running along a 192-bit bus interface. The memory system would be clocked at 8.0 Gbps delivering an effective bandwidth of 192 GB/s. The card is rated at 157.1 GigaTexel/s, 5.0 TFLOPs FP32 and 10 TFLOPs FP16 compute power. The card features a single 8 pin connector to boot and has the same TDP of 120W. Display outputs include a single DisplayPort, a single DVI-D, and an HDMI connector.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX/GTX "Turing" Family:

Graphics Card Name	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti
GPU Architecture	Turing GPU (TU116)	Turing GPU (TU116)	Turing GPU (TU106)	Turing GPU (TU106)	Turing GPU (TU104)	Turing GPU (TU102)
Process	12nm FNN	12nm FNN	12nm FNN	12nm FNN	12nm FNN	12nm FNN
Die Size	284mm2	284mm2	445mm2	445mm2	545mm2	754mm2
Transistors	6.6 Billion	6.6 Billion	10.6 Billion	10.6 Billion	13.6 Billion	18.6 Billion
CUDA Cores	1408 Cores	1536 Cores	1920 Cores	2304 Cores	2944 Cores	4352 Cores
TMUs/ROPs	88/48	96/48	120/48	144/64	192/64	288/96
GigaRays	N/A	N/A	5 Giga Rays/s	6 Giga Rays/s	8 Giga Rays/s	10 Giga Rays/s
Cache	1.5 MB L2 Cache	1.5 MB L2 Cache	4 MB L2 Cache	4 MB L2 Cache	4 MB L2 Cache	6 MB L2 Cache
Base Clock	1530 MHz	1500 MHz	1365 MHz	1410 MHz	1515 MHz	1350 MHz
Boost Clock	1785 MHz	1770 MHz	1680 MHz	1620 MHz 1710 MHz OC	1710 MHz 1800 MHz OC	1545 MHz 1635 MHz OC
Compute	5.0 TFLOPs	5.5 TFLOPs	6.5 TFLOPs	7.5 TFLOPs	10.1 TFLOPs	13.4 TFLOPs
Memory	Up To 6 GB GDDR5	Up To 6 GB GDDR6	Up To 6 GB GDDR6	Up To 8 GB GDDR6	Up To 8 GB GDDR6	Up To 11 GB GDDR6
Memory Speed	8.00 Gbps	12.00 Gbps	14.00 Gbps	14.00 Gbps	14.00 Gbps	14.00 Gbps
Memory Interface	192-bit	192-bit	192-bit	256-bit	256-bit	352-bit
Memory Bandwidth	192 GB/s	288 GB/s	336 GB/s	448 GB/s	448 GB/s	616 GB/s
Power Connectors	8 Pin	8 Pin	8 Pin	8 Pin	8+8 Pin	8+8 Pin
TDP	120W	120W	160W	185W (Founders) 175W (Reference)	225W (Founders) 215W (Reference)	260W (Founders) 250W (Reference)
Starting Price	$219 US	$279 US	$349 US	$499 US	$699 US	$999 US
Price (Founders Edition)	$219 US	$279 US	$349 US	$599 US	$799 US	$1,199 US
Launch	March 2019	February 2019	January 2019	October 2018	September 2018	September 2018

[nextpage title=”MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Gaming X ($249.99 US) Overview”]

The MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Gaming X is the top variant within MSI’s GTX 16 series family. This graphics card utilizes the most advanced version of the iconic Twin Frozr cooling system known as the Twin Frozr VII. This graphics card is available in the market for $249.99 US right now which makes it $30 US more expensive than the reference MSRP which is not that big of a difference for a fully custom design with a cooler that seems to look and perform great too. The good thing with this graphics model though is that it excels upon the standard reference models in all possible ways.

In terms of specifications, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 features 1408 CUDA cores, 88 TMUs, and 48 ROPs. The Turing TU116 die used on the graphics card is based around a 12nm process and has a die size of 284mm2. The core clocks for the card are maintained at 1530 MHz for base and 1785 MHz for boost. The MSI Gaming X model is clocked up to 1860MHz (boost) which will be providing better gaming performance than the reference model.

The chip packs a total of 5.0 TFLOPs of FP32 compute power. The cards feature a 6 GB GDDR5 memory interface running along a 192-bit wide bus interface that delivers 192 GB/s bandwidth. The reference model is powered by a single 8 pin connector and has a TDP of 120W.

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The Gaming X design is built upon the foundations of the previous Gaming X layout with dual Torx 3.0 fans that come with Zero Frozr technology and the dispersion fan blade design, allowing higher airflow to reach the heatsink underneath the shroud. The card features a custom 4+2 phase power design on the PCB and is powered by a single 8 connector. The custom PCB is fitted with an anti-bending bracket which offers better durability.

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Following are some of the features of the MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Gaming X before we go into detail:

Features

Core/Memory

• Boost Clock / Memory Speed
  1860 MHz / 8 Gbps
• 6GB GDDR5
• DisplayPort x 1 / HDMI x 1 / DVI-D x 1

Twin Frozr 7 Thermal Design

• TORX Fan 3.0
  – Dispersion fan blade: Steeply curved blade accelerating the airflow.
  – Traditional fan blade: Provides steady airflow to massive heat sink below.
• Mastery of Aerodynamics: The heatsink is optimized for efficient heat dissipation, keeping your temperatures low and performance high.
• Zero Frozr technology: Stopping the fan in low-load situations, keeping a noise-free environment.

RGB Mystic Light

• Customize colors and LED effects with exclusive MSI software and synchronize the look & feel with other components.

Dragon Center

• 1 click to optimize all you need for smooth gaming.

[nextpage title=”MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Gaming X Package”]

The MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Gaming X graphics card comes within a standard cardboard based package. The front of both packages has a large “GeForce GTX” brand logo along with the “MSI” logo on the top left corner. A picture of the graphics card can be seen on the front which as I’ve said before, is a nice touch from MSI.

The packaging has put a large emphasis on the Turing Shaders, followed by GDDR5, DirectX 12 and Ansel support.

The back of the box is very typical, highlighting the main features and specifications of the cards. The three key aspects of MSI’s top tier custom cards are its Torx 3.0 fan design, the upgraded & much efficient Twin Frozr 7 heatsink design and support for the Mystic Light RGB implementation.

There’s also a focus towards GeForce.com on each AIB card through which users can download the latest drivers and GeForce Experience application which are a must for gamers to access all feature set of the new cards.

There’s a letter case within the box which is etched with the MSI logo. This box contains the card accessories and the graphics card itself is hidden behind it.

The card is nicely wrapped within an anti-static cover which is useful to prevent any unwanted static discharges on various surfaces that might harm the graphics card. The card accessories include a Molex power connector which isn’t of much use in high-end systems since the PSUs already have the required cables.

Useful manuals and installation guides are packed within an MSI labeled letter case. There is an MSI Quick Users Guide, a Support bracket installation guide, a sticker letter, the MSI DIY comic, and a single drivers disk. It’s best to ignore the driver disk and install the latest software and graphics drivers directly from the NVIDIA and MSI official web pages as the ones shipped in the disks could be older versions and not deliver optimal performance for your graphics cards.

Out of the package, the MSI GeForce GTX 1660 comes in a stylish black and grey color scheme which looks stunning. The shroud is an update to the previous Twin Frozr VI which we remember from the GeForce 10 series era.

[nextpage title=”MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Gaming X Closer Look + Teardown”]

The MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Gaming X is a very compact graphics card and it looks to be a great solution for many gaming PCs and even the more small form factor designs. Even with such a small design, MSI has packed a lot in this graphics card such as the enhanced Twin Frozr 7 heat sink, the dual Torx 3.0 fans and a custom PCB which is far better than the one featured on the Founders Edition. The cards weigh in at just 957 grams and have dimensions of 247 x 129 x 52 millimeters.

The cooling shroud extends all the way to the back of the PCB and it requires a casing with good interior space for proper installation. You don’t have to worry about installation as this compact graphics card would fit nicely inside almost any case you can think of.

The back of the card features a solid backplate which looks stunning and offers a premium look. This is, in fact, the same brushed metal design which I saw on the RTX 2060 Gaming Z from MSI. The one used by MSI on the GTX 1660 Gaming X is a more compact version of that and it looks even better.

In terms of design, we are looking at an updated version of the Twin Frozr heatsink for MSI GTX 16 series cards which is now in its seventh variation. The first iteration of the Twin Frozr heatsink goes all the way back to the GeForce 200 series era and you can tell that this heatsink design has come a long way since.

Compared to the MSI Gaming X Trio, the Gaming Z with Twin Frozr looks vastly similar but unique too. It has the same fans, a similar shroud, and a smaller backplate, all within a compact design. I personally think that the compact version looks much better than its bigger and beefier sibling that is used on the higher-end cards.

I am back at talking about the full-coverage, full metal-based backplate which both card use. The whole plate is made of solid metal with rounded edges that add to the durability of this card. The brushed silver finish on the backplate gives a unique aesthetic.

There are cutouts in screw placements to easily reach the points on the graphics card. There are open vents for the hot air to move out from the back too. We can also see the MSI Dragon logo on the back which looks stunning. MSI is also using heat pads beneath the backplate which offer more cooling to the electrical circuitry on the PCB.

Coming to the fans, the card features the Torx 3.0 system. Both fans combine traditional and dispersion fan blade technology to offer better cooling performance.

The dispersion fan blade technology has a steeper curved blade that accelerates airflow and as such increases effectiveness in keeping the GPU cool. All fans deploy double ball bearing design and can last a long time while operating silently.

MSI also features their Zero Frozr technology on the Tri Frozr heatsink. This feature won’t spin the fans on the card unless they reach a certain threshold. In the case of the Tri Frozr heatsink, that limit is set to 60C. If the card is operating under 60C, the fans won’t spin which means no extra noise would be generated.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660, GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, GeForce RTX 2060 and GeForce RTX 2070 graphics cards don’t feature any NVLINK connector as they don’t support Multi-GPU functionality. This has been done for many reasons as two lower end cards have the potential to outperform a higher-end card in optimized titles which may end up cannibalizing its sales. The other is the optimization factor and we know that multi-GPU support isn’t the best around these days so NVIDIA has only kept it for users who are willing to pay a premium on their higher end cards.

With the outsides of the card done, I will now start taking a glance at what’s beneath the hood of the GTX 1660 Gaming X. I can see that MSI has made no compromise with this graphics card even though its a much smaller version of the Gaming X Trio series cards. The same heatsink technology is used on Gaming X.

The large fin stack runs all the way from the front and to the back of the PCB and is so thick that you can barely see through it. It also comes with the wave-curved fin stack design which I want to shed some light on as it is a turn away from traditional fin design and one that may actually offer better cooling to a GPU like the Turing TU116.

Talking about the heatsink, the massive block is comprised of 4x 6mm concentrated copper squared shaped heat pipes with a more concentrated design to transfer heat from the copper base to the heatsink more effectively.

The base itself is a solid nickel-plated base plate, transferring heat to the heat pipes in a very effective manner. To top it all off, MSI uses their exclusive Thermal Compound X which is said to offer higher thermal interface and heat transfer compared to traditional TIM applications.

The MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Gaming X has a single 8 pin power connector to boot. The card is rated at a TDP of 120W (reference TDP).

I/O on the MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Gaming X graphics card includes three Display Port 1.4a and a single HDMI 2.0b.

MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Gaming X PCB Teardown

MSI makes use of a 4+2 phase PWM design that includes their Military Class components such as Hi-C Caps, Super Ferrite Chok, s and Japanese Solid Caps.

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Following are a few close-up shots of the reference PCB which is being offered under the hood of the Gaming X series graphics cards.

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MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Gaming X Mystic Light RGB

MSI GTX 16 Gaming X series cards utilize their Mystic Light RGB technology to offer you a visually pleasing lighting experience on your graphics cards. There are a total of 17 different RGB effects which you can choose from and the cards have five RGB accent points, three on the front one on the back and one light bar surrounding the side of the card which looks really good. There’s also the ability to set the speed and brightness at which the RGB LEDs operate.

You can fully customize the RGB lights to your preference using the MSI Mystic Light application from MSI’s web page.

Following is what the graphics card looks like when lit up.

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[nextpage title=”MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ventus XS OC Edition ($219.99 US) Overview”]

The MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ventus XS OC Edition is the MSRP matching variant of the MSI GTX 16 series family. This card utilizes a revised custom cooler with dual Torx 2.0 fans that offer premium cooling over reference variant. This graphics card is available in the market for $219.99 US which is the same price as the reference variant, making it quite the deal considering you get a custom PCB design and a good looking cooler with fans that are known to perform great.

In terms of specifications, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti features 1536 CUDA cores, 88 TMUs, and 48 ROPs. The Turing TU116 die used on the graphics card is based around a 12nm process and has a die size of 284mm2. The core clocks for the card are maintained at 1530 MHz for base and 1785 MHz for boost. The MSI Gaming X model is clocked up to 1830MHz (boost) which will be providing better gaming performance than the reference model.

The chip packs a total of 5.0 TFLOPs of FP32 compute power. The cards feature a 6 GB GDDR5 memory interface running along a 192-bit wide bus interface that delivers 192 GB/s bandwidth. The reference model is powered by a single 8 pin connector and has a TDP of 120W.

The Ventus XS design is built with a unique white and black layout with dual Torx 2.0 fans that come with airflow control technology, designed to direct air directly at the several heat pipes underneath the shroud. The card features a custom 4+1 phase power design on the PCB and is powered by a single 8 connector. The custom PCB is fitted with an anti-bending bracket which offers better durability.

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Following are some of the features of the MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ventus XS OC Edition before we go into detail:

Features

Core/Memory

• Boost Clock / Memory Speed
  1830 MHz / 8 Gbps
• 6GB GDDR5
• DisplayPort x 1 / HDMI x 1 / DVI-D x 1

TORX 2.0 Cooling Fans

• TORX Fan 2.0
  – Traditional fan blade: Provides steady airflow to massive heat sink below.
• Mastery of Aerodynamics: The heatsink is optimized for efficient heat dissipation, keeping your temperatures low and performance high.

Dragon Center

• 1 click to optimize all you need for smooth gaming.

[nextpage title=”MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ventus XS OC Edition Package”]

The MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ventus XS OC graphics card comes within a standard cardboard based package. The front of both packages has a large “GeForce GTX” brand logo along with the “MSI” logo on the top left corner. A picture of the graphics card can be seen on the front which as I’ve said before, is a nice touch from MSI.

The packaging has put a large emphasis on the Turing Shaders, followed by GDDR6, DirectX 12 and Ansel support.

The back of the box is very typical, highlighting the main features and specifications of the cards. The three key aspects of MSI’s top tier custom cards are its Torx 2.0 fan design, the upgraded & much efficient Twin Frozr 7 heatsink design and support for the Mystic Light RGB implementation.

There’s also a focus towards GeForce.com on each AIB card through which users can download the latest drivers and GeForce Experience application which are a must for gamers to access all feature set of the new cards.

There’s a letter case within the box which is etched with the MSI logo. This box contains the card accessories and the graphics card itself is hidden behind it.

The card is nicely wrapped within an anti-static cover which is useful to prevent any unwanted static discharges on various surfaces that might harm the graphics card. The card accessories include a driver disk and an installation guide.

Out of the package, the MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ventus XS OC comes in a stylish black and grey color scheme which looks stunning. The shroud is an update to the previous Twin Frozr VI which we remember from the GeForce 10 series era.

[nextpage title=”MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ventus XS OC Edition Closer Look + Teardown”]

The MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ventus XS OC is a very compact graphics card and it looks to be a great solution for many gaming PCs and even the more small form factor designs. Even with such a small design, MSI has packed a lot in this graphics card such as the enhanced Twin Frozr 7 heat sink, the dual Torx 3.0 fans and a custom PCB which is far better than the one featured on the Founders Edition. The cards weigh in at just 957 grams and have dimensions of 247 x 129 x 52 millimeters.

The cooling shroud extends all the way to the back of the PCB and it requires a casing with good interior space for proper installation. You don’t have to worry about installation as this compact graphics card would fit nicely inside almost any case you can think of.

The MSI Ventus series has been designed to offer a nice custom cooler along with a non-reference PCB at the reference MSRP. The GeForce GTX 1660 Ventus XS OC doesn’t lack a lot over the MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Gaming X. It still offers a great design with the whole silver and black theme on the shroud being an eye catcher while the brushed backplate gives a premium feel to even the most entry-level non-reference solution that MSI has to offer.

The back of the card features a solid backplate which looks stunning and offers a premium look. The one used by MSI on the GTX 1660 Ventus XS OC is a slightly toned down version that makes use of plastic rather than a metal design as used on the Gaming X but still looks great.

There are cutouts in screw placements to easily reach the points on the graphics card. There are open vents for the hot air to move out from the back too. We can also see the MSI Dragon logo on the back which looks stunning. MSI is also using heat pads beneath the backplate which offer more cooling to the electrical circuitry on the PCB.

Coming to the fans, the card features the Torx 2.0 system with airflow control technology. All fans deploy double ball bearing design and can last a long time while operating silently.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660, GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, GeForce RTX 2060 and GeForce RTX 2070 graphics cards don’t feature any NVLINK connector as they don’t support Multi-GPU functionality. This has been done for many reasons as two lower end cards have the potential to outperform a higher-end card in optimized titles which may end up cannibalizing its sales. The other is the optimization factor and we know that multi-GPU support isn’t the best around these days so NVIDIA has only kept it for users who are willing to pay a premium on their higher end cards.

With the outsides of the card done, I will now start taking a glance at what’s beneath the hood of the GTX 1660 Ventus XS OC. The fin stack runs all the way from the front and to the back of the PCB.

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Talking about the heatsink, the card is based on a singular fin-based block with a flat surface that is comprised of a single 8mm heat pipe that makes direct contact with the GPU die. There are thermal pads on the heatsink which offer contact with the VRMs while the heatsink makes direct contact with the VRAM modules for cooling.

To top it all off, MSI uses their exclusive Thermal Compound X which is said to offer higher thermal interface and heat transfer compared to traditional TIM applications.

The MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ventus XS OC has a single 8 pin power connector to boot. The card is rated at a TDP of 120W (reference TDP).

I/O on the MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ventus XS OC Edition graphics card includes three Display Port 1.4a and a single HDMI 2.0b.

MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ventus XS PCB Teardown

MSI makes use of a 4+1 phase PWM design that includes their Military Class components such as Hi-C Caps, Super Ferrite Chokes, and Japanese Solid Caps. Following are a few close-up shots of the reference PCB which is being offered under the hood of the Ventus XS series graphics cards.

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[nextpage title=”Test Setup”]

We used the following test system for comparison between the different graphics cards. Latest drivers that were available at the time of testing were used from AMD and NVIDIA on an updated version of Windows 10. All games that were tested were patched to the latest version for better performance optimization for NVIDIA and AMD GPUs.

GPU Test Bench 2019

CPU	Intel Core i9-9900K @ 4.70 GHz
Motherboard	AORUS Z390 Master
Video Cards	MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Gaming X MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Ventus XS MSI GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming Z Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming OC Pro MSI GeForce RTX 2070 Armor OC ASUS ROG GeForce RTX 2070 STRIX OC NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Titanium MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Armor X OC MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti Lightning OC Gigabyte Radeon RX Vega 64 (Reference Air) ASUS ROG STRIX Radeon RX 580 OC XFX Radeon R9 Fury X Liquid Cooled
Memory	G.SKILL Trident Z RGB Series 32GB (4 X 8GB) CL16 3600 MHz
Storage	Samsung SSD 960 EVO M.2 (512 GB)
Power Supply	ASUS ROG THOR 1200W PSU
OS	Windows 10 64-bit

• All games were tested on 2560×1440 (2K) and 3840×2160 (4K) resolutions.
• Image Quality and graphics configurations have been provided in the screenshots below.
• The “reference” cards are the stock configs while the “overclock” cards are factory overclocked configs provided to us by various AIB partners.

[nextpage title=”MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Gaming X and MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ventus XS OC Benchmarks (VULKAN)”]

DOOM

In 2016, Id finally released DOOM. My testing wouldn’t be complete without including this title. All cards were capable of delivering ample frame rates at the 1440p resolution using Nightmare settings, so my focus turned to 4K.

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

Wolfenstein is back in The New Colossus and features the most fast-paced, gory and brutal FPS action ever! The game once again puts us back in the Nazi-controlled world as BJ Blazkowicz. Set during an alternate future where Nazis won the World War, the game shows that it can be fun and can be brutal to the player and to the enemy too. Powering the new title is once again, id Tech 6 which is much acclaimed after the success that DOOM has become. In a way, ID has regained their glorious FPS roots and are slaying with every new title.

Ultra HQ-AF, Vulkan, Async Compute On *if available, Deferred Rendering and GPU culling off

We tested the game at Ultra settings under the Vulkan API which is standard. Async Compute was enabled for graphics cards that support it while deferred rendering and GPU culling were disabled.

You can read our detailed analysis of GPU Culling and Deferred Rendering graphical settings for Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus here![nextpage title=”MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Gaming X and MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ventus XS OC Benchmarks (DirectX 12)”]

Ashes of The Singularity: Escalation

NVIDIA and AMD have been tweaking the performance of their cards for Ashes of the Singularity since the title released. It was the first to make use of the DirectX 12 API and the first to leverage from the new Async compute technology that makes use of the DX12 renderer to improve performance.

Battlefield 5

Battlefield 5 brings back the action of the World War 2 shooter genre. Using the latest Frostbite tech, the game does a good job of looking gorgeous in all ways possible. From the open world environments to the intense and gun-blazing action, this multiplayer and single player FPS title is one of the best looking Battlefields to date.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Humanity is at war with itself and divided into factions. On one end, we have the pure and on the other, we have the augmented. That is the world where Adam Jensen lives in and this is the world of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. The game uses the next generation Dawn Engine that was made by IO interactive on the foundation of their Glacier 2 engine. The game features support of DirectX 12 API and is one of the most visually intensive titles that taxes the GPU really hard.

Hitman 2

Hitman 2 is the highly acclaimed sequel to 2016 Hitman which was a redesign and reimaging of the game from the ground up. With a focus on stealth gameplay through various missions, the game once again lets you play as Agent 47 who embarks on a mission to hunt down the mysterious Shadow Client. The game runs on IO’s Interactive’s Glacier 2 engine which has been updated to deliver amazing visuals and environments on each level while making use of DirectX 12 API.

The Shadow of The Tomb Raider

Sequel to The Rise of the Tomb Raider, Shadow of The Tomb Raider is visually enhanced with an updated Foundation Engine which delivers realistic facial animations and the most gorgeous environments ever seen in a Tomb Raider Game. The game is a technical marvel and really shows the power of its graphics engine in the latest title.

The Rise of The Tomb Raider

The rise of the Tomb Raider is one of the most beautiful games that I have played recently and was patched to the DX12 API. The game features a wide variety of settings and we chose Very High, HBAO+ without any AA.

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Assassins Creed: Origins

Assassins Creed Origins is built by the same team that made Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag. They are known for reinventing the design and game philosophy of the Assassins Creed saga and their latest title shows that. Based in Egypt, the open-world action RPG shows its graphics strength in all corners. It uses the AnvilNext 2.0 engine which boosts the draw distance range and delivers a very impressive graphics display.

We tested the game at maxed settings with TAA enabled and 16x AF. Do note that the game is one of the most demanding titles out in the market and as such tweaks and performance issues are being patched out.

Far Cry 5

Far Cry 5 is a standalone successor to its predecessor and takes place in Hope County, a fictional region of Montana. The main story revolves around doomsday cult the Project at Eden’s Gate and its charismatic leader Joseph Seed. It uses a beefed up Dunia Engine which itself is a modified version of CryEngine from Crytek.

Final Fantasy XV

Grand Theft Auto V

GTA V is the most optimized gaming title that has been made for the PC. It’s so optimized, it even runs on my crap GT 840M based laptop with a smooth FPS on a mix of medium/low settings. I mean what???

Aside from being optimized, GTA V is a great game. It was the Game of The Year for 2013. At 1440p Ultra quality, the game gave us smooth frames on all cards tested.

Ghost Recon: Wildlands

Using the new Anvil Next engine that was developed by Ubisoft Montreal, Ghost Recon: Wildlands goes wild and grand with an open-world setting entirely in Bolivia. This game is a tactical third-person shooter which does seem an awful lot similar to Tom Clancy’s: The Division. The game looks pretty and the wide-scale region of Bolivia looks lovely at all times (Day/Night Cycle).

The Witcher 3 Game of The Year Edition

Witcher 3 is the greatest fantasy RPG of our time. It has a great story, great gameplay mechanics and gorgeous graphics. This is the only game I actually wanted to get a stable FPS at 4K. With GameWorks disabled, I gave all high-end cards the ability to demonstrate their power.

Mass Effect: Andromeda

Being a huge fan of the Mass Effect series, I was highly anticipating the arrival of Andromeda to store shelves. Now that it’s here, I put the fastest gaming card to the test. Using Frostbite, the latest Mass Effect title looks incredibly gorgeous and the open world settings on the different planets immerses you a lot.

Middle Earth: Shadow of War

The successor of 2014’s epic, Shadow of Mordor, Shadow of War continues the previous game’s narrative continuing the story of the ranger Talion and the spirit of the elf lord Celebrimbor, who shares Talion’s body, as they forge a new Ring of Power to amass an army to fight against Sauron. The game uses the latest Firebird Engine developed by Monolith Productions and is very intensive even for modern graphics cards.

Watch Dogs 2

Finally, we have Watch Dogs 2. Gone is Aiden Pearce as the new game takes us away from Chicago and puts us in the shoes of Marcus, a seasoned hacker in San Francisco. Running off the Disrupt engine, the game is based on the DirectX 11 API and is a graphics hungry monster. You can see the results for yourself below:

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No graphics card review is complete without evaluating its temperatures and thermal load. Both graphics cards that I tested are using advanced custom cooling solutions which come with silent and performance profiles. The cards were tested with the performance profile to see their full potential. Both cards from MSI use a dual fan cooler design however, the Gaming X features the newer Torx 3.0 fans while the Ventus XS OC relies on the Torx 2.0 fans. Both cards come with a PWM cooling and an anti-bending plate that keeps the card sturdy and durable in the harshest environments inside your PC.

Note – We tested load with Kombuster which is known as a ‘power virus’ and can permanently damage hardware. Use such software at your own risk!
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I compiled the power consumption results by testing each card under idle and full stress when the card was running games. Each graphics card manufacturer sets a default TDP for the card which can vary from vendor to vendor depending on the extra clocks or board features they plug in on their custom cards. The default TDP for the GTX 1660 is 120W (Reference) while the cards I tested feature custom PCBs with better power delivery. This puts the TDP of the card at the same level as the GeForce GTX 1060 which was also at 120W.

Also, it’s worth noting that the 12nm FFN process from TSMC is a refinement of their 16nm FF node. NVIDIA is cramping even larger amount of transistors and more cores than their previous cards, making it one of the densest chip built to date. It’s likely to consume a lot of power and the results are reflective of that.

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Today, I got to test the second card within the Turing based GeForce 16 series family. A family that is similar and also different than the GeForce RTX 20 series lineup. The first card in the lineup, the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti delivered the best price to performance value in the Turing lineup so where does NVIDIA go from here.

When the first rumors of the GeForce GTX 1660 popped up, I was expecting a card with a much lower number of cores and clocks than what we got today. The specifications of this card are not that much cut down compared to a GTX 1660 Ti. In fact, the card holds up its higher clocks quite nicely. The other thing is the VRAM, NVIDIA is replacing the GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB models with this card and looking at the memory specs, the 6 GB GDDR5 VRAM is a definite upgrade. It may not be the faster GDDR6 version that you get on the Ti but it’s also not that slow at 8000 MHz. Now I’d have liked if NVIDIA went with the higher tier 9 Gbps dies that were featured on the later models of the GTX 1060 6 GB cards but I guess that would have meant that you wouldn’t have gotten the nice price point that you are getting on this card.

Coming to the pricing, this is the first card under the $250 US price range. At $220 US, this is also the cheapest Turing graphics card that you can buy right now and while it may not pack the bells and whistles of the higher end cards (GDDR6 and RTX), it does pack a lot of performance given its value.

For starters, the GeForce GTX 1660 takes head-on with the Radeon RX 580, delivering much better performance than AMD’s mainstream part. The performance difference actually makes the GTX 1660 a better buy since the lead it has over the RX 580 clearly puts it ahead of the RX 590, a card that retails for $279 US. Compared to the GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB models, we see a huge lead with performance just shy of the GTX 1070 although it does come really close in some tests and that is amazing to see.

Now I would say that we are hearing rumors of a possible price cut on the Radeon RX 500 series cards but until those aren’t here, the GTX 16 series cards take a clear win over them in all departments.

The MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Gaming X at $249 US has slightly higher clock speeds, a better cooler with MSI’s TORX 3.0 fans and a fantastic Twin Frozr VII cooler design. The MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Ventus XS OC Edition at $219 US comes with a factory overclock, although slightly lower than the Gaming X, but it still packs a dual fan with MSI’s TORX 2.0 fans and just about the same performance as the Gaming X, give or take a few FPS. If you want the looks, then MSI Gaming X is your best bet but if you want the best budget option, Ventus XS OC from MSI has you all set up for a great HD gaming experience.

Also, the card does feature some of the best efficiency for Turing GPUs that I have noticed. This is true for both GeForce 16 series cards (GTX 1660 Ti and GeForce GTX 1660) At 120W, it does shine in the efficiency department and just shows that come the 7nm GPUs, NVIDIA may stir up some impressive numbers on smaller dies with more cores, more RTX and more raw power. The cooling and thermals were great too with both cards performing great and the TORX fans on both variants offering low noise levels.

I think one of the strongest reason to buy this graphics card is its price and performance which is clearly unbeatable at the moment. For $220 US, the GTX 1660 and custom models, especially the MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ventus XS is one of the best budget options you can go for right now. If you are a streamer and want some rocking performance in multiple Battle Royale or eSports titles, look no further as the GTX 1660 has all the performance you’d need to become the king of the hill. The MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Gaming X on the other hand, offers better cooling and slightly better game performance with a fantastic design scheme that looks absolutely nice in any PC build.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 is the graphics card to get if you are on a budget, it has the best value in its price range and can play all the latest AAA titles at respectable features with a strong suit of Turing shading features backing it up.

The post NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 6 GB GDDR5 Graphics Card Review Ft. MSI Gaming X ($249) and Ventus XS ($219) – The Best Turing Card For Budget Gamers? by Hassan Mujtaba appeared first on Wccftech.

Refference- https://wccftech.com