Gigabyte gtx 1660 super gaming oc review in Spanish (analysis)

The second model to which we have had access to Nvidia's new Super remittance is this beautiful Gigabyte GTX 1660 Super Gaming OC. A card that is giving outstanding performance in the mid-range with figures that place it on par with the 1660 Ti at a much lower price. The TU116 chip stays the same as the 1660, but those 6GB GDDR6s make it an outrage to raise performance even above what might be expected.

The customized model that Gigabyte presents us has the WINFORCE 3X triple fan fireproof heatsink. A compact set and with the same design as its older sisters to delight the mid-range. Let's start with this analysis!

But first, we must thank Gigabyte for always trusting us as a partner, by giving us their new GPU for this analysis.

Gigabyte GTX 1660 Super Gaming OC technical features

Unboxing

This Gigabyte GTX 1660 Super Gaming OC uses a presentation already well known by the brand, consisting of a double box. The first, as always, is slim and allows us to store the main rigid cardboard box. It has typical information about the graphics card heatsink and product photos.

The main case uses a polyethylene foam mold to preserve the GPU in perfect condition, and also with an antistatic plastic bag for added security. Traditional presentation where there are, if something works, why change it?

The bundle leaves us the following elements:

• Gigabyte GTX 1660 Super Gaming OC graphics card Support guide CD-ROM with drivers

Indeed, there are still CDs with drivers out there circulating. It will be of little use to us, since on the official Nvidia website we always have the latest version available ready to download and install.

Exterior design

We are already dealing with the exterior design of this Gigabyte GTX 1660 Super Gaming OC graphics card. The new Super series has also reached the mid-range graphics to increase if possible the number of options available. This a priori card should be in average performance between the 1660 and 1660 Ti, competing with the next 5600 from AMD. But you better stay, because there are pleasant surprises in terms of its benefits.

What Gigabyte presents to us for its 1660 Super is a style that we all know very well. It is a graphics card with the WINDFORCE 3X heatsink, that is, a triple fan that is exactly the same as for example the 1660 and 1660 Ti model. For this, a hard plastic casing has been chosen with a design exactly the same as the commented models, aggressive style with angular edges, but using discreet black and gray colors.

The graphics card has quite similar measurements to other models, being quite long, having 3 fans, but narrow and with a standard thickness of 2 expansion slots, so it will be compatible with most chassis on the market. Then we will see in more detail the triple block heatsink that has been used.

The fans are arranged in a row, with a diameter of 80 mm and their 11 corresponding propellers with an optimized design called 3D Active Fan to provide a great silent air flow. As in other previous cases, the three fans will be controlled as if it were one, that is to say, when modifying their RPM all of them will change speed at the same time and not independently.

The alternating twist design could not be missing either, with a central fan that rotates in the opposite direction to the ends so that the air flow is favored. Likewise, it has Gigabyte's own 0 dB technology, and the fans will remain off as long as the GPU does not rise above 60⁰C. In general it is an extremely silent set, since this chipset does not generate too much heat and a heatsink of these characteristics will be very solvent without great effort.

The side parts of the Gigabyte GTX 1660 Super Gaming OC are usually more covered than other models such as Asus or MSI. However, we have plenty of space to let the air out and thus achieve perfect cooling without giving up the elegant design. In the side area of ​​course we have the Gigabyte logo with RGB Fusion 2.0 technology. A standard that is no longer only in the high-end, but in practically all custom models.

And on the part of the backplate of the upper area, we have an integral one that covers the entire area and is also attached to the end of the lower case. It is built in plastic, and this is an understandable cut in a mid-range model like this, although its style is well worked with touches of gray, very sharp edges and making a quite futuristic design.

Ports and connections

We continue with the connectivity section of the Gigabyte GTX 1660 Super Gaming OC, to see above all the distribution of rear video stations, but also the power and other aspects. In this way we will find the following ports:

• 1x HDMI 2.0b3x DisplayPort 1.4

It is a standardized configuration in Gigabyte, giving us many facilities in terms of connectivity with a capacity of up to 4 monitors in high resolution. We see this configuration much more suitable than for example that of Asus, with only three ports of which one is DVI. As always, comment that the DisplayPort port will give us a maximum resolution of 8K at 60 FPS, while in 4K we will reach 165 Hz and in 5K we will be able to reach 120 Hz. In the case of HDMI, it supports 4K resolution @ 60 Hz, so as always the best option will be the DisplayPort

The interface used by the Nvidia cards is maintained in PCIe 3.0 x16, and this has not changed yet, unlike the new Radeon. However, it is not a disadvantage, since in no case will 100% of the PCIe bus be used. And as we have previously commented, we only have one connector for RGB lighting and another for the three fans, so they will be controlled as if it were only one.

Finally we note that the power connector is a single standard 6 + 2-pin port. This is more than enough for a GPU with a 125W TDP and even a 75 MHz factory overclocking, which is no small feat.

Gigabyte GTX 1660 Super Gaming OC: PCB and internal hardware

This time we will completely open the Gigabyte GTX 1660 Super Gaming OC to explore the interior of this card, its PCB, and the heatsink. The opening system is very simple, we just have to remove the 4 main screws that hold the heatsink to the GPU socket and two support screws in the central area. Both the block and the housing are attached, while the PCB and the backplate will come out independently on the other hand.

Triple Block Heatsink

Gigabyte has opted for a heatsink divided into three finned aluminum blocks of different sizes. These are connected through three copper heatpipes about 6 mm in diameter built with two copper layers and liquid channels between the two to improve heat transport.

On the one hand, we have the main block, small in size and provided with a metal plate that is responsible for supporting the whole. In direct contact with the GPU are the three heatpipes, with white thermal paste and a good quantity. We note that the two ends of the DIE are not covered by all heatpipes, although we have the aluminum extension to meet the need. In turn, white silicone thermal pads have been distributed on the metal plate to absorb heat from the GDDR6 memory chips.

The block on the left will be in charge of cooling the VRM using separate thermal pads of the same compound as the previous ones. Finally, the largest block on the right will be responsible for increasing the heat transfer surface. The result is a very effective block that with the three fans will do a sensational job.

TU116 chipset with GDDR6 on the Gigabyte GTX 1660 Super Gaming OC

Starting with the Gigabyte GTX 1660 Super Gaming OC PCB, we see that a 4 + 2 phase power configuration has been used with MOSFETS RDS and CHOKES Ultra Durable 2oz widely used by the manufacturer for their cards for a long time. Recall that the reference model was conceived to use a 3 + 2 configuration, so this will not give extra power for overclocking and fans.

The GPU is made up of the TU116 chipset with a 12 nm FinFET manufacturing process that is made up of 3 clusters for graphic processing, 11 clusters for texture processing and 22 stream multiprocessors. This translates to a total of 1408 CUDA cores and no Tensor or RT cores as you all know. The base frequency of this GPU is 1530 MHz, and Gigabyte has increased the turbo mode by 75 MHz, thus reaching 1860 MHz. This specification is exactly the same as the 1660, so we have 1536 KB of double block L2 cache for the GPU. In this way, 88 TMUs (texture units) and 48 ROPs (raster units) are obtained as performance values.

Where the 1660 Super changes and turns 180 degrees is in the GRAM. On this occasion, 6 GB of the GDDR6 type was chosen instead of the GDDR5 that had been used. Well, these memories maintain a 192-bit bus configuration , using 6 chips each working at 32 bits and 7000 MHz of bus frequency and 14000 MHz of effective frequency. With all this, the bus speed increase is 75% compared to GDDR5 memory, going from 192 GB / s to no less than 336 GB / s.

This will undoubtedly be what makes the differences, as well as its overclocking capacity. And we already anticipate that it is very good, not only in this model, but in all those that come out, something that has always gone hand in hand with Nvidia.

Test bench and performance test

Now we are going to perform the corresponding battery of performance tests, both benchmarks and tests in games, to this Gigabyte GTX 1660 Super Gaming OC. Our test bench consists of the following components:

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	Intel Core i9-9900K
Base plate:	Asus Maximus XI Formula
Memory:	16 GB G-Skill Trident Z NEO 3600 MHz
Heatsink	Corsair H100i Platinum SE
HDD	ADATA SU750
Graphic card	Asus GTX 1660 Super OC
Power supply	Cooler Master V850 Gold

All the synthetic tests and tests have been carried out with the filters as they come in the configuration of each program. The tests consist of tests that run in the three main resolutions, Full HD, 2K and 4K. We have run all of them on the Windows 10 Pro operating system in its 1903 version fully updated and with the Nvidia 441.07 drivers, being the latest version available. As is logical, in this case it has not been possible to perform the Ray Tracing Port Royal test, as it is not a compatible GPU.

What are we looking for in these tests?

First, the best possible image quality. The most important value for us is the average FPS (Frames per second), the higher the number of FPS the more fluid the game will go. Benchmark scores will help us compare this GPU to the competition. To slightly differentiate the quality, we leave you a table to assess the quality in FPS based on the quantity we get in each game and resolution.

FRAMES PER SECOND
Frames Per Second (FPS)	Gameplay
Less than 30 FPS	Limited
30 ~ 40 FPS	Playable
40 ~ 60 FPS	Good
Greater than 60 FPS	Really good
Greater than 144 Hz	E-sports level

Benchmarks

For benchmark tests we will use the following titles:

• 3DMark Fire Strike normal3DMark Fire Strike UltraTime SpyVRMARK

We only have a clear reference to compare this card and it is the Asus custom model. And in the synthetic tests we have slightly lower results than this model, although it continues to be very close to the 1660 Ti as has already been demonstrated. In any case, we see that they are minimum distances, so we will see how this affects the games.

Game testing

We will proceed to evaluate the real performance in games, thus having a closer guide of what our Gigabyte GTX 1660 Super Gaming OC will be able to deliver under DirectX 12, OpenGL in this case.

The tests will be carried out at the three most used resolutions in gaming, we refer to Full HD (1920 x 1080p), QHD or 2K (2560 x 1440p) and UHD or 4K (3840 x 2160p). In this way, we will have a complete range of results to be able to compare them with other GPUs. For each of the games, we have kept the automatic settings selected in each and for each resolution.

• Final Fantasy XV, standard, TAA, DirectX 11 DOOM, Ultra, TAA, Open GL Deus EX Mankind Divided, Alto, Anisotropico x4, DirectX 11 Far Cry 5, Alto, TAA, DirectX 12 Metro Exodus, Alto, Anisotropico x16, DirectX 12 (without RT) Shadow of the Tomb Rider, Alto, TAA + Anisotropic x4, DirectX 12 Control, Alto, without RTX, rendered at 1920x1080p, DirectX 12 Gears 5, Alto, TAA, DirectX 12

The differences from before are reflected in practically non-existent in all the games and resolutions tested. However, in some cases there are differences of 1 FPS between the Gigabyte model and the Asus model, which may simply be due to the specific situation of the test bench. In short, they are the same.

The best news is that equality in performance is confirmed with 1660 Ti, when a priori it should be below. As we will see later, the price differences are notable, and not so much its performance, for this reason it is such a recommended GPU for the mid-range.

Overclocking

As always we have overclocked this Gigabyte GTX 1660 Super Gaming OC to its maximum, always ensuring stability. In this case we have used the EVGA Precision X1 software, which works great with Nvidia's GPUs. In this way we have carried out a new test

We have taken a little extra for this model in overclocking, which may be due to the famous silicon lottery, not only applicable in CPUs but also in GPUs. With it, we have managed to increase the frequency of the memories by up to 640 MHz, and 140 MHz the CPU clock, thus achieving the 2000 MHz round at certain times. The results we have obtained in this configuration are these:

Shadow of the Tomb Rider		Stock	@ Overclock
1920 x 1080 (Full HD)		90 FPS	98 FPS
2560 x 1440 (WQHD)		62 FPS	67 FPS
3840 x 2160 (4K)		34 FPS	37 FPS
3DMark Fire Strike		Stock	@ Overclock
Graphics Score		16140	17646
Physics Score		23911	23704
Combined		14947	16330

A priori, in this game the GPU was slightly inferior to the other model tested, but the performance it has shown to have in overclocking is slightly better. The silicon of this model seems to be very good, when the laps are raised, thus improving up to 8 FPS the performance in 1080p, 5 FPS in 2K and 3 FPS in 4K which is a lot for a simple overclocking.

Although it is not recommended to maintain this level of overclocking for a long time, the temperatures have been very good and without hardly forcing the fans. Gigabyte VRM also demonstrates its solvency and for the extra performance we need, we will have it more than assured.

Gigabyte GTX 1660 Super Gaming OC temperatures and consumption

Finally, we have proceeded to stress the Gigabyte GTX 1660 Super Gaming OC for a few hours while monitoring its temperatures and consumption. For this, we have used as FurMark for stress and HWiNFO to capture results, along with a wattmeter that measures the power of all the complete equipment, except the monitor. The ambient temperature is 24 ° C.

The consumption results are traced in the two reviews of the 1660 Super, being a graph of excellent energy efficiency. And when it comes to temperatures, the triple heatsink with triple heatpipe configuration proves to be in great shape at just 61 ⁰C maximum under continued stress.

Final words and conclusion about Gigabyte GTX 1660 Super Gaming OC

This is one of the best bets that Nvidia has made for the mid-range, a card with very good performance and an even better price. The reason? Well, an AMD Navi architecture that is stomping in this field with upcoming additions. As always, having competition always benefits consumers and this is the clear example.

What Gigabyte proposes is a custom model with the WINDFORCE 3X heatsink that performs perfectly with a GPU of only 125W from TDP. A very quiet system effective even in strong overclockings and giving us an aggressive but discreet house brand design. In addition, it is a great decision to have incorporated 4 video ports as in the upper cards.

In terms of performance, the factory overclocking is at 1860 MHz, although it has only been enough to match the Asus. In any case, we have a graphics card that in most cases is above or equal in performance to the 1660 Ti, when the theory said that it would not exceed this. This further increases the purchasing possibilities.

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And to this we add the great overclocking capacity that it has, that in this model we have reached 2000 MHz in the GPU and 7640 MHz in the GDDR6. Thus increasing the performance by up to 8 FPS in 1080p which is a lot, being very close to an entire RTX 2060.

Finally, we will find the Gigabyte GTX 1660 Super Gaming OC for a price of 268 euros, always one of the most adjusted in these custom configurations. In this way, this new GPU will be cheaper than any 1660 and that most of 1660 Ti, making it one of the best options in the mid-range waiting for the 5600 from AMD. We have no choice but to replicate the advantages of the other Super.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ PERFORMANCE COMPARABLE TO THE 1660 TI	- NONE FOR WHAT IT OFFERS
+ EXCELLENT OVERCLOCKING + 8 FPS
+ TRIPLE FAN HEATSINK
+ PERFORMANCE / HARD PRICE TO OVERCOME
+ THE BEST NVIDIA OF AVERAGE RANGE

The Professional Review team awards you the gold medal and recommended product:

Gigabyte GTX 1660 Super Gaming OC

COMPONENT QUALITY - 86%

DISSIPATION - 91%

GAMING EXPERIENCE - 83%

SOUND - 89%

PRICE - 87%

87%

Standing strong as a benchmark in the mid-range, Nvidia's best GPU in performance / price ratio