News Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Seemingly As Fast As GTX Maxwell Titan X At $279

[abryant]

Nvidia's unannounced GeForce GTX 1660 Ti graphics card has appeared on the Final Fantasy XV benchmark scoreboard. Read more here.

ZHIYE LIU
@zhiyeliu
Zhiye Liu is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He covers CPU, GPU and Motherboard news.

 

[urbanman2004]

The results from the benchmarks are ok, but the lack of 2GB of VRAM out of 8 is still a little outputting to me. I'd probably just get a 1070 TI instead which will prob come at leaner price since this 1660TI doesn't come w/ ray tracing.

 

[s1mon7]

So does the 3 year old 1070 and it comes with more vram and higher performance in the other leaked benchmarks.

Did anyone else find the title really misleading at trying to portray the card as somehow a great deal? Yes, its a better value than the other Turing cards, because it really feels like a very late Pascal card. We're essentially dealing with a 1060 Ti that was slightly renamed to make it less awkward to release it over 2 years later.

 

[Tirken]

The card scored a 5000, the Titan X that scored a 5025 is the Maxwell (900 series) Titan X. The Pascal Titan X got a 7589, and the also Pascal Titan Xp got 8461. This article should be taken down, as it is one of those "did I really just do that?" moments.. completely misleading.

 

[s1mon7]

The card scored a 5000, the Titan X that scored a 5025 is the Maxwell (900 series) Titan X. The Pascal Titan X got a 7589, and the also Pascal Titan Xp got 8461. This article should be taken down, as it is one of those "did I really just do that?" moments.. completely misleading.

There's something up with Tom's headlines recently. They also like bombastic wording when writing about mediocre products, moments at which it feels like we're reading bottom of the barrel tech press. I have no idea what's up with that, but I've been very disappointed to see that happen here. Amongst the forest of poor sites that write like that, I thought Tom's was always above that and stuck with the tech knowledge and objective judgement.

I came here specifically because it was one of few sites that was willing to openly criticize tech companies for their wrong doings and exposed silly marketing claims (such as the one they now made themselves in this headline). I feel like there's a growing, silent disconnect between the site's owners and the reader base.

 

[shmoochie]

Lol the wording in that title is so ridiculous. "Seemingly as fast as a GTX Titan X" sounds way more impressive than "1070 with less VRAM."

 

[nitro912gr]

Seriously now? I unearthed my account only to write how misleading this title is...

 

[littleleo]

It is a total mystery why Nvidia's way over priced RTX cards aren't selling. If these cards with only 6GB VRAM are north of $250 they may be a tough sell too. How odd is it to be rooting for a good GPU out of Intel these days. That is something I'd never thought I'd see. Nvidia has to be proud how they pulled that off, LOL!

 

[cryoburner]

There's something up with Tom's headlines recently. They also like bombastic wording when writing about mediocre products, moments at which it feels like we're reading bottom of the barrel tech press.

The same guy who wrote the "Just Buy It" article has been their editor-in-chief since last year. Articles and headlines are getting optimized for maximum clickbait factor now. I suppose it makes some sense though. When the majority of your tech-savvy readership is likely blocking your invasive ads, you need to get more views from those who have no idea what they're doing on the Internet instead. : P

As for this advertorial, why was the Maxwell Titan X even considered worth mentioning? It was an overpriced card from four years ago that hardly anyone bought to run games on. The GTX 980 Ti came out a couple months later offering similar gaming performance at a significantly lower price, making that Titan X not worth considering even back in 2015, at least for anyone without some professional use for its 12GB of VRAM. Even in this chart, the 980 Ti outperforms the Maxwell Titan X, despite having cost $350 less when those cards were new. And even that Titan only had a $999 MSRP, hundreds of dollars less than Nvidia is now trying to sell the 2080 Ti for, let alone the few-thousand they want for the cards they now call Titans.

With regards to the competition, the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti falls behind AMD's recently launched $700 Radeon VII by 5.28 percent.

It's probably also worth highlighting that Final Fantasy XV is an Nvidia sponsored title, and as such its benchmark tends to heavily favor their cards. On average across a wider selection of games, Radeon VII should offer around 50% higher frame rates than a GTX 1070 at 1440p, and seeing as the 1660 Ti performs similar to a 1070, we can expect the Radeon VII to be around 50% faster than that card as well. That's not to say the Radeon VII is a particularly good value, but it is very misleading to claim that a 1660 Ti is within 5% of its performance. Ultimately, we're looking at roughly GTX 1070 performance, but with less VRAM, nearly three years later, for $280. And you don't even get support for the new raytracing features that Nvidia had been pushing so heavily. It might not be a bad card, but that's a bit underwhelming. Sometimes I can't decide whether the people writing for this site are shilling for certain brands and products, or if they just have no idea what they are talking about half the time and can't be bothered spending a few minutes to put in some research.

 

[emeralds1000000]

isnt Maxwell old by now to compare against ?

Just say the same speed of GTX 1070 ... no need to compare against very old technology

 

[King_V]

Agreed - but I will say this: if it's about equal to or slightly faster than the 1070 across the board, then it's pretty good at $279.

After all, the RX590 performs notably less than the 1070, but was released at the same price. Granted, that was obviously poor bang for the buck, even now that it's in the $259-269 range on my last check on it.

1070s are still listing for $300 or more.

If the 1660Ti is released officially at $279, but discounts, etc., bring it lower, I'd call it a worthwhile card.

 

[chalabam]

I came here specifically because it was one of few sites that was willing to openly criticize tech companies for their wrong doings and exposed silly marketing claims (such as the one they now made themselves in this headline). I feel like there's a growing, silent disconnect between the site's owners and the reader base.

Recently, comments were removed form the articles.

That's exactly what websites do when they want to write propaganda pieces and avoid criticism.

 

[emeralds1000000]

Agreed - but I will say this: if it's about equal to or slightly faster than the 1070 across the board, then it's pretty good at $279.

After all, the RX590 performs notably less than the 1070, but was released at the same price. Granted, that was obviously poor bang for the buck, even now that it's in the $259-269 range on my last check on it.

1070s are still listing for $300 or more.

If the 1660Ti is released officially at $279, but discounts, etc., bring it lower, I'd call it a worthwhile card.

sorry this card should be in the $200 Price range.

it is sstill 6GB Vram and not 8GB.

GTX 1070 is still the better option.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Recently, comments were removed form the articles.

That's exactly what websites do when they want to write propaganda pieces and avoid criticism.

Actually it was done so that clueless muppets don't moan when their uneducated posts go missing during a major software changeover, some of the more perceptive folk may have noticed that the forums don't look quite the same as they did a couple of weeks ago.

 

[King_V]

sorry this card should be in the $200 Price range.

it is sstill 6GB Vram and not 8GB.

GTX 1070 is still the better option.

If the 1070 performs the same as the 1660Ti, what makes it the better option?

So what if it's 6GB of VRAM. 8GB of VRAM isn't a limiting factor for 4K, is it? After all, the 2080 only has 8GB, and that performs at the level of the 1080Ti.

What makes you think that 6GB is a limiting factor, especially considering that this card is probably targeted at the 2560x1080 and 2560x1440 resolutions?

I think you're making too much of the 6GB limit. I know I wouldn't pay an extra 10% or more just to get the 8GB of VRAM over 6. It's the performance that matters, not some arbitrary number.

My brother's R9 390 has 8GB of VRAM, after all. The RX580 can be had with 8GB of VRAM, and it only slightly edges out the 1060 6GB... and I don't think its performance edge is due to the amount of VRAM.

 

[emeralds1000000]

If the 1070 performs the same as the 1660Ti, what makes it the better option?

So what if it's 6GB of VRAM. 8GB of VRAM isn't a limiting factor for 4K, is it? After all, the 2080 only has 8GB, and that performs at the level of the 1080Ti.

What makes you think that 6GB is a limiting factor, especially considering that this card is probably targeted at the 2560x1080 and 2560x1440 resolutions?

I think you're making too much of the 6GB limit. I know I wouldn't pay an extra 10% or more just to get the 8GB of VRAM over 6. It's the performance that matters, not some arbitrary number.

My brother's R9 390 has 8GB of VRAM, after all. The RX580 can be had with 8GB of VRAM, and it only slightly edges out the 1060 6GB... and I don't think its performance edge is due to the amount of VRAM.

The Price ... $279 is too much for 6GB today.

 

[King_V]

The Price ... $279 is too much for 6GB today.

The 6GB of VRAM instead of 8GB is completely irrelevant here. It's about the performance of the card.

If, when it comes out, full testing puts it at around RX590 performance or less, then I agree, $279 is WAY too much. If it trades blows with the 1070, or performs better overall, particularly at 2560x1440, then it is just about the best deal you can get price-to-performance for the 1070/Vega56 tier.

 

[emeralds1000000]

The 6GB of VRAM instead of 8GB is completely irrelevant here. It's about the performance of the card.

If, when it comes out, full testing puts it at around RX590 performance or less, then I agree, $279 is WAY too much. If it trades blows with the 1070, or performs better overall, particularly at 2560x1440, then it is just about the best deal you can get price-to-performance for the 1070/Vega56 tier.

as I said , this card should be around $200

with the 1070 around , $279 is not justified at all.

I am not talking about performance. the performance is the same anyways.

 

[cryoburner]

The 6GB of VRAM instead of 8GB is completely irrelevant here. It's about the performance of the card.

While I wouldn't say that having 2GB less VRAM is a dealbreaker for this card, I do suspect that it will likely have a performance impact within the usable life of the card. At 1440p with max graphics settings, many games are already using near 6GB of VRAM. That will assuredly increase in the coming years, and I imagine some games may start to become notably more demanding after the next generation of consoles launch, which could be next year. So, it may end up being necessary to drop texture quality or other settings to keep performance stable at that resolution on 6GB of VRAM. The same goes for the 2060, though that at least has some new hardware features to set it apart from the last generation of cards. Most people are likely to keep a graphics card for a number of years, so it's worth considering more than just what performance is like now.

A 1660 Ti for $280 might not be bad, but it's definitely underwhelming. It's already possible to get a 1070 on sale for as little as $300, or for under $250 on the used market. If we ignore the difference in VRAM, it might be a slightly better value than what's out there now around this price, but not by much. And this being $280 also means that the card Nvidia launches to fill the 1060's price slot will have less performance still. Supposedly, the 1660 non-Ti will have around 17% of its cores disabled and 33% lower memory clocks, meaning its performance should lie more in between a 1060 and a 1070. Seeing as it's been the better part of 3 years since those cards launched, those are some really mediocre performance gains. By comparison, the GTX 1060 offered performance nearly at the level of a GTX 980, less than 2 years after that card launched for $550. Compared to the GTX 960, there was a near-doubling of performance and an increase in VRAM. It was worth upgrading from a GTX 960 to a 1060, but it won't likely be worth moving from a 1060 to a 1660.

 

[King_V]

as I said , this card should be around $200

with the 1070 around , $279 is not justified at all.

I am not talking about performance. the performance is the same anyways.

I got what you area saying. You are wrong. The 6GB VRAM does not in any way justify saying "this is a $200 card". There is no way that the 1070 at $300+ is a better deal than the 1660Ti at $279. Emphatically declaring a price point based solely on VRAM and ignoring overall performance doesn't make sense, assuming, as we've BOTH said, that the performance is the same and remains so under a suite of varied tests.

While I wouldn't say that having 2GB less VRAM is a dealbreaker for this card, I do suspect that it will likely have a performance impact within the usable life of the card. At 1440p with max graphics settings, many games are already using near 6GB of VRAM. That will assuredly increase in the coming years, and I imagine some games may start to become notably more demanding after the next generation of consoles launch, which could be next year. So, it may end up being necessary to drop texture quality or other settings to keep performance stable at that resolution on 6GB of VRAM. The same goes for the 2060, though that at least has some new hardware features to set it apart from the last generation of cards. Most people are likely to keep a graphics card for a number of years, so it's worth considering more than just what performance is like now.

A 1660 Ti for $280 might not be bad, but it's definitely underwhelming. It's already possible to get a 1070 on sale for as little as $300, or for under $250 on the used market. If we ignore the difference in VRAM, it might be a slightly better value than what's out there now around this price, but not by much. And this being $280 also means that the card Nvidia launches to fill the 1060's price slot will have less performance still. Supposedly, the 1660 non-Ti will have around 17% of its cores disabled and 33% lower memory clocks,

Yeah, I admit that I'm one who tends to hold on to hardware for a long time. On the other hand, would one necessarily be expecting to play the future latest-and-greatest games on a mid-range card with max details?

Agreed on the 2060, though that does make its bang-for-buck less than it otherwise was.


There's a non-Ti 1660 planned? I wasn't aware. Any links or details? I'd like to know more on that one... The lowered memory clocks seem strange if they're using GDDR6, though. They might as well be using non-X GDDR5 at that kind of reduced speed.

 

[cryoburner]

Yeah, the 1660 non-Ti is supposedly using GDDR5, and is supposed to launch about a month after the Ti. There was some information leaked from an official closed-door presentation about these cards a month ago...

NVIDIA GeForce GTX Turing Graphics Card Teased In Official Presentation - GeForce GTX 1660 & GTX 1660 Ti Turing GPUs Without Ray Tracing Coming To Market Soon

In an official presentation, NVIDIA has revealed their upcoming Turing GPUs which will be part of the new GeForce GTX Turing family.

wccftech.com

 

[King_V]

Whoa... definitely interesting - thanks for the link.

 

[littleleo]

There's something up with Tom's headlines recently. They also like bombastic wording when writing about mediocre products, moments at which it feels like we're reading bottom of the barrel tech press. I have no idea what's up with that, but I've been very disappointed to see that happen here. Amongst the forest of poor sites that write like that, I thought Tom's was always above that and stuck with the tech knowledge and objective judgement.

I came here specifically because it was one of few sites that was willing to openly criticize tech companies for their wrong doings and exposed silly marketing claims (such as the one they now made themselves in this headline). I feel like there's a growing, silent disconnect between the site's owners and the reader base.

It's like the headlines are written by Faux News

 

[littleleo]

Still only 6GB of VRAM seems like its weak in the VRAM, 8GB seems like what it really needs. That and a price around $250.00 it would probably fly of the shelves.