ZOTAC GTX 1660 SUPER Twin Fan Review

A compact graphics card using NVIDIA’s new GTX 1660 SUPER. Is this the best GPU for a small form factory build?

Product on Review: RTX 2070 SUPER Twin Fan
Manufacturer & Sponsor: ZOTAC
Street Price: £228 GBP – $229 USD

In a bid to cover all bases and ever price-point, NVIDIA unveiled the GTX 1660 SUPER last week – taking their original GTX 1660 graphics card and arming it with faster GDDR6 memory. SUPER was initially introduced under the RTX series – most likely in anticipation of the launch of AMD Navi. We can’t help but feel that 1660 SUPER is again a defensive move by NVIDIA to possibly counter what the imminent AMD RX 5500 has to offer.

So, in the spotlight today we have the ZOTAC GTX 1660 SUPER Twin Fan. This model is designed to sit around the base MSRP and as such sticks to the stock settings in terms of GPU/memory clock speeds. It does however come with a double fan arrangement and should satisfy gamers who desire an ultra-small graphics cards for SFF.

In our last GPU review we took a look at what INNO3D had to offer and we found their card to be extremely noisy. Will ZOTAC provide a better solution?

ZOTAC on their Twin Fan

The all-new generation of ZOTAC GAMING GeForce GTX SUPER graphics cards are here. Based on the new NVIDIA Turing architecture, get ready to get fast and game strong.

Technical Specifications

Below are the technical specifications surrounding GTX 1660 SUPER supplied directly by ZOTAC:

GPU
GTX 1660 SUPER (TU116)
Stream Processor
1536
Video Memory
6GB GDDR6
Memory Bus
192-bit
Engine Clock
1500MHz
Engine Clock Boost
1785MHz
Memory Clock
14000MHz Effective
PCI Express
3.0
Display Outputs
3x DisplayPort 1.4
1x HDMI 2.0b
Recommended Power Supply
450W
DirectX
12 API feature level 12_1
OpenGL
4.5
Cooling
Dual-Fan
Slot Size
2
Supported OS
Windows 10
Card Length
173.4 x 111.15 x 35.3 mm

Closer Look

Observing this ‘Twin Fan’ model of the GTX 1660 SUPER, we have an extremely compact graphics card which measures a mere 173.4 x 111.15 x 35.3 mm. This design lends itself to fitting inside smaller cases, including SFF very well indeed. Viewing the card from a top-down angle reveals the reason ZOTAC has named this card ‘Twin Fan’, we have two cooling fans which are different sizes – a 70mm and an 80mm. Underneath these fans we have a one-piece alu heatsink which utilises 3x6mm copper heatpipes. The shroud which surrounds the fans on this model, is plastic.

Over on the reverse of our graphics card there is no metal backplate which is now a common inclusion on most models. Such a feature is usually a necessity due to the sheer weight and size of larger graphics cards, Twin Fan obviously doesn’t suffer from either of these drawbacks and so from a practical standpoint there isn’t a requirement for one.

As is standard for the GTX 1660 SUPER, there are three video outs supplied – 1x HDMI 2.0 (Up to 4K@60Hz) and 3x DisplayPort 1.4 (Up to 8K@60Hz). This will allow users to project to larger screens.

ZOTAC recommends a 450W PSU for effectively powering this model of the GTX 1660 SUPER and we therefore need a single 8-pin connector in order to achieve this. This isn’t very demanding and it also goes hand-in-hand with the SFF philosophy.

Test Setup & Methodology

HOW WE TEST GRAPHICS CARDS

Testing a graphics card is an extremely lengthy process. We sometimes see reviews where a graphics card has been tested using out of date equipment, out of date games and even out of date drivers. While the latter can be excused due to the sheer amount of driver updates making a thorough review impossible we will however notify the reader when we have used a different driver to the normal for example a pre-release driver. For the most part however we will always use the same hardware and latest drivers so this does certainly need to be taken into consideration when viewing our testing results. Each game and benchmark is tested times with the lowest and highest scores omitted out of the 5 results and the average then taken from the three remaining to give us our final result for each resolution and setting used.

HARDWARE

Taking Intel’s High-End Desktop platform, our hardware utilises the Intel X99 chipset. Combined with this we use the Intel Core i7-5960X Extreme Edition processor clocked to a realistic and achievable 4GHz to ensure we have no CPU bottlenecks. With 16GB (4x4GB) of DDR4 at 2666MHz and a 750GB SSD there should be minimal paging so the benchmarks we run today will hopefully give a true reflection of the graphics card’s performance.

Graphics Cards on test:
ZOTAC GTX 1660 SUPER Twin Fan
INNO3D GTX 1660 SUPER Twin X2
ASUS GTX 1660 Ti
NVIDIA GTX 1070
NVIDIA GTX 1060
NVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti
NVIDIA GTX 1050
AMD RX 590
AMD RX 580
AMD RX 570

Special thanks go to Avermedia, Intel, Corsair, MSI and AOC for providing the extreme spec components used for our test bench:

Motherboard: MSI X99A Workstation
CPU: Intel Core i7-5960X Extreme Edition @ 4GHz
RAM – 16GB (4x4GB) Corsair LPX Vengeance (Red) DDR3 @ 2666MHz 16-17-17-35 C1
Power Supply – CORSAIR HX1050
Hard Drive – Samsung 840 EVO 750GB
Cooler – CORSAIR Hydro Series™ H150i Pro 360mm Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler
Monitor – AOC 28″ 4K U2879VF
Capture Card – Avermedia Live Gamer Extreme 2

BENCHMARKS

If you are a regular reader of our reviews you will know we like to test the latest hardware with the latest games and benchmarks on the market. Here are the games we’ve chosen:

Fortnite
Middle Earth: Shadow of War
Apex Legends
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
F1 2018
Battlefield V

To capture framerates we use a combination of in-game benchmark tools and FRAPS.

We also take into consideration the benchmarkers out there so have included three of the more popular synthetic benchmarks available:

3DMark Time Spy
3DMark FireStrike
Unigine: SuperPosition
Unigine: Heaven 4.0

Let’s see how today’s graphics card performed…

Power, Temperatures, Acoustics

To test for power consumption, we take a measurement from the plug socket. It is important to note that the figures below represent total system power use and not just the GPU. The CPU was always in a fixed state (4GHz overclock) so did not affect the additional power load when the GPU was placed under 100% load using Heaven 4.0 which was ran for 20 minutes at which point a load reading was taken. Idle readings were taken 5 minutes after system boot to ensure any background services and applications had loaded.

TEMPERATURE

To test temperatures we measured idle temperatures after booting windows, letting all applications finish loading and ran a few benchmarks. Once the benchmarks were complete we left the card to reach a cooling plateau where we then took the idle temperatures. For the load tests we set Heaven 4.0 running continuously for ~30 minutes recorded the peak/maximum GPU temperature.

ACOUSTICS

Compared to the INNO3D GTX 1660 SUPER Twin X2 which we reviewed prior to the ZOTAC card, ZOTAC’s offering is much quieter. Under load it presents little by way of noise.

DX12: 3DMark Time Spy

Download your copy now

With its pure DirectX 12 engine, which supports new API features like asynchronous compute, explicit multi-adapter, and multi-threading, 3DMark Time Spy is the ideal benchmark for testing the DirectX 12 performance of the latest graphics cards.

DX11: 3DMark FireStrike

Download your copy now

Fire Strike is the new showcase DirectX 11 benchmark designed for high-performance gaming PCs. It is UL’s most ambitious and technical benchmark ever, featuring real-time graphics rendered with detail and complexity far beyond what is found in other benchmarks and games today.

DX11: Unigine Heaven 4.0

Heaven Benchmark with its current version 4.0 is a GPU-intensive benchmark that hammers graphics cards to the limits. This powerful tool can be effectively used to determine the stability of a GPU under extremely stressful conditions, as well as check the cooling system’s potential under maximum heat output. It provides completely unbiased results and generates true in-game rendering workloads across all platforms.

DX11: Unigine SuperPosition

Superposition is a new-generation benchmark tailored for testing reliability and performance of the latest GPUs. Top-notch visuals, support for VR-devices and an interactive mode with mini-games — the list of features built into Superposition could go on and on.

DX11: Fortnite

Fortnite Battle Royale is the FREE 100-player PvP mode in Fortnite. One giant map. A battle bus. Fortnite building skills and destructible environments combined with intense PvP combat. The last one standing wins.

DX11: Middle Earth: Shadow of War

Middle-earth: Shadow of War is an action role-playing video game developed by Monolith Productions and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. It is the sequel to 2014’s Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor.

DX11: Apex Legends

Apex Legends is a free-to-play battle royale game developed by Respawn Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts. Set in the same universe as Titanfall, the game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on February 4, 2019.

DX12: Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is an action-adventure video game developed by Eidos Montréal in conjunction with Crystal Dynamics and published by Square Enix. It continues the narrative from the 2013 game Tomb Raider and its sequel Rise of the Tomb Raider, and is the twelfth mainline entry in the Tomb Raider series.

DX11: F1 2018

F1 2018 is a racing video game and the tenth instalment in the Formula One video game franchise developed and published by Codemasters. The game is based on the 2018 Formula One World Championship and includes all twenty-one circuits from the calendar and all twenty drivers and ten teams competing in the season.

DX11: Battlefield V

Battlefield V is a first-person shooter video game developed by EA DICE and published by Electronic Arts. Battlefield V is the sixteenth installment in the Battlefield series.

Overall Performance

Here we take a look at the overall performance of the graphics card. This figure is determined by finding the average FPS across all of the settings used in a particular benchmark(game) to give us an overall value.

Value For Money

We make a simple calculation for this set of results. For each game we add all of the resulting FPS totals together and then divide by the four sets to give us an overall performance figure. While the figures alone do not give you an accurate picture of how the card will perform in any given scenario, they do tell you, when averaged, which GPU is the more capable across all of the benchmarks and settings tested.

Please note: we’ve used GBP for currency but since this is relative – regardless of which currency you use, this will give you a good indication of value for money.

Conclusion

While some would argue the placement of the GTX 1660 SUPER is superfluous, you can’t deny that it’s a superb 1080p graphics card which effectively supersedes the GTX 1060 6G.

ZOTAC are experts at designing small graphics cards and the ‘Twin Fan’ is another stellar offering. Its size means that it will comfortably reside in a SFF build and gamers will still be able to achieve excellent performance. Speaking of which, this GPU will deliver framerates above 70 in most gaming titles with the detail set to maximum.

In our launch review for GTX 1660 SUPER we examined the INNO3D Twin X2 which is plagued by an incredibly loud cooler, but we’re pleased to report that ZOTAC has this department covered. Not only does their thermal design keep noise to a minimum with the double fan design, but temperature reading is reasonably low too.

As you can expect from a no-frills type of graphics card like this one, there is no factory overclock as the intention is to keep as close to the base MSRP as possible. Twin Fan is priced at £228 GBP / $229 USD which represents great value for money, especially when you factor in a 2 year warranty which can be extended to 3 years with product registration on the ZOTAC website.

ZOTAC’s GTX 1660 SUPER Twin Fan is a great buy for any gamer who wants a tiny graphics card which delivers big on 1080p performance!

Pros
+ Simple design w/ no RGB
+ Very small, compact
+ Decent thermal performance
+ Low-noise cooler
+ Excellent 1080p performance
+ Reasonably priced

Cons
– No zero decibel tech.

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