ZOTAC GTX 1660 Ti Review

In a break from the norm we take a look at a standard edition of the GTX 1660 Ti courtesy of ZOTAC (ZT-T16610F-10L). Can this compact graphics card still provide decent gaming performance?

Product on Review: GTX 1660 Ti
Manufacturer & Sponsor: ZOTAC
Street Price: £269 GBP – $269 USD – $469 AUD

Constructing a SFF (Small form factor) computer configuration brings with it a whole host of challenges and compromises. To many who are on a mission to downsize, 3D performance isn’t an area to jeopardise on, regardless of the intended use, be it content creation or gaming.

ZOTAC has been a forerunner in the compact graphics card department for many years now and we’ve had the pleasure of witnessing first-hand how their “MINI” series has featured some outstanding additions – such as the GTX 1080 Ti. Well, today ZOTAC are kicking off the new GTX 16 series with a compact edition!

In the spotlight today we have the ZOTAC GTX 1660 Ti. Unlike other graphics cards in ZOTAC’s portfolio, this one lacks the “AMP” treatment and as such arrives with no factory overclock – just the reference settings. We do however have a customised cooling solution which features dual fans – 70mm and 80mm, a wide array aluminium heatsink with 3x 6mm copper heatpipes.

Will this standard edition with its small cooler still offer good thermal performance? Will we be able to apply a manual overclock? Let’s find out!

ZOTAC on their GTX 1660 Ti

The all-new generation of ZOTAC GAMING GeForce GTX graphics cards are here. Based on the new NVIDIA Turing architecture, it’s packed with GDDR6 ultra-fast memory. Get ready to get fast and game strong.

Technical Specifications

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

GPU
GTX 1660 Ti (TU116)
Stream Processor
1536
Video Memory
6GB GDDR6
Memory Bus
192-bit
Engine Clock
1500MHz
Engine Clock Boost
1770MHz
Memory Clock
1500MHz – 12000MHz 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

Features

NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1660 Ti’s new TU116 GPU is a brand new design specifically for the mainstream gaming market. Manufactured using TSMC’s 12nm FinFET technology, it incorporates 1560 ‘Turing’ CUDA Cores arraigned in a Shader Module that differs considerably from that of the RTX 2060. Without both Tensor and RT Cores it lacks hardware support for NVIDIA RTX Hybrid/Real-Time Raytracing and AI features such as DLSS, but does roll in other improvements specific to the Turing architecture.

UPDATED CACHE MODEL

Turing moves to a Unified L1 Cache, a schema which offers lower latency, higher bandwidth, and higher capacity compared to Pascal and earlier architectures. NVIDIA describe the design as featuring a more ‘heavyweight’ shader thanks to a 3x increase in L1 Cache Size (from 48 to 128 KB) and 4x increase to L1 Cache Bandwidth.

These changes are likely to have a high impact on effective shader Instructions Per Clock, even without accounting for game engine optimisations that take advantage of new dynamic cache allocation features and support for larger data structures. Simply increasing the cache size will increase the chances for a cache ‘hit’, reducing how often slower cache and memory needs to be accessed.

COHERENT FLOATING POINT AND INTEGER OPERATIONS

NVIDIA’s Pascal architecture is capable of executing both Floating and Integer operations, but only sequentially across the shader module by switching between the two modes. Turing shader processors by contrast can execute batches of mixed operations in parallel, greatly increasing total operations per second in mixed workloads.

While floating point operations have tended to dominate game engine workloads, modern titles are beginning to roll in integer operations where it’s deemed appropriate as GPU hardware broadens its mixed workload capabilities. As a result the GTX 1660 Ti has a certain amount of future-proofing when compared to a GPU from an older generation with similar performance characteristics.

ADAPTIVE SHADING

Sections of any rendered scene will differ in complexity, from heavily textured objects and surfaces to more plain walls with less detail. From frame to frame large areas with less detail may change very little over time. Adaptive Shading techniques are aware of that contextual difference, and can allocate fewer shading resources to these zones dynamically.

Adaptive Shading is one aspect of Variable Rate Shading possible under the RTX technologies umbrella. It’s not clear which aspects won’t be possible with the GTX 16-series, but that will no-doubt become clear as it is used in more games. For now, Adapative Shading is present in Wolfenstein: The New Colossus, and is a factor in the NVIDIA’s projection of a 1.4x performance advantage vs the 1060 6GB.

VIRTUALLINK

The new VirtualLink VR connector standard is a optionally available on the GTX 1660 Ti. We already know of a number of partner cards which will not be incorporating the I/O connector, so approach each on a case-by-case basis if it is important to you. From a pure performance perspective the GTX 1660 Ti should be more than capable of current Premium VR rendering support as its anticipated performance exceeds that of the already-validated GTX 1060 6GB.

NEW NVENC ENCODING ENGINE

The GXT 1660Ti supports NVIDIA’s latest NvEnc hardware video encoder. Designed specifically for game broadcasting via Twitch and other streaming platforms, it improves the video stream (x264 fast) encoding bit rates to up to 6000KB/s. Video quality is also improved, now exceeding that of an Intel Core i9-9900K using the same encoding while also offloading processing from the CPU.

OC SCANNER

OC Scanner was introduced alongside the RTX 20-series cards as a means of offering automated (one-click) overclocking for a ‘free’ performance boost, and has since been extended to older NVIDIA GPU architectures. It works by scanning for artefacts and other inconsistencies as operating frequencies increase, easing off when detected and failing safely rather than causing hard lockups. OC Scanner is now incorporated into the major aftermarket overclocking tools from EVGA, MSI and ASUS.

POWER EFFICIENCY

Currently Turing GPUs are manufactured using TSMC’s 12nm lithography, which has many similarities the GTX 1060 6GB’s 16nm manufacturing process. Power efficiency improvements will tend to be down to architectural changes rather than the manufacturing process, but higher frequencies on similar voltages aren’t out of the question.

NVIDIA boast of a 1.4x perf/watt improvement in optimal workloads over the GTX 1060 6GB, which is more than just a little significant. The GTX 1660 Ti has a reference TDP of 120W, the same as the GTX 1060 6GB, which speaks to the expected performance improvement you might see when comparing with the previous generation.

Most GTX 1660 Ti’s will ship with a single 6-Pin PCIe connector, but some (such as the ROG STRIX GTX 1660 Ti) are equipped with an 8-pin connector for a little more overhead.

MEMORY SUBSYSTEM

The GTX 1660 Ti is the first mainstream GPU to be configured with GDDR6 memory, a standard that until now has been exclusive to performance class RTX 20-series GPUs. An effective memory speed of 12000Gbps compares very favourably with the GTX 1060 6GB’s 8000Gbps, increasing the available memory bandwidth by 50% to 288 GB/sec.

Closer Look Video Review

For this review we’ve produced a video review showing the physical design of this graphics card, highlighting its features and stripping it down by removing the thermal solution. You can watch the video below or click on this link to watch the ZOTAC GTX 1660 Ti Video Review.

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:
GIGABYTE GTX 1660 Ti GAMING OC
ZOTAC GTX 1660 Ti
ASUS STRIX 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

Noise is noticeable from the cooler on our ZOTAC card, however this isn’t deemed to be disruptive by any means. It’s just a few decibels higher under load than other designs we’ve reviewed.

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.

Overclocking

To overclock the GTX 1660 Ti we used ZOTAC’s very own Firestorm software.

Unlike other GTX 1660 Ti graphics cards we’ve reviewed, this one is the standard edition and therefore has no factory overclock, so it’ll be very interesting to see how far we can push the frequencies and identify the overall potential.

We were able to achieve an impressive result with our ZOTAC card – modifying the GPU boost clock to 1958MHz (Up from 1770MHz) and the memory clock to 1750MHz (up from 1500MHz). These figures exceed those found on all GTX 1660 Ti cards with factory overclocks on the market. This therefore highlights how buying the base model is a worthwhile pursuit.

Below is the result and the performance differential in-game:

Conclusion

Today’s review of the standard GTX 1660 Ti from ZOTAC has been an interesting investigation – we’ve been able to clearly see that if you’re keen to save some cash, with a little effort you can still hone in on superior performance.

It’s unusual to be handling a graphics card which has no factory overclock applied to it, but ZOTAC has chosen to keep to the MSRP on this model and have focussed on other areas instead. Condensed system builders featuring Mini-ITX components are very popular and we can see the appeal that this graphics card would have in such a configuration. At just 173mm in length, GTX 1660 Ti will fit inside any computer chassis you choose to go with.

The overall dimensions and design does however come with a slight compromise – the GPU temperature compared to other triple fan GTX 1660 Ti graphics cards is approximately 10C higher, but this does not detract from its capabilities. We were able to apply a significant manual overclock to our ZOTAC card which translated to it being faster than any other GTX 1660 Ti currently on the market. We nudged the GPU boost clock to 1958MHz (up from 1770MHz) and the memory clock to 1750MHz (up from 1500MHz). This just proves that you can benefit from superior performance without spending the extra cash.

Out of the box the GTX 1660 Ti performs well, delivering some solid 1080p performance in a range of the latest gaming titles. Understandably, against the other models we’ve tested, the ZOTAC variant slotted in just behind. These rivals have factory overclocks, whereas the ZOTAC does not.

As far as pricing goes, the ZOTAC GTX 1660 Ti can be purchased for the base MSRP of £269 GBP – $269 USD – $469 AUD. We believe this to be excellent value for money.

If you’re on the hunt for a compact but capable 1080p graphics card without the RGB shenanigans, the ZOTAC GTX 1660 Ti is a good route to take. It may not feature a factory overclock but it has some amazing potential to have the GPU/memory clocks shifted up with very little effort!

Pros
+ Pleasing to the eye
+ Tiny dimensions
+ No RGB
+ Excellent 1080p performance
+ Overclocks very well
+ Great value for money

Mediocre
+- Thermal performance 10C greater than competition

Cons
– No backplate
– No factory OC

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