ASUS STRIX GTX 1660 Ti Graphics Card Review

ASUS STRIX GTX 1660 Ti It seems it has been a busy few weeks with GPU launches. We've seen dozens hit the market, with every brand releasing new GTX 1660 and GTX 1660 Ti cards. However, one of the most anticipated models has to be the ASUS STRIX. Sure, it'll be a little more expensive, but the big cooler combined with big factory overclocks usually helps justify the cost. As with any STRIX card, we've got the latest version of their award-winning cooler design. Given how efficient the GTX 1660 Ti chipset is, it should have zero trouble cooling this graphics card. Furthermore, we expect that it'll overclock really well too, despite already having a clock boost from the factory. There are a few other party tricks throw in too, such as fan headers on the card to hook up chassis fans. There's their latest GPU Tweak II overclocking software, and the improved Axial-Tech fans! Enough spec, lets move on and get this on the bench! Features The GeForce® GTX 1660 Ti is built with the breakthrough graphics performance of the award-winning NVIDIA Turing™ architecture. With performance that rivals the GeForce GTX 1070, it’s a blazing-fast supercharger for today’s most popular games. Broadcast your gameplay: Get amazing performance and image quality while livestreaming to Twitch or YouTube. The GTX 1660 Ti’s dedicated hardware encoder delivers 15% improved efficiency over prior generation graphics cards and is optimized for Open Broadcaster Software (OBS). GeForce Experience: Capture and share videos, screenshots, and livestreams with friends. Keep your drivers up to date and optimize your game settings. GeForce Experience lets you do it all, making it the essential companion to your GeForce graphics card. Axial-tech Fan Design brings larger blades and a unique barrier ring to increase air pressure. Auto-Extreme Technology uses automation to enhance reliability. MaxContact Technology allows 2X more contact with the GPU chip for improved thermal transfer. ASUS FanConnect II equips 2 hybrid-controlled fan headers for optimal system cooling. GPU Tweak II provides intuitive performance tweaking and thermal controls. Specifications For in-depth specifications, please visit the official ASUS page here. What ASUS Had to Say "The ROG Strix GeForce® GTX 1660 Ti sets you up with a serious advantage for high definition AAA gaming. Auto-Extreme Technology lays a foundation to reliably flaunt Turing's raster performance, while Axial-tech fans and MaxContact Technology provide thermal headroom to push out more frames-per-second than the competition. With the speed and reliability of the Strix 1660 Ti on your side, you're sure to grace the top of leaderboards in no time." - ASUS Packaging The box looks fantastic, although STRIX products pretty much always do. There's a great image of the GPU on the front of the box. Here you can see some of the RGB lit up too. OF course, it details that it has ASUS AURA Sync support too. There's also branding for this being the "OC Edition" as well as the inclusion of 6-months WTFast subscription. Around the back, we see their new "Max Contact Technology" which is honestly a fancy word for a bigger heatsink plate; but hey, if it works, it works. Another sneaky feature is the dual-bios support. Handy if you're overclocking, as you always have a fallback to a more stable profile. The box is very nicely packaged too, with lots of quality foam surrounding the GPU. Of course, everything is packed with anti-static packaging too. Now, let's get that test bench fired up, I want to see what this card can do. A Closer Look The card is classic STRIX when it comes to design, with all the usual strong angles and that triple fan design. There are some refinements though, such as their latest AXIAL fans and the new heatsink design on the interior. However, one thing is for certain, this is a massive cooler for this card. The new AXIAL fans feature a ring around their edges. This creates a more stable fan that can drive better airflow and operate with less noise. Of course, that's always a good thing. However, since there is such a huge chunk of metal behind it, the card can run at zero RPM in low load scenarios. Of course, that makes it completely silent when you're not gaming. Backplate To add further style and cooling capabilities to the card, you'll also find a full backplate. It looks fantastic too, with the techno-graphic design on the back, as well as that ASUS eye design. Towards the back of the card, you'll find a single 8-pin power connector. That's more than enough for the modest GTX 1660 Ti chipset, and should provide plenty of overclocking headroom. Fan Headers Tucked into the rear or the card, you'll find a pair of fan headers. These are really clever too. If you connect your front chassis fans, the GPU can request more air from the chassis fans, rather than spinning the GPU fans harder when it gets hot. This means the system should run both cooler and quieter overall. Connectivity Around the back, you'll see it uses an all-black backplate, which looks stunning! Here, you'll find a pair of HDMI ports, as well as a pair of DisplayPorts. Tired of looking at the lights? There's a master kill switch for the LED lighting here to black things out. Furthermore, there are also voltage check points should you need them, and even a BIOS switch. It may be a budget card, but it's still got some enthusiast pedigree stuck in there. How We Test We continue to update our testing methods around once per year. As such, we re-test older hardware to reflect changes over time. These can be driver updates, Windows updates, game patches, and more; all of which have an impact on performance figures. Furthermore, we update our test bench to newer and more relevant hardware. This means that our new reviews aren’t always comparable to those of older reviews, so please compare the testing methodology on older reviews should you be trying to compare them with newer ones. Replicate Our Results When it comes to our benchmarks in our reviews, the benchmarks are pretty self-explanatory and kept as simple as possible, although there are a few exceptions. Remember that your choice of graphics card, CPU, the silicon lottery, and other factors can yield different numbers, and there’s always a margin for error when using any software. Links are provided below, as well as the settings we use. We encourage you to not just look at how one product compares to any other, but how it compares to your own. If you’re looking to build a new system, you should benchmark your current PC using the benchmarks available to you. You should then look at the percentage improvement from your current hardware to the hardware tested here to give you a ballpark figure of how much of an upgrade this will provide you with. Graphics Card Test System Motherboard – Aorus Z390 Gaming MasterProcessor – Intel Core i9-9900K (Stock)RAM – Crucial Ballistix Gaming 32GB (4 x 8GB) 3000 MHzCPU Cooler – Noctua NH-D15SPower Supply – Be Quiet Power Zone 1000WMain Storage Drive – Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GBChassis – Thermaltake Core P5 TGOperating System – Windows 10 64-bitMonitor – AOC 28-Inch 4K Gaming Monitor Additional Hardware Killawatt style electricity usage meter wall plugPrecision Gold N05CC Decibel meter Gaming To gauge performance levels which are easily reproduced time after time, by both ourselves and our readers, we now stick strictly to games default profiles. With our previous reviews, we used the “Medium or Normal” preset. However, as GPUs get faster, we’ve now moved that up to “High” profiles for all games, at all resolutions. V-Sync is always disabled in our testing, as is FreeSync and G-Sync technologies or similar. Graphics card power usage set to optimised or balance, and the system power mode set to High Performance within Windows and the available GPU driver software. Identical settings are used for all resolutions unless otherwise stated. Games and Settings Used Shadow of the Tomb Raider DX12 High Preset1080p1440p2160pDeus Ex: Mankind Divided DX12 High Preset1080p1440p2160pGhost Recon: Wildlands High Preset1080p1440p2160pBattlefield V DX12 High Preset1080p1440p2160pBattlefield V DX12 High Preset (DXR Enabled) NVIDIA RTX Cards ONLY1080p1440p2160pMetro Exodus DX12 High Preset1080p1440p2160pMetro Exodus DX12 High Preset (RT, then RT and DLSS Enabled) NVIDIA RTX Cards ONLY1080p1440p2160pFar Cry New Dawn High Preset1080p1440p2160p The Division 2 High Preset1080p1440p2160p Software Used 3DMark Fire Strike (download)FireStrike Ultra BenchmarkUnigine Superposition (download)4K Optimised BenchmarkHWMonitor (download)GPU-Z Noise Everyone has a reasonable noise level preference when it comes to comes to components on a computer. Some can handle all fans at 100% load to keep temperatures down; some want an entirely silent computer. To accurately gauge the noise output of a graphics card, we position a Precision Gold N05CC one meter above our open-air test bench and take an average reading at idle and load. Gaming noise levels are taken during a CPU vs CPU match a preset match in Soul Calibur VI. Power Consumption We take power readings during idle state with no background applications running. Then again at 50% completion of the Unigine Superposition benchmark, using the average as the final published result. Gaming power consumption is taken during a CPU vs CPU match a preset match in Soul Calibur VI. Temperatures We take temperature readings after 10 minutes of desktop idle with no background programs running, then take the recorded maximum delivered from Unigine Superposition after a 4K optimised run, confirming the numbers are accurate with HWMonitor. Furthermore, the ambient temperature is always kept +/- 1c from 21c. Gaming temperatures are taken during a CPU vs CPU match a preset match in Soul Calibur VI. Synthetic Benchmarks 3DMark FireStrike Straight away, the STRIX is off to a flying start, beating out both the Gigabyte and Plait models with a score of 3550. Of course, this is the most expensive, highest clocked, and has the biggest cooler of the three, so it's right where we expected it to be. 3DMark TimeSpy The same is true here, with a blazing fast score of 6671, putting it within spitting distance of the Radeon VEGA 64! Unigine Superposition What a shock, it's blasting past the competition here too with a remarkable score of 5188. That's just ahead of the other 1660 Ti's, and just behind the GTX 1070 and VEGA 64 series of cards. Overall, very impressive! Shadow of the Tomb Raider At 1080p, the plucky GTX 1660 Ti scored 98 FPS, which is fantastic. However, that's basically what we got on the VEGA 56, and our 1080 Ti, although we're not sure why the 1080 Ti kept scoring so long at 1080p here. At 1440p, 65 FPS is more than playable too. At 4K, we do drop to 36 FPS, which is to be expected, but this is a mid £250 card, so 4K gaming isn't really its target. For that purpose, I'm going to have the charts for 4K on all games, but otherwise no longer discuss it and focus on the 1080p and 1440p performance. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Deus Ex is more demanding than Tomb Raider, but it still delivered some pretty impressive performance too. Hitting 84.2 FPS at 1080p is nothing to cry about, and it averaged 55.5 FPS at 1440p. Now, that's damn close to 60 FPS, and a minor tweak to the settings will get you past that hurdle easily enough. Ghost Recon: Wildlands The numbers are already starting to look pretty predictable, although there's certainly nothing wrong with consistency when it comes to gaming performance. 93.4 FPS was hit at 1080p, so you could easily dial those settings up to Ultra for this one. Furthermore, 69 FPS at 1440p means silky smooth gaming even at high resolutions; not bad for such a great looking game. Battlefield V I thought Battlefield V would trip it up a bit more than it did though. Again, a massive 87 FPS at 1080p, putting it ahead of the Vega 64 and just behind the 1070 Ti. It'a also ahead of all the other 1660 Ti cards. At 1440p, it scored 65 FPS, just 2 FPS shy of the VEGA 64, but again still a fantastic set of figures. Metro Exodus The trump card that is Metro breaks out winning streak though, as the first game to score below 60 FPS at 1080p. However, 58.01 is close enough for comfort given we're using High settings on this extremely demanding game. 42.2 FPS at 1440p could be better though, so perhaps stick to medium settings for this resolution. That being said, that's more down to the game than the GPU. Far Cry New Dawn Far Cry New Day performance was pretty damn impressive too, hitting a whopping 101 FPS at 1080p, so the score to use Ultra settings there is plentiful. However, we still got 76 FPS at 1440p, so even that could go up to Ultra easily enough. Even 4K did 40 FPS, so at medium settings, that may be very playable too. The Division 2 Finally, we have The Division 2, which remarkably also did 101 FPS at 1080p, just like Far Cry. Again, 1440p performed really well too, with 67 FPS overall. When it comes to picking a 1660 Ti, it seems the STRIX is the king of the bunch though, just edging a lead on the other models, and pretty darn impressive overall. Power Consumption As with all the GTX 1660 Ti cards, the efficiency is very impressive. This card uses just 203 Watts at full load. That's slightly more than the other GTX 1660 Ti cards, but then again, it is clocked higher out of the box. However, it's still less power than the old GTX 1060, which used 218 Watts. Temperatures That massive cooler did as we expected too, keeping the card at just 66C at full load, which is great, as it leaves us with thermal headroom for more overclocking. Acoustics At low loads, the card is completely silent, which is obviously a good thing. However, even at full load, the card was running at just 37 dBa, which is very quiet for a triple fan card. Overclocking Pushing the limits of this card was an absolute breeze. Out of the box, it's already a damn fast card for its class. However, that massive cooler provides thermal headroom for much bigger performance. Overclocking by 135 MHz on the GPU core and a huge 800 MHz on the memory saw performance increase by over 7%. That's enough to take Tomb Raider to 105 FPS at 1080p. Keep in mind, that's free performance for just a few minutes tinkering. On top of that, a 7% performance gain only cost another 5% of power, and barely had an impact on temperatures, and no impact on noise levels. How Much Does It Cost? Without a doubt, this is a fantastic card. However, being a STRIX model, it does come at a premium over the non-STRIX models. It's priced at £329.99 in the UK and $324 in the US, which isn't too bad. However, the standard model is closer to £300, and the basic model £270. It's a very impressive cooler design, and it doesn't come for free. However, for overclocking and getting the most out of the chipset, it's the best of the bunch. Overview ASUS are going to sell plenty of these, no doubt about it. We're already big fans of the new GTX 1660 Ti chipset anyway. However, the addition of the remarkable STRIX cooler and its new AXIAL fans, help push the new chipset to the absolute max. That's worth another £30 all day long. Plus, it's one of the best looking cards in its class, and aesthetics are a big selling point these days. Performance For those gaming at 1080p and even 1440p, it ticks all the right boxes. It's able to deliver more than playable performance at both resolutions with a mixture of high and even ultra graphics settings. Even for those gaming on high refresh rate displays, there's enough power here to deliver the performance you desire. Upgraded Of course, the GTX 1660 and the GTX 1660 Ti are replacements for the older 10-series cards. If you're on those cards, the upgrade may not be very appealing. However, with lower temperatures, better efficiency, and improved performance, they're a great replacement for the older cards. If you're on a GTX 9xx series card or older, or AMD RX4xx, or even the R9 series, then these are a huge upgrade for you. Plus, they're certainly going to appeal to first time system builders too. Should I Buy One? If you're after a card for around £300, the GTX 1660 Ti is a solid choice right now. Short of going second hand, it's going to be hard to beat. The STRIX model is a little more expensive, but if you can stretch the budget, it's a worthy investment to get the absolute best out of the new chipset, and a great looking addition to your system build too. ASUS STRIX GTX 1660 Ti Graphics Card Review