GALAX GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC 6 GB GDDR6 Graphics Card Review

GALAX GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC Closer Look + Teardown

NVIDIA introduced their Turing GPU architecture last year, making a complete departure from traditional GPU designs and creating a hybrid architecture that would include a range of new technologies to power the next-generation immersive gaming experiences.

While initially announced with Quadro lineup under the new Quadro RTX brand, we all knew that the Turing architecture was coming to the GeForce lineup. It arrived in the GeForce lineup a few months later under the new GeForce RTX branding. NVIDIA's first big naming departure for two decades of GeForce GTX.

The GeForce RTX 20 series was the enablement of real-time raytracing which is the holy grail of graphics and something NVIDIA spent 10 years to perfect. In addition to raytracing, NVIDIA also aims to place bets on AI which will play a key role in powering features such as DLSS or Deep Learning Super Sampling, a unique way of offering the same quality as the more taxing MSAA AA techniques at twice the performance.

NVIDIA has announced for cards under the GeForce RTX 20 series family, the flagship GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, the Enthusiast GeForce RTX 2080, the high-performance GeForce RTX 2070 and the main-stream GeForce RTX 2060. Now, NVIDIA is looking to offer Turing for more reasonable prices, so is also going back to the good old GeForce GTX branding and for good reasons. While GeForce RTX and GeForce GTX will exist alongside each other in this generation, the GeForce GTX lineup as the name suggests would be aiming for raw performance over the graphics intensive RTX features which only the RTX cards support.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 16 series includes the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER, GeForce GTX 1660 and the GeForce GTX 1650. The GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER was the most recent entrant to the SUPER family, offering a supercharged design with the same underlying DNA as the GeForce GTX 1660 and at the same price. The GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER is also expected to land later this month, offering much better performance than the GTX 1650 for around the same price.

When it comes to pricing, the GeForce RTX 20 series are some of the most costly cards NVIDIA has offered to consumers. The GeForce GTX 1660 Ti and GeForce GTX 1660, on the other hand, tried to keep budget and more mainstream audiences in mind by offering a price closer to the GeForce GTX 1060 which became a popular gaming card on Steam due to its $249 price point. The GeForce GTX 16 SUPER series would continue the trend of introducing a higher performance at the same price tag. Following is the current per segment price structure of the entire NVIDIA Turing lineup compared to its predecessors.

NVIDIA GeForce GPU Segment/Tier Prices

Graphics Segment	2023-2024	2022-2023	2021-2022	2020-2021	2019-2020	2018-2019	2017-2018	2016-2017	2014-2016
Titan Tier	GeForce RTX 4090	GeForce RTX 4090	GeForce RTX 3090 Ti GeForce RTX 3090	GeForce RTX 3090	Titan RTX (Turing)	Titan V (Volta)	Titan Xp (Pascal)	Titan X (Pascal)	Titan X (Maxwell)
Price	$1599 US	$1599 US	$1999 US $1499 US	$1499 US	$2499 US	$2999 US	$1199 US	$1199 US	$999 US
Ultra Enthusiast Tier	GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER	GeForce RTX 4080	GeForce RTX 3080 Ti	GeForce RTX 3080 Ti	GeForce RTX 2080 Ti	GeForce RTX 2080 Ti	GeForce GTX 1080 Ti	GeForce GTX 980 Ti	GeForce GTX 980 Ti
Price	$999 US	$1199 US	$1199 US	$1199 US	$999 US	$999 US	$699 US	$649 US	$649 US
Enthusiast Tier	GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER	GeForce RTX 4070 Ti	GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB	GeForce RTX 3080 10 GB	GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER	GeForce RTX 2080	GeForce GTX 1080	GeForce GTX 1080	GeForce GTX 980
Price	$799 US	$799 US	$799 US	$699 US	$699 US	$699 US	$549 US	$549 US	$549 US
High-End Tier	GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER GeForce RTX 4070	GeForce RTX 4070 GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB	GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GeForce RTX 3070	GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GeForce RTX 3070	GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER	GeForce RTX 2070	GeForce GTX 1070	GeForce GTX 1070	GeForce GTX 970
Price	$599 $549	$599 US $499 US	$599 $499	$599 $499	$499 US	$499 US	$379 US	$379 US	$329 US
Mainstream Tier	GeForce RTX 4060 Ti GeForce RTX 4060	GeForce RTX 4060 Ti GeForce RTX 4060	GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB	GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB	GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER GeForce RTX 2060 GeForce GTX 1660 Ti GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER GeForce GTX 1660	GeForce GTX 1060	GeForce GTX 1060	GeForce GTX 1060	GeForce GTX 960
Price	$449 $299	$399 US $299 US	$399 US $329 US	$399 US $329 US	$399 US $349 US $279 US $229 US $219 US	$249 US	$249 US	$249 US	$199 US
Entry Tier	RTX 3050 8 GB RTX 3050 6 GB	RTX 3050	RTX 3050	GTX 1650 SUPER GTX 1650	GTX 1650 SUPER GTX 1650	GTX 1050 Ti GTX 1050	GTX 1050 Ti GTX 1050	GTX 950	GTX 750 Ti GTX 750
Price	$229 $179	$249 US	$249 US	$159 US $149 US	$159 US $149 US	$139 US $109 US	$139 US $109 US	$149 US	$149 US $119 US

For this review, I will be taking a look at the GALAX GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC, a custom graphics card that will retail at $249 US. The reference card will be priced at $229 US so we are looking at a $20 premium price tag but with a much better dual-fan cooler, a custom PCB and a factory overclock out of the box.

With just a few bucks of asking price over the reference MSRP, these custom variants offer a range of features such as dual-fan coolers, better heatsinks, and custom PCBs allowing for better heat dissipation, higher airflow and more overclocking performance and clock stability at their respective boost clocks which will be higher compared to the reference variants. The main barrier with overclocking on Turing GPUs is by far the power limit and those that offer the highest power limits out of the box are generally the ones with the best overclocking potential and performance output.

In case you want to read our full NVIDIA Turing GPU architecture and RTX/DLSS features deep dive, head over to this link.

While we have already detailed the Turing GPU architecture, it should be pointed out that the TU116 GPU, while it shares the same DNA as the Turing architecture has some big changes to what've seen on the GeForce RTX 20 series cards.

Based on the 12th Generation Turing GPU architecture, the TU116 GPU found on the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER, GeForce GTX 1660 and the GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER features the same shader innovations that were introduced on Turing but to balance it out in terms of power, cost and performance, a few adjustments had to be made. This is done through the exclusion of RT cores and Tensor cores on the GeForce GTX cards with Turing architecture. It is pointed out that the Turing architecture on GeForce GTX still delivers improved performance & better efficiency compared to its predecessor while supporting concurrent floating-point and integer Ops.

So let's talk about the balanced architecture design of the Turing TU116 and how it still manages to improve upon its Pascal-based predecessors. The first thing to mention is the three big changes in the Turing SM. The revamped structure of the Turing TU116 SM enables the processing of FP32 & INT operations concurrently through the use of dedicated cores within the SM. The list of features that Turing TU116 GPU adds over Pascal GP106 include:

• Concurrent FP and INT operations
• Variable Rate Shading
• Unified Cache Architecture
• GDDR6 Memory Subsystem
• Dedicated FP16 Cores
• Turing NVENC Support

The Turing SM can also perform FP16 operations at double the rate of FP32. The Turing TU116 GPU is rated at 11 TOPs (FP+INT), 11 TFLOPs FP16 and an improved bandwidth that is resultant of the higher cache size of 1.5 MB compared to just 480 KB on the Pascal GP106 GPU.

If we look at some modern gaming titles, then we can see that developers are widely mixing floating-point operations with integer instructions. For every 100 instructions in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, for example, 62 are floating point and 38 integers, on average. In previous GPUs, the floating-point math datapath in the SM would sit idly whenever one of these non-FP-math runs.

Turing adds a second parallel Integer execution unit never to ever CUDA core that executes these instructions in parallel with floating-point math. This would allow the GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER graphics card to deliver up to 1.5x performance improvement over the GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB.

Now coming to the raw specifications of the GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER graphics card. The TU116 GPU is fabricated on the TSMC's 12nm FFN (FinFET NVIDIA) process node. It features 3 GPCs, 12 TPCs, and 22 Turing SMs. Each SM contains 64 cores which equal to a total of 1408 CUDA Cores. There are also 88 Texture Units and 48 Raster Operation Units on the card. The base clock is maintained at 1530 MHz while the boost clock is maintained at 1785 MHz. You can tell from the specifications that the GTX 1660 SUPER is technically the same chip as the standard GeForce GTX 1660.

The card would feature 6 GB of GDDR6 VRAM running along a 192-bit bus interface. The memory system would be clocked at 14.0 Gbps delivering an effective bandwidth of 336 GB/s. So this major change to the memory allows for even more bandwidth on the SUPER variant than the Ti model. The card features a single 8 pin connector to boot and has a TDP of 125W. Display outputs include a single DisplayPort, a single DVI-D, and an HDMI connector.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX/GTX "Turing" Family:

Graphics Card Name	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 D6	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti
GPU Architecture	Turing GPU (TU117)	Turing GPU (TU117)	Turing GPU (TU116)	Turing GPU (TU116)	Turing GPU (TU116)	Turing GPU (TU116)	Turing GPU (TU106)	Turing GPU (TU106)	Turing GPU (TU104)	Turing GPU (TU102)
Process	12nm FNN	12nm FNN	12nm FNN	12nm FNN	12nm FNN	12nm FNN	12nm FNN	12nm FNN	12nm FNN	12nm FNN
Die Size	200mm2	200mm2	284mm2	284mm2	284mm2	284mm2	445mm2	445mm2	545mm2	754mm2
Transistors	4.7 Billion	4.7 Billion	6.6 Billion	6.6 Billion	6.6 Billion	6.6 Billion	10.6 Billion	10.6 Billion	13.6 Billion	18.6 Billion
CUDA Cores	896 Cores	896 Cores	1280 Cores	1408 Cores	1408 Cores	1536 Cores	1920 Cores	2304 Cores	2944 Cores	4352 Cores
TMUs/ROPs	56/32	56/32	80/32	88/48	88/48	96/48	120/48	144/64	192/64	288/96
GigaRays	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	5 Giga Rays/s	6 Giga Rays/s	8 Giga Rays/s	10 Giga Rays/s
Cache	1.5 MB L2 Cache	1.5 MB L2 Cache	1.5 MB L2 Cache	1.5 MB L2 Cache	1.5 MB L2 Cache	1.5 MB L2 Cache	4 MB L2 Cache	4 MB L2 Cache	4 MB L2 Cache	6 MB L2 Cache
Base Clock	1485 MHz	1410 MHz	1530 MHz	1530 MHz	1530 MHz	1500 MHz	1365 MHz	1410 MHz	1515 MHz	1350 MHz
Boost Clock	1665 MHz	1590 MHz	1725 MHz	1785 MHz	1785 MHz	1770 MHz	1680 MHz	1620 MHz 1710 MHz OC	1710 MHz 1800 MHz OC	1545 MHz 1635 MHz OC
Compute	3.0 TFLOPs	3.0 TFLOPs	4.4 TFLOPs	5.0 TFLOPs	5.0 TFLOPs	5.5 TFLOPs	6.5 TFLOPs	7.5 TFLOPs	10.1 TFLOPs	13.4 TFLOPs
Memory	Up To 4 GB GDDR5	Up To 4 GB GDDR6	Up To 4 GB GDDR6	Up To 6 GB GDDR5	Up To 6 GB GDDR6	Up To 6 GB GDDR6	Up To 6 GB GDDR6	Up To 8 GB GDDR6	Up To 8 GB GDDR6	Up To 11 GB GDDR6
Memory Speed	8.00 Gbps	12.00 Gbps	12.00 Gbps	8.00 Gbps	14.00 Gbps	12.00 Gbps	14.00 Gbps	14.00 Gbps	14.00 Gbps	14.00 Gbps
Memory Interface	128-bit	128-bit	128-bit	192-bit	192-bit	192-bit	192-bit	256-bit	256-bit	352-bit
Memory Bandwidth	128 GB/s	192 GB/s	192 GB/s	192 GB/s	336 GB/s	288 GB/s	336 GB/s	448 GB/s	448 GB/s	616 GB/s
Power Connectors	N/A	N/A	6 Pin	8 Pin	8 Pin	8 Pin	8 Pin	8 Pin	8+8 Pin	8+8 Pin
TDP	75W	75W	100W	120W	125W	120W	160W	185W (Founders) 175W (Reference)	225W (Founders) 215W (Reference)	260W (Founders) 250W (Reference)
Starting Price	$149 US	$149 US	$159 US	$219 US	$229 US	$279 US	$349 US	$499 US	$699 US	$999 US
Price (Founders Edition)	$149 US	$149 US	$159 US	$219 US	$229 US	$279 US	$349 US	$599 US	$799 US	$1,199 US
Launch	April 2019	April 2020	November 2019	March 2019	October 2019	February 2019	January 2019	October 2018	September 2018	September 2018

The GALAX GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX (OC) is the top variant within GALAX's GTX 16 series family. The graphics card makes use of a dual-fan cooler with a plastic shroud that comes in black and white color. This graphics card is available in the market for $249.99 US right now which makes it $30 US more expensive than the reference MSRP which is not that big of a difference for a fully custom design with a cooler that seems to look and perform great too. The good thing with this graphics model though is that it excels upon the standard reference models in all possible ways.

In terms of specifications, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER features 1408 CUDA cores, 88 TMUs, and 48 ROPs. The Turing TU116 die used on the graphics card is based around a 12nm process and has a die size of 284mm2. The core clocks for the card are maintained at 1530 MHz for the base clock and 1785 MHz for boost clock. The GALAX EX OC model is clocked up to 1845MHz (boost) which will be providing better gaming performance than the reference model.

The chip packs a total of 5.0 TFLOPs of FP32 compute power. The cards feature a 6 GB GDDR6 memory interface running along a 192-bit wide bus interface that delivers 336 GB/s bandwidth. The reference model is powered by a single 8 pin connector and has a TDP of 125W.

 

Following are some of the features of the GALAX GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC before we go into detail:

• CUDA Cores 1408
• Boost Clock (MHz) 1830
• 1-Click OC Clock (MHz) 1845 (by installing Xtreme Tuner Plus Software and using 1-Click OC)
• Memory Specs:
• Memory Speed 14 Gbps
• Memory Interface Width 192-bit GDDR6
• Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) 336
• Display Support:
• Multi-Monitor 3 Displays
• Standard Display Connectors DP 1.4, HDMI 2.0b, DVI-D
• Standard Graphics Card Dimensions:
• Dimensions(with Bracket) 245*133*41.5 mm
• Dimensions(without Bracket) 233*119*40 mm
• Power Specs:
• Maximum Graphics Card Power (W) 125W
• Minimum System Power Requirement (W) 450W
• Supplementary Power Connectors 8-pin

The GALAX GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC graphics card comes within a standard cardboard-based package. The front of both packages has a large “GeForce GTX” brand logo along with the “GALAX” logo on the top left corner. GALAX has been using the Gamer-Esque marketing on their graphics cards for a while now which is a different touch than what other brands are doing.

The packaging has put a large emphasis on the Turing Shaders, followed by GDDR6, DirectX 12 and Ansel support.

The back of the box is very typical, highlighting the main features and specifications of the cards. There’s also a focus towards GeForce.com on each AIB card through which users can download the latest drivers and GeForce Experience application which are a must for gamers to access all feature sets of the new cards.

The card is nicely wrapped within an anti-static cover which is useful to prevent any unwanted static discharges on various surfaces that might harm the graphics card. The card accessories include a Molex power connector which isn’t of much use in high-end systems since the PSUs already have the required cables.

 

Out of the package, the GALAX GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC might feel like a simple dual-slot styled graphics card. It comes in a very compact design which is standard for graphics cards of this range.

The GALAX GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC is a very compact graphics card and it looks to be a great solution for many gaming PCs and even the more small form factor designs. Even with such a small design, the GALAX GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC is a small beast which is expected to be a great performer at 1080p in the latest AAA titles.

The cooling shroud extends all the way to the back of the PCB and it requires a casing with good interior space for proper installation. You don't have to worry about installation as this compact graphics card would fit nicely inside almost any case you can think of.

The back of the card features a solid backplate which looks stunning and offers a premium look. The backplate rocks a matte black color with silver linings spread all over along with several cut-outs in a circular shape for venting out heat off the back.

The card has some unique patterns on the plastic shroud which rocks a brushed metallic finish and darker tones within the triangular design. There are some standout features of the shroud such as the GeForce GTX logo on the side and a 'What's Your Game' text which has RGB LEDs embedded on the other side for some stunning lighting effects.

I am back at talking about the full-coverage, full metal-based backplate which both card use. The whole plate is made of solid metal with rounded edges that add to the durability of this card. The brushed silver finish on the backplate gives a unique aesthetic.

Coming to the fans, the card features two 90mm fans. The fans do feature idle fan stop tech but GALAX hasn't stated or advertised that on their product page or even on the product box. There's full control offered in the Xtreme Tuner Plus software but the feature is enabled out of the box.

The fans feature 9 blades and double ball bearing design which equals smoother airflow and less noise output.

The fans stopped at 60C which seems to be the maximum threshold set by GALAX for their zero db fan technology.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660, GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER, GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, GeForce RTX 2060 and GeForce RTX 2070 graphics cards don't feature any NVLINK connector as they don't support Multi-GPU functionality. This has been done for many reasons as two lower-end cards have the potential to outperform a higher-end card in optimized titles which may end up cannibalizing its sales. The other is the optimization factor and we know that multi-GPU support isn't the best around these days so NVIDIA has only kept it for users who are willing to pay a premium on their higher-end cards.

With the outsides of the card done, I will now start taking a glance at what's beneath the hood of GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC. There's a large aluminum fin stack that runs all the way from the front and to the back of the PCB.

Talking about the heatsink, the aluminum fin block is comprised of 3x 6mm heat pipes which run all the way from the start to the end of the heatsink. The base itself is a solid copper-plated base plate, transferring heat to the heat pipes in a very effective manner.

The GALAX GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC has a single 8 pin power connector to boot. The card is rated at a TDP of 125W (reference TDP).

I/O on the GALAX GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC graphics card include a single Display Port 1.4a, HDMI 2.0b and a DVI-D output.

GALAX GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC PCB Teardown

GALAX makes use of a 3+2  phase PWM design which is a pretty standard but still, non-reference design.

GALAX GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC RGB Technology

You can fully customize the RGB lights to your preference using the GALAX Xtreme Tuner Plus application from GALAX's web page. Following is what the graphics card looks like when lit up.

We used the following test system for comparison between the different graphics cards. The latest drivers that were available at the time of testing were used from AMD and NVIDIA on an updated version of Windows 10. All games that were tested were patched to the latest version for better performance optimization for NVIDIA and AMD GPUs.

GPU Test Bench 2019 (GTX 1660 SUPER):

CPU	Intel Core i9-9900K @ 4.70 GHz
Motherboard	AORUS Z390 Master
Video Cards	GALAX GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC MSI GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER Gaming X MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Gaming X MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ventus XS MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Gaming X MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Ventus XS MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Titanium MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Armor X OC MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti Lightning Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC Gigabyte Radeon RX Vega 56 ASUS ROG STRIX Radeon RX 580 OC XFX Radeon R9 Fury X Liquid Cooled
Memory	G.SKILL Trident Z RGB Series 32GB (4 X 8GB) CL16 3600 MHz
Storage	Samsung SSD 960 EVO M.2 (512 GB)
Power Supply	ASUS ROG THOR 1200W PSU
OS	Windows 10 64-bit

• All games were tested on 2560×1440 (2K) and 3840×2160 (4K) resolutions.
• Image Quality and graphics configurations have been provided in the screenshots below.
• The “reference” cards are the stock configs while the “overclock” cards are factory overclocked configs provided to us by various AIB partners.

DOOM

In 2016, Id finally released DOOM. My testing wouldn’t be complete without including this title. All cards were capable of delivering ample frame rates at the 1440p resolution using Nightmare settings, so my focus turned to 4K.

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

Wolfenstein is back in The New Colossus and features the most fast-paced, gory and brutal FPS action ever! The game once again puts us back in the Nazi-controlled world as BJ Blazkowicz. Set during an alternate future where Nazis won the World War, the game shows that it can be fun and can be brutal to the player and to the enemy too. Powering the new title is once again, id Tech 6 which is much acclaimed after the success that DOOM has become. In a way, ID has regained their glorious FPS roots and are slaying with every new title.

Ultra HQ-AF, Vulkan, Async Compute On *if available, Deferred Rendering and GPU culling off

We tested the game at Ultra settings under the Vulkan API which is standard. Async Compute was enabled for graphics cards that support it while deferred rendering and GPU culling were disabled.

You can read our detailed analysis of GPU Culling and Deferred Rendering graphical settings for Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus here!

Battlefield V

Battlefield 5 brings back the action of the World War 2 shooter genre. Using the latest Frostbite tech, the game does a good job of looking gorgeous in all ways possible. From the open-world environments to the intense and gun-blazing action, this multiplayer and single-player FPS title is one of the best looking Battlefields to date.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Humanity is at war with itself and divided into factions. On one end, we have the pure and on the other, we have the augmented. That is the world where Adam Jensen lives in and this is the world of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. The game uses the next generation Dawn Engine that was made by IO interactive on the foundation of their Glacier 2 engine. The game features support of DirectX 12 API and is one of the most visually intensive titles that taxes the GPU really hard.

Gears 5

The Coalition is back with the Gears of War series, but this time they've dropped the 'of War' so I guess war does change sometimes. Gears 5 is a bit of an interesting one from a release standpoint as it released on Xbox as well as the multiple stores on the PC; Steam as well as the Xbox PC App and Windows Store. Running off the Unreal Engine, the game boasts some seriously impressive visuals which can put even one of the best cards on their feet.

Hitman 2

Hitman 2 is the highly acclaimed sequel to 2016 Hitman which was a redesign and reimaging of the game from the ground up. With a focus on stealth gameplay through various missions, the game once again lets you play as Agent 47 who embarks on a mission to hunt down the mysterious Shadow Client. The game runs on IO's Interactive's Glacier 2 engine which has been updated to deliver amazing visuals and environments on each level while making use of DirectX 12 API.

Metro Exodus

Metro Exodus continues the journey of Artyom through the nuclear wasteland of Russia and its surroundings. This time, you are set over the Metro, going through various regions and different environments. The game is one of the premier titles to feature NVIDIA’s RTX technology and does well in showcasing the ray-tracing effects in all corners.

Assassins Creed: Origins

Assassins Creed Origins is built by the same team that made Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag. They are known for reinventing the design and game philosophy of the Assassins Creed saga and their latest title shows that. Based in Egypt, the open-world action RPG shows its graphics strength in all corners. It uses the AnvilNext 2.0 engine which boosts the draw distance range and delivers a very impressive graphics display.

We tested the game at maxed settings with TAA enabled and 16x AF. Do note that the game is one of the most demanding titles out in the market and as such tweaks and performance issues are being patched out.

Far Cry 5

Far Cry 5 is a standalone successor to its predecessor and takes place in Hope County, a fictional region of Montana. The main story revolves around doomsday cult the Project at Eden’s Gate and its charismatic leader Joseph Seed. It uses a beefed-up Dunia Engine which itself is a modified version of CryEngine from Crytek.

Grand Theft Auto V

GTA V is the most optimized gaming title that has been made for the PC. It’s so optimized, it even runs on my crap GT 840M based laptop with a smooth FPS on a mix of medium/low settings. I mean what???

Aside from being optimized, GTA V is a great game. It was the Game of The Year for 2013. At 1440p Ultra quality, the game gave us smooth frames on all cards tested.

Ghost Recon: Wildlands

Using the new Anvil Next engine that was developed by Ubisoft Montreal, Ghost Recon: Wildlands goes wild and grand with an open-world setting entirely in Bolivia. This game is a tactical third-person shooter which does seem an awful lot similar to Tom Clancy's: The Division. The game looks pretty and the wide-scale region of Bolivia looks lovely at all times (Day/Night Cycle).

The Witcher 3 Game of The Year Edition

Witcher 3 is the greatest fantasy RPG of our time. It has a great story, great gameplay mechanics and gorgeous graphics. This is the only game I actually wanted to get a stable FPS at 4K. With GameWorks disabled, I gave all high-end cards the ability to demonstrate their power.

Middle Earth: Shadow of War

The successor of 2014’s epic, Shadow of Mordor, Shadow of War continues the previous game’s narrative continuing the story of the ranger Talion and the spirit of the elf lord Celebrimbor, who shares Talion’s body, as they forge a new Ring of Power to amass an army to fight against Sauron. The game uses the latest Firebird Engine developed by Monolith Productions and is very intensive even for modern graphics cards.

No graphics card review is complete without evaluating its temperatures and thermal load. Both graphics cards that I tested are using advanced custom cooling solutions that come with silent and performance profiles. The cards were tested with the performance profile to see their full potential. The GALAX GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC features a dual-slot and dual fan design in a compact form factor which is pretty standard of mainstream tier graphics cards.

Note – We tested load with Kombuster which is known as a ‘power virus’ and can permanently damage the hardware. Use such software at your own risk!

I compiled the power consumption results by testing each card under idle and full stress when the card was running games. Each graphics card manufacturer sets a default TDP for the card which can vary from vendor to vendor depending on the extra clocks or board features they plugin on their custom cards. The default TDP for the GTX 1660 SUPER is 125W (Reference) while the cards I tested feature custom PCBs with better power delivery. This puts the TDP of the card around the same level as the GeForce GTX 1060 and GeForce GTX 1660 which was also at 120W.

Also, it's worth noting that the 12nm FFN process from TSMC is a refinement of their 16nm FF node. NVIDIA is cramping even larger amounts of transistors and more cores than their previous cards, making it one of the densest chips built to date. It's likely to consume a lot of power and the results are reflective of that.

The GALAX GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC is a great card for those looking to play gamers at 1080p or even 1440p resolutions. The thing about the 1660 SUPER is that it is just a great card that has no competition at the moment. There are some pretty unique and impressive custom options out in the market but GALAX's version is sweet too.

For a $20 US premium, the graphics card rocks a nice cooler and has the added features such as a non-reference PCB, a factory overclock and a metal backplate. There's also RGB for those who want that extra OOMPH! from their $250 US purchase. GALAX is using the EX OC model as their top-end variant of the GeForce GTX1660 SUPER. You can get the card in either black or white color and either one looks great. The black variant has the whole stealth look which I really like.

As for the card itself, you can't get away much with overclocking since the card is already running at some pretty hefty clock speeds out of the box. The card has a factory shipped clock rate of 1830 MHz but something that put me off was the way AIBs require you to install their proprietary GPU software to unlock higher clock speeds. The 1-click OC feature included on the card requires you to go to GALAX's webpage, download their Xtreme Tuner Plus software and use the software to make your card run faster.

Yes, the card comes with an 1845 MHz clock profile but you can only unlock it through GALAX's Xtreme Tuner Plus application. Now don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with the application itself, it has some intuitive features and lets you control a lot of features on the card itself e.g. RGB, Fan Speed, Temps/Clock monitoring. But AIBs (not just GALAX) could simply add a BIOS switch on their cards or if budget limits them from adding a secondary BIOS on mainstream cards, then simply ship it at the maximum frequency so that users get the rated performance out of the box because there will be many users who would proceed to use the card as it is without tinkering with any tuning software.

With that said, GALAX has a nice and compact option in their GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC. One which offers a solid 1845 MHz clock speed on a stealthy cooler which rocks a beefy heatsink and a solid metal backplate that looks great and delivers some great thermal results. For 1080p gamers, streamers and eSports fans, the GTX 1660 SUPER EX OC from GALAX at $250 US is a serious option and a great mainstream contender to consider!

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