Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti Launched for $279- The AMD aftermath

AMD has been good, and that has in turn forced both Intel and Nvidia to be better. Intel was pushing out CPUs that still had four cores (7700k) and pricing was off the roof. And yet, people still bought it, because they did not have an option. This is where AMD came in, disrupting the market (sort of) and forced the mighty blue chip maker to change its strategies. The same thing Nvidia saw itself face, and out came the GTX 1660Ti.

For starters, the AMD being good was a bit of an exaggeration. Sure they won the hearts of many tech enthusiasts, but that’s probably more for their own benefit. Either way, consumers are happier than ever and that’s what matters. I mean, there is a lot of room for improvement, but at least something is better than nothing. Take a look at the full specifications of the GPU first:

Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti Graphics Card Specifications:

GPU Engine Specs
NVIDIA CUDA® Cores	1536
Giga Rays/s	N/A
Boost Clock (MHz)	1770
Base Clock (MHz)	1500
Memory Specs
Memory Speed	6000
Standard Memory Config	6GB GDDR6
Memory Interface Width	192-bit
Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec)	288
Technology Support
Real-Time Ray Tracing	No
NVIDIA® GeForce Experience	Yes
NVIDIA® Ansel	Yes
NVIDIA® Highlights	Yes
NVIDIA® G-SYNC™ Compatible	Yes
Game Ready Drivers	Yes
Microsoft® DirectX® 12 API, Vulkan API, OpenGL 4/5	Yes
DisplayPort 1.4a, HDMI 2.0b	Yes
HDCP 2.2	Yes
NVIDIA® GPU Boost™	Yes
VR Ready	Yes
Designed for USB Type-C™ and VirtualLink™	No
Display Support
Maximum Digital Resolution	7680×4320 @ 120Hz
Standard Display Connectors	DP 1.4a, HDMI 2.0b, DL-DVI-D
Multi-Monitor	Yes
HDCP	Yes
Graphics Card Dimensions
Height	4.37″
Length	5.7″
Width	2-slot
Thermal and Power Specs
Maximum GPU Temperature (in C)	95
Graphics Card Power (W)	120
Recommended System Power (W)	450
Supplementary Power Connectors	8-pin

So, GTX 1660Ti is a good GPU, putting it into context, it’s a full 1.5x better than the GTX 1060 and matches the performance of our GTX 1070. Safe to assume this is the card everyone was expecting for. A no-nonsense GPU that you paid the minimum for, or in other sense value for money GPU, a high fps per dollar proposition, the best budget GPU if you will, something the RTX 2060 wasn’t.

As for its major rival AMD, they bought down the price of their Vega 56 to $279. Now, that’s a much much better GPU than the GTX 1660Ti, but it was short-lived. More of a publicity stunt from AMD to sabotage Nvidia’s offering. The $279 Vega 56 is no longer available for purchase, and yet it made a few headlines. Even the $260 RX 590 falls shy in comparison to the 1660Ti, so, this is the most GPU you can buy for $279, at least for now.