With the GeForce GTX 1660, NVIDIA is clearly attacking AMD's Radeon RX 590 offering. The GTX 1660 is based on the same TU116 graphics processor we saw on the GTX 1660 Ti not too long ago. Besides shader count and clock frequencies, the biggest difference between both cards is certainly that the GTX 1660 uses GDDR5 memory, while the GTX 1660 Ti uses GDDR6. Unlike other GeForce RTX "Turing" GPUs, TU116 does not feature acceleration for RTX real-time raytracing or DLSS because the specialized hardware consumes a significant portion of the die area on other Turing GPUs, which increases manufacturing cost significantly. NVIDIA did keep the other improvements of Turing, though, like larger caches, concurrent execution of float and integer operations, and adaptive/variable rate shading.

As a result, when averaged over all our gaming benchmarks at 1080p, we see the MSI GTX 1660 Ventus XS beat AMD's Radeon RX 590 by a solid 9% margin. The GeForce GTX 1660 Ti and last generation's GTX 1070 are 12% faster. With 20% higher performance than the GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB at slightly higher pricing, the GTX 1660 is in a position to conclusively replace the GTX 1060 6 GB. MSI gave their card a mild overclock out of the box, to 1830 MHz rated boost, or +45 MHz. Compared to other GTX 1660 cards out there, this OC sits roughly in the middle of the pack. The highest-clocked GTX 1660s are running 1875 MHz—not that much more. This overclock of course also beats the "no OC" (reference) clocks we see on the majority of MSRP-priced GTX 1660s. With these performance results, the GTX 1660 is a good choice for gamers running high details with a 1080p Full HD monitor. Compared to the GTX 1660 Ti, you do have to sacrifice a few settings to reach 60 FPS, but you'll save good money while doing so.

MSI's cooler is a cost-optimized design, which becomes evident when looking at temperatures and noise levels. With 76°C, the card runs warmer than all the other GTX 1660 cards we've tested so far. These temperatures are perfectly safe of course, but it's still a significant difference to other models. To achieve these temperatures, the cooler hard to work fairly hard, which is reflect in noise levels, too. With 36 dBA, the card is not noisy, but definitely noticeable when fully loaded. Other GTX 1660 custom variants do better here, but most of them have bigger coolers and cost more. Still, these noise levels are much better than most cards using AMD GPUs. Unfortunately, MSI didn't include the highly popular idle-fan-off feature that turns the fans off completely during idle, Internet browsing, or light gaming. Nevertheless, even with the fans running, the card will barely be audible in idle. It's great to see that MSI managed to squeeze in a backplate on this MSRP-priced card, which not only improves looks, but also helps protect the card against damage. The backplate is made from plastic, though, which some might dismiss as low quality. I actually like the idea of at least having a plastic backplate, which costs much less than a metal backplate. The thermal implications are negligible, especially on a card in this performance class.

Compared to Pascal, Turing improved power efficiency once more, and the GTX 1660 is no exception. MSI's GTX 1660 uses only 116 W during gaming, which is even more impressive when you consider how much gaming performance the card has. Even compared to the latest Turing RTX GPUs, the GTX 1660 achieves 10% better performance per watt. Against AMD's Radeon RX 590, which was just recently released and uses a 12 nm production process as well, the GTX 1660 is 2.5x more power-efficient; that's 250%!

Some forums users claim that cards priced at MSRP don't overclock well, either due to lower component quality or because of binning which puts better overclocking GPUs on more expensive SKUs. This definitely isn't the case for the MSI Ventus XS. With 2086 MHz average GPU frequency after overclocking, it sits right in the middle of the six GTX 1660 cards we've reviewed so far. Manual overclocking yielded over 15% additional performance—pretty substantial. Unfortunately, MSI has locked the power limit on their card to 130 W; additional manual increases are not available.

The lack of ray-tracing and DLSS on GTX 1660 and GTX 1660 Ti seems like a big deal at first, especially considering how much NVIDIA is promoting those technologies. While both are extremely promising, they are not the most important things to have right now, especially in a market where every dollar matters. While I have no doubt that RTX support will be growing vastly, only a few titles support it at this time, so I don't think anyone could be blamed for skipping the tech for now, waiting for it to mature. Looking at silicon economics, including RTX/DLSS would have either driven die size (= cost) so high that reaching the targeted price point wouldn't be possible anymore, or the number of shader cores would have had to be reduced, which would have resulted in no performance improvement over AMD—NVIDIA went the other route. "RTX" is actually a great vehicle for NVIDIA to sell a feature that is more than just "higher FPS". This card specifically targets people who are comfortable with 1080p 60 FPS and won't mind even playing at lower details as long as their GPU is affordable. If, however, they feel they miss out on visuals, something DX12 couldn't achieve, they might be tempted to spend more and go for the RTX 2060, for example. The next step for NVIDIA is transitioning to the 7 nm production process, which increases density and should allow smaller GPUs to have RTX, too.

Priced at $220, the MSI GTX 1660 Ventus XS comes with no price increase over the NVIDIA MSRP, making it one of the most affordable and feature complete GTX 1660 cards we have tested so far. Unlike most of the competition, these $220 get you a factory overclock and a backplate. If you are willing to overlook the slightly increased noise levels and rather want to focus on cost, the MSI Ventus XS should definitely be on your list. AMD's Radeon RX 590 will be a tough sale now with the GTX 1660 on the market. The GTX 1660 is faster, cooler, quieter, and cheaper. The only win for the RX 590 is that it comes with a strong three-game bundle, which could offset your cost significantly. NVIDIA doesn't bundle any games with the GTX 1660. I have no doubt that AMD will quickly adjust their pricing to address these changed market conditions. Radeon RX 570 and RX 580 have already seen price drops, down to $130 and $170, respectively. Especially the RX 570 is now at a price point so low many people are going to willingly to overlook its shortcomings in performance and noise, and the two out of three game bundle will help, too.