Review on ASUS GeForce GTX 1660 6144Mb Dual EVO (DUAL-GTX1660-6G-EVO)
4 min readA new generation of NVIDIA graphics cards called Turing has given people RTX technology (ray tracing, in common people just rays). Many, watching the first promo videos with this technology, drooled in anticipation of the release of new video cards. In fact, everything turned out to be not so smooth: RTX requires a lot of resources, significantly reduces performance even on high-end cards, and in general does not leave the feeling that this technology is still raw. I am sure that in the future it will be impossible to imagine how we lived before without ray tracing technology, but not now.
Therefore, as a temporary option, I chose a video card without RTX technology – GTX 1660. In fact, this is the same legendary 1060 with 6 GB of memory, but it has 10% more CUDA cores and texture units (TMU). Also, the volume of caches has grown significantly, providing greater Turing architecture performance compared to Pascal ceteris paribus. In addition, the GTX 1660 due to the reduction of the process technology to 12 nm, the power consumption has not changed compared to the GTX 1060 and is still the same 120 watts. The price also dropped, which is not surprising: despite the general superiority of the GTX 1660, 3 years have passed since the release of the GTX 1060.
Out of the whole variety of models of the GTX 1660 series video cards, I opted for the ASUS 6144Mb Dual EVO (DUAL-GTX1660-6G-EVO). This is a generally budget video card, however, which has several positive distinctive features: an aluminum backplate, a massive radiator with almost 3 slots and cooling of the video memory.
Looking at a video card from ASUS, the first thing that catches your eye is its thickness, which reaches 5.3 cm. Given a TDP of 120 W, I personally have no doubt that the card came out generally quiet. Otherwise, we can say that this is an ordinary product of this type with a plastic casing without any frills and the presence of a pair of fans.
This model is delivered in a cardboard box with high-quality printing. The package size is generally small, no pens.
At the back there is an image of a video card in different angles, as well as a scheme of video outputs. It’s nice that this model has all the necessary connectors. Yes, there is no D-sub, but let’s face it – this connector is already hopelessly outdated.
On each side of the box there are transparent round stickers that serve as seals. Not bad that the manufacturer took care of the buyers. Ideally, the name of the company ASUS could be put on them, but this is more likely a nit-picking.
The package includes only the video card itself, a disk with drivers and utilities, as well as a quick installation guide. The most poor equipment, but if you look the truth, I don’t need anything else.
Installing a video card is not the most difficult procedure: just insert it into the PCI-E slot and fix it with two screws (you can use one). Then connect the 8 pin cable from the power supply to the appropriate connector.
If you look into the gap between the cooling system and the printed circuit board, you can see the video memory modules in contact with the main radiator using gray thermal pads. The fact that the video memory received cooling certainly can not but rejoice.
But the manufacturer regretted the radiator on the area of power elements. If we take the Dual EVO model, but already 1660 Ti – this radiator is present there. The most interesting thing is that at the time of writing the review on the ASUS website in the gallery section of the model in question (DUAL-GTX1660-6G-EVO) you can see a photo with a radiator in the power zone. I submitted an official request to ASUS, asked not to mislead people, so at the time of the review there is a chance that everything will already be fixed.
Axial-tech fans are used to cool the model in question, which start only when the GPU reaches a temperature of 55 degrees. Of the distinguishing features, a restrictor ring can be distinguished, making the blades stronger, and the air flow created by them is stronger. In fact, without this ring the blades would probably not have broken, but marketing is marketing.
If everything is clear with the performance of the GTX 1660 (there are a lot of different reviews), then specifically with the DUAL-GTX1660-6G-EVO model, everything is not so simple. First of all, it is necessary to say a few words about cooling. The video card from ASUS turned out to be “cold”, after an hour in a stress test the temperature of the GPU never rose above 63 degrees. At the same time, the fans worked at a speed of about 1,500 rpm, without creating noise (yes there was slight rustling, but nothing more). The frequency of the GPU in Boost mode has reached and fixed at 1905 MHz. As a result, this video card made a great impression. Its only minus is the lack of a radiator in the area of power elements. Nevertheless – it can be safely recommended for purchase.
The article is written on the basis of materials of this site.
About Post Author
