I recently compared the Nvidia GTX 1660 with the older 1060 6GB, and as the 1060 is notably
close in performance to AMD’s RX 580 I figured I’d also look at the differences between
the 1660 and AMD’s RX 580 as I’ve got the data available. In this video I’ll test
out and compare 16 different games at 1080p and 1440p resolutions to help you see the
performance difference between them, and find out which is better value for money.
I want to start off by noting that obviously we’re expecting the 1660 to come out ahead,
it’s a more powerful option and costs more money as a result, this isn’t meant to be
a fair comparison, I’m just interested in the differences between the two and interested
to see if it’s worth upgrading from a 580, or to otherwise see which you should pick
buying new today. It would have been great to compare with a 590 too, but I don’t currently
own one.
Let’s quickly take a look at how these two cards differ in terms of specs, note that
things like Cuda cores and stream processors are not directly comparable, even clock speeds
aren’t too comparable here given both are different architectures. Something to take
note of though is that the 1660 has 6GB of GDDR5 memory, while the 580 has 8GB, so we
may see that additional memory come in use at higher resolutions with higher settings
in some titles. The 580 is also available in the lower tier 4GB model, however we’re
not looking at that here.
For the testing I’m using the MSI GTX 1660 Gaming X and Gigabyte Radeon RX 580 Gaming
graphics cards, and while both were tested with out of the box settings the MSI card
is from the higher end of what’s available on the 1660 side, so expect slightly different
results with different models.
The system that I’m testing with has an Intel i7-8700K CPU overclocked to 5.0GHz in
an MSI Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon motherboard, along with 16GB of T-Force Night Hawk CL16
memory from Team Group running at DDR4-3200 in dual channel. Check the links in the description
for details on all of the components as well as for up to date pricing. The same Windows
updates and game updates were used, and Nvidia 419.35 drivers were used for the 1660 while
Adrenaline 19.3.2 drivers were used for the 580, the newest from both Nvidia and AMD at
the time of testing, so let’s get into the results.
Let’s start out Apex Legends, which was tested with all settings maxed out. In all
upcoming graphs I’ve got the GTX 1660 shown by the top bar in green, while the RX 580
is underneath in the red bar, while the two different resolutions, 1080p and 1440p are
shown on the left. In terms of average FPS the 1660 was 10% ahead of the 580 at 1080p,
though this lowers to just a 7% lead at 1440p.
Battlefield 5 was tested in campaign mode rather than multiplayer, as it’s easier
to consistently reproduce the test run. I found both cards to deliver a playable experience
with high settings, with the 1660 just 2.9% ahead at 1080p and 3.6% ahead at 1440p. Despite
the 1660 coming out slightly ahead in terms of average frame rate, it’s worth noting
the massive boosts I was seeing to 1% low with the 580 here, 28% higher at 1080p and
about the same at 1440p.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was tested with the built in benchmark using high settings,
and the 1660 was coming out ahead here, almost 11% faster in terms of average frame rate
over the 580 at 1080p, rising up to a 13% improvement at 1440p.
Strange Brigade was tested with the built in benchmark using Vulkan with Async compute
enabled maxed out at ultra settings. This was an interesting result, while I expected
the 580 to do well with Vulkan, I didn’t expect the results to be this close. In terms
of average FPS, the 1660 was only 2% ahead at 1080p, while at 1440p the 580 is actually
in front, 1% faster than the 1660. The 1% lows were still higher from the 1660 at both
resolutions, but I still thought the 580 was putting up a good fight here.
Far Cry New Dawn was tested using the built in benchmark with high settings, and the 1660
was ahead in all regards this time. At 1080p we’re looking at almost a 13% improvement
to average frame rate, lowering slightly to 11% at 1440p.
Far Cry 5 was also tested using the built in benchmark with high settings, and this
game was seeing higher FPS over the newer Far Cry New Dawn just shown. In this test
the 1660 was 16% ahead of the 580 at 1080p, rising slightly to 17% at 1440p.
Fortnite was tested using the replay feature with the exact same replay on both graphics
cards. While I thought the game ran fine even at 1440p on either card even with high settings
in use, the 1660 was a fair bit ahead here, with 25% higher average FPS at both 1080p
and 1440p, the largest difference out of all 16 games tested, though despite this at 1080p
the 1% low from the 580 was actually slightly ahead of the 1660.
Metro Exodus was tested with the built in benchmark at high settings. The actual game
performs a fair bit ahead of this, so this is more of a synthetic test rather than representative
of actual game play, but it does allow me to accurately compare between the two graphics
cards. With that in mind, the 1660 was 11.6% ahead of the 580 at 1080p, however the gap
lowers at 1440p with the 1660 with just a 7% lead.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was also tested using the built in benchmark with high settings.
At 1080p the GTX 1660 was 13.4% ahead of the 580, but again at 1440p this game saw the
gap narrow, with the 1660 scoring 8.5% higher average frame rates.
Rainbow Six Siege was tested using the built in benchmark at high settings, with a 50%
render scale and T-AA in use as these are default with the built in presets. In general
I’ve found this game to prefer Nvidia’s Turing architecture over Pascal, however the
580 is performing quite well here, seeing nice improvements over the 1060 6GB I’ve
previously compared against. With that said though, the 1660 was still 16% ahead of the
580 at 1080p and 15% ahead at 1440p.
CS:GO was tested with the Ulletical FPS benchmark, and both cards were delivering very high frame
rates as usual, although at 1080p there was almost no difference between the two in terms
of average frame rate, however the 1660 was 25% ahead of the 580 when it came to 1% low.
Things change a bit at 1440p, with the 1660 now further ahead with a 10% higher average
frame rate though still a large 23.5% better 1% low.
Overwatch was tested in the practice range as I can easily perform the same test run
compared to playing with bots or other players which will differ every time. Both of these
cards were capable of providing a great experience at 1440p even with ultra settings in use,
as it is a well optimized game. In terms of the differences at 1080p the 1660 was 19.6%
ahead of the 580, with a larger 23% boost to 1% low, then at 1440p this lowers slightly
to the 1660 being 16% ahead of the 580, with a larger 25% improvement to the 1% low, which
was only just behind the average FPS from the 580.
PUBG was tested using the replay feature with the exact same replay at high settings, and
the 1660 was a fair bit ahead in this game, 24.5% faster than the 580 at 1080p and 19%
at 1440p, so another game where the gap starts to narrow as we step the resolution up. The
1% lows were also a fair bit better from the 1660, particularly at 1080p where it wasn’t
too far below the average from the 580.
Watch Dogs 2 is a resource intensive game and was tested with high settings. In my opinion
this one doesn’t need a high frame rate to play, I can get by with a solid 30 FPS,
so both cards were giving me a playable experience at 1440p. As for the differences, at 1080p
the 1660 was 15.7% ahead of the 580, with a much larger 34% increase seen to 1% low.
At 1440p the 1660 is now 19.5% ahead of the 580, with even the 1% low from the 1660 now
ahead of the average FPS from the 580 putting it 36.7% ahead in that regard.
Ghost Recon was tested with the built in benchmark and high settings in use, and is another resource
heavy game. At 1080p the 1660 was 16.4% ahead in average frame rate, rising a little at
1440p to a 17.2% lead. In this game the 1% lows from the 1660 weren’t really that far
below the average frame rates from the 580, so this game would appear to be favouring
the Nvidia graphics.
The Witcher 3 was tested with Hairworks disabled, and like most other games was playable at
both 1080p and 1440p even with high settings in use, with the 580 just able to maintain
above 60 FPS. At 1080p the 1660 was 20% ahead of the 580, and 17% ahead at 1440p. The 1%
lows were interesting though, where the 580 was ahead of the 1660 by 4.6%, and they were
pretty much the same at 1440p.
In terms of overall improvement, over all 16 games tested with a 1080p resolution on
average the GTX 1660 was performing 13.6% better when compared with the RX 580 in terms
of average FPS.
Stepping up to the 1440p resolution in the same tests sees the gap lower just slightly,
with the GTX 1660 now 12.9% ahead of the RX 580 on average. As mentioned earlier, I suspected
that the 580 may start performing better in some titles at higher settings as it’s got
that extra 2gb of memory available. That may become more beneficial in the future, but
it’s honestly hard to predict, you may replace the graphics card before 8gb becomes a common
requirement.
Here’s what we’re looking at in terms of synthetic benchmarks, I’ve just tested
3DMark’s Firestrike, Timespy and VRMark here, with the 580 managing to pull ahead
in Fire Strike.
Now for the final difference, the price. I suggest checking updated prices using the
links in the description, as prices will change over time. At the time of recording, in the
US my MSI Gaming X 1660 is going for $250 USD, however entry level 1660s start at $219
USD. The Gigabyte RX 580 I’m using currently goes for around $200 USD, although there are
other models for the $190 mark at the moment. Comparing the prices between what I’ve used
here, my 1660 cost 25% more for around 13% more performance, although if we use the lower
end $190 and $220 values it’s more like a 15% extra cost for 13% extra performance,
which seems more reasonable, though that’s just approximate as I expect the cheaper cards
will perform a little differently.
In the context of an entire system the percentage difference would of course become much lower,
as the graphics is just one component in the scheme of things. Personally I don’t think
I’d have much issue picking either of these, they seem like decent options for the money
so I think it comes down to what level of performance you’re after as to whether or
not the extra $30-50 is worth spending on the 1660.
If you’ve already got an RX 580 8GB is it worth upgrading to the 1660? I think it depends
on the game, but in general not really as you’re only getting a 13% improvement on
average, personally I’d want my upgrade to count for more, it’s not like the 580
is outdated by any means. Given the 1660 is still somewhat new it will probably be harder
to find on the second hand market at the moment, but that will change over time. As the 580
has been around for a while now it may be possible to find some even better deals in
that space, so worth checking out if you’re on a budget.
Let me know which card you’d pick down in the comments and why, the Nvidia GTX 1660
or AMD’s RX 580, and if you’re new here don’t forget to subscribe for more comparisons
and tech videos like this one.