ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition Graphics Card Review

When it comes to enthusiast grades Graphics solutions, ZOTAC needs no introduction as they have been in business for some while now and have been producing high-end to-budget segment graphics cards based on NVIDIA’s GPUs (NVIDIA AIB Partner). Their other line of products includes storage drives and mini PCs. They have sent us ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660Ti, GTX 1660, and GTX 1650 graphics cards for review. This content is based on ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition graphics card.

In our last content, we took a look at the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Amp Edition and found it gives above 30% performance boost over the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB version. Today, we will spin the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition.

This graphics card is a factory overclocked one packing 1408 CUDA Cores with a base clock of 1530MHz and boost clock of 1845MHz. It features 6GB VRAM GDDR6 rated at 4001MHz, having a bus width of 192-bit using 192.1 GB/s bandwidth. The graphics card has 3x Display Ports and 1x HDMI port.

It features ZOTAC’s Icestorm 2.0 cooling solution using 2x 90mm fans and an aluminum-based heatsink wide array with 3x nickel-plated copper heat pipes, each of 6mm thickness. The graphics card has an aggressive, bold, and beautifully designed shroud which sits that well with the wrap-around metallic backplate. There is no LED lighting on this card.

Specifications

Technical Specs	ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition
GPU	TU116
Architecture	Turing
Process Size	12 nm
Transistors	6,600 million
Boost Clock	1785 MHz
CUDA Cores	1408
TMUs	88
ROPs	48
Memory Size	6 GB
Memory Type	GDDR6
Memory Bus	192 bit
Memory Clock	8 Gbps
L2 Cache	1536 KB
TDP	120 W
MSRP	$219

Packaging and Unboxing

The graphics card is shipped inside a cardboard box which is placed inside an exterior paperboard box.

The front side of the main packing box has ZOTAC GAMING tag printed on the top left side. AMP is printed on the top right side. Salient feature highlights are printed on the bottom left side like 6GB GDDR6 Memory, ICE STORM Cooling, Fire Storm application. 1660 is printed on the bottom right side.

The backside of the box is filled with information for the users. GeForce GTX 1660 is printed on the top left side. ZOTAC GAMING is printed on the top right side. There is a picture of the graphics card showing its shroud side followed by the feature highlights of the card like VR Ready, ICESTORM 2.0 cooling, Super compact, etc. The features, system requirements, and specifications are printed below the picture.

Opening the box will show another box with the ZOTAC brand logo printed in the middle.

Opening the inside box will show the contents. The graphics card is packed inside an anti-static bag and there is an envelope having the user guide, warranty guide inside.

Contents

Following is provided inside the box:

• 1x Graphics Card
• 1x Quick Installation Guide
• 1x Driver Pamphlet
• 1x ZOTAC Products Brochure
• 1x Case Badge

Closer Look

It is time to take a closer look at the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition.

The really cool thing about the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 is its design. It is exactly the same design as is of their GeForce GTX 1660Ti Amp edition. In fact, holding both cards in hand would not tell which one is a Ti version and which one is a simple one. I am absolutely in love with this design.

The wraparound idea is what I have been looking for in the cards and ZOTAC was thankfully ahead of the thinking in using the combination of plastic and metal without losing the overall aesthetics yet reducing the weight of the card given the toll it can take on the motherboard’s PCIe slots. The shroud is mimicking the ZOTAC’s brand logo in an aggressive and bold manner.

The outcome is one heck of a beautifully designed shroud finished in a gray color with black color fans blades complimenting the looks. The top and the bottom sides of the shroud itself are identical. Same goes for the left and right sides with an exception that the left side has two cutouts on the top and bottom which are probably for the ventilation.

The center has stepped design with a mere focus on the central portion which is tipped out. Either you start traversing from the bottom to the center or from the top to the center, it is alike.

Cooling Solution

The cooling solution on the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 is named as IceStorm 2.0 and it is nothing new design with potent cooling potential. Let’s take a look at the ingredients of this cooling solution.

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 features 2x 90mm fans which are designed for optimal static pressure and maximum airflow. This card does not have Auto Fan stop as we have been seeing on many recent models.

The blades of the fans are designed such that they have a gap in between each other to maximize airflow.

The main component of the cooling solution is the wide arrange aluminum heatsink. This full body heatsink allows for the maximum heat dissipation. There are two nickel plated copper plates making direct contact with the GPU, VRAM chips and the MOSFETs/VRMs.

ZOTAC was definitely thoughtful of providing adequate cooling to the power delivery circuitry of the graphics card. They also have not forgotten about the adequate cooling of the VRAM chips as the main copper plate is making a contact with these chips with thermal pads in between.

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 packs 3x 6mm nickel plated copper made pipes making direct contact with copper plates. I wish I could open the card to show exactly how this all has been set up but due to restriction at source, I could not do that.

Now that we have looked at the cooling solution, it is time to take a look at the top side of the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp edition. This side shows the wraparound approach of the metallic back plate having vents. These are for proper ventilation. There is a glossy black middle portion with ZOTAC GAMING branding printed in the white color.

There is no LED underneath it. GEFORCE GTX is printed on the right most side of the shroud. Notice the depth of the PCB with respect to the top. There is like 15mm or so gap from the top side to the PCB. This is to accommodate the protruding heatpipes in the middle. I have one complaint here. This particular design makes it a bit inconvenient to connect the power connector to the graphics card.

This side again is showing the all close approach to my liking. The metallic backplate is wraparound to cover half of this side with the rest of the side being covered by the shroud. The top and the bottom sides of the shroud are sharply protruding adding more aggression to the looks. The back plate portion here has vents for proper ventilation and not to deprive the card of the fresh air.

Taking a peek at the bottom side of the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 would show that the PCB is in black color and that there is a gap of approximately 39mm or so between the PCB’s ending side to the shroud of the graphics card. This design is to cater for the wide array aluminum heatsink and to have another 90mm fan. Thermal pads of multiple colors have been used. PCIe connector with golden pins is also visible.

Let’s take a look at the backside of the graphics card. One gets to see the stunning designed gray color metallic backplate having ZOTAC brand logo in silver color below the power connector. LIVE TO GAME tag line is printed towards the other end of the backplate. The backside of the GPU is exposed.

There is no thermal pad between the backside of the PCB and the backplate and a certain gap can be seen. This card has no SLI finger or NVLink as NVIDIA did not provide this feature in RTX 2070 and below in the Turing architecture.

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp edition has a single 8-pin power connector. The card is rated for 130W power and minimum recommended PSU is 450W.

Following connectivity options are available on the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp edition:

• 3x Display Ports 1.4
• 1x HDMI 2.0b

Testing

Following is the information regarding the test system and drivers that I have used to test this graphics card:

• Intel i7 8700k @ 5.0GHz
• Asus Strix Z390-E Gaming Motherboard
• Ballistix Elite 16GB kit @ 3000MHz
• Asus ROG Ryuo 360 CPU Cooler
• HyperX 120GB SSD
• Seagate Barracuda 3.5” 2 TB HDD
• Thermaltake TP RGB 750W Gold PSU

Drivers:

• NVIDIA driver 417.71 for Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060
• NVIDIA driver 411. For other RTX graphics cards
• NVIDIA driver 398.35 for GTX (Pascal) graphics cards
• NVIDIA driver 417.71 for GTX 1080 [Required for Battlefield V]
• NVIDIA driver 430.86 for GTX 1600 Series
• AMD driver Adrenalin 2019 19.4.3 for the RX 570 and RX 580.

Monitoring Software:

MSI Afterburner 4.60 was used to monitor and record the FPS for the games without in-built benchmarks. Three runs per game per API per resolution were made and the average is being shown on the graphs. The tough ordeal for the tester!

Synthetic Benchmarks:

Following synthetic benchmarks have been used:

• 3DMark Fire Strike
• 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme
• 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra
• 3DMark Time Spy
• 3DMark Time Spy Extreme
• Unigine Superposition

Games:

Following games have been benched:

• Ashes of the Singularity [DX11, DX12]
• Battlefield 1 [DX11, DX12]
• Battlefield 2 (DX11, DX12, DXR]
• Metro Last Light Redux [DX11]
• Metro Exodus [DX11, DX12, DXR]
• Assassin’s Creed Origin [DX11]
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider [DX11, DX12]
• Grand Theft Auto – V [DX11]
• Final Fantasy – XV
• Far Cry 5 – [DX11]
• Middle Earth – Shadow of War [DX11]
• The Witcher 3 [DX11]
• DOOM [Vulkan]
• Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus [Vulkan]

Synthetic Benchmarks

In all three Fire Strike benchmarks the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp is sitting between the RX 580 and the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB.

In 3DMark Time Spy and Time Spy Extreme benchmarks, the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp is sitting between the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB and GeForce GTX 1070.

The graph of Unigine Superposition is sorted on the 1080p Extreme preset. On all presets the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp edition is sitting between the GeForce GTX 1070 and GeForce GTX 1060 6GB.

Gaming Benchmarks

Battlefield 1 DX11

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition has a performance boost of approximately 10% over the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB in 1080p gaming.

Battlefield 1 DX12

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition has a performance boost of approximately 17% over the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB in 1080p gaming.

Battlefield V DX11

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition has a performance boost of approximately 14% over the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB in 1080p gaming.

Battlefield V DX12

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition has a performance boost of approximately 15% over the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB in 1080p gaming.

Metro Last Light Redux

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition has a performance boost of approximately 5% only over the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB in 1080p gaming.

Metro Exodus DX11

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition has a performance boost of approximately 16% over the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB in 1080p gaming.

Metro Exodus DX12

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition has a performance boost of approximately 11% over the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB in 1080p gaming.

Ashes of the Singularity DX11

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition has a performance boost of approximately 2% over the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB in 1080p gaming.

Ashes of the Singularity DX12

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition has a performance boost of approximately 6% over the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB in 1080p gaming.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider DX11

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition has a performance boost of approximately 22% over the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB in 1080p gaming.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider DX12

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition has a performance boost of approximately 18% over the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB in 1080p gaming.

Assassin’s Creed Origin DX11

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition has a performance boost of approximately 17% over the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB in 1080p gaming.

DOOM Vulkan

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition has a performance boost of approximately 21% over the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB in 1080p gaming.

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus Vulkan

This game is the very first game to utilize adaptive shading technology. The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition has a performance boost of approximately 22% over the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB in 1080p gaming.

Far Cry 5 DX11

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition has a performance boost of approximately 11% over the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB in 1080p gaming.

Final Fantasy XV

Final Fantasy XV was benched using the game’s dedicated benchmark. FPS were benched from the same benchmark. As this is a new title so I was only able to test it with the available graphics cards. The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition has a performance boost of approximately 12% over the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB in 1080p gaming.

Final Fantasy XV Benchmark

The Final Fantasy XV benchmark outputs the result in terms of the score instead of the FPS. The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition has a performance boost of approximately 13% over the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB in 1080p gaming.

Grand Theft Auto – V DX11

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition has a performance boost of approximately 8% over the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB in 1080p gaming.

Middle Earth: Shadow of War DX11

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition has a performance boost of approximately 14% over the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB in 1080p gaming.

The Witcher 3 DX11

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition has a performance boost of approximately 17% over the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB in 1080p gaming.

In terms of the overall performance, the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 has given a decent performance in 1080p gaming. In a few titles the Sapphire RX 580 Nitro OC took a lead over the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660Amp Edition and the Gigabyte G1 Gaming GeForce GTX 1060 6GB while in most of the games, the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp edition is sitting between the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB and the GeForce GTX 1070.

The average performance boost over the GeForce GTX is approximately 13% over the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB. This might be an upgrade path for the GeForce GTX 960 users but there is no compelling case for the users of the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB. We need to keep in mind that NVIDIA is aiming this graphics card to be an upgrade path for the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB version.

Unfortunately, I could not test the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB version to check the performance difference with respect to it. I don’t see why a user of the GeForce GTX 1070 and GeForce GTX 1070Ti should opt for the GeForce GTX 1660. But it is for sure that if you are looking for a better gaming experience on 1080p without ray tracing but from Turing architecture, the GeForce GTX 1660 makes its case.

VRAM Analysis

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition has 6GB GDDR6 of onboard memory from the Micron (from our sample) running at 4001MHz. Since the games are becoming more and more demanding with every day counting, it was only imperative to test if the 6GB would be enough to drive your gaming requirement on the 1080p and the 1440p resolutions. Since I was at it, I decided to include the 2160p results as well.

All of our games have been tested using the maximum possible graphics settings. It is important to understand that the monitoring software only shows the requested memory from the graphics card at any given time. Either we can show the graph of memory utilization or requested memory (putting it correctly) or mention the maximum amount of the memory that was requested during the benching session of any game. I have opted for the later and my graph is showing the maximum requested memory during that game’s benching session.

Only a few titles were crossing the 6GB cap of this graphics card and even that on 2160p gaming which is beyond the scope of the GeForce GTX 1660 hence it is safe to assume that the 6GB onboard memory would suffice for the titles that I have tested on 1080p and 1440p gaming.

Boost Clocks

Now that we have taken a look at the gaming and synthetic benchmark results along with the VRAM analysis, it is time to take a look at the maximum boost clocks.

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition has boosted to 1935MHz out of the box without any tweaking. The sustained clocks were on average 1905MHz which is quite good.

Overclocking, Power Consumption and Thermals

For overclocking, the MSI Afterburner was used. I started with overclocking the VRAM only without touching the voltage slider and core clock. I was able to push the memory clock by another +900MHz which is good. Any attempt on going further was met with lowered scores clearly indicating that overclocking attempt was futile, even at 100% voltage bump. Finally, I was able to push the Memory to +900MHz and Core clock to +130MHz.

Power Consumption

To measure the power draw, I am taking a different route as HWInfo64 shows the GPU Power and this is exactly what I have been showing on my graphs instead of overall system power draw.

To monitor the idle power draw, the system was left on idle for 30 minutes with closing as many background apps as possible and loading the Balanced Power Profile in the Windows. To monitor the maximum power draw, I am using The Witcher 3 4k run of 30 minutes and then record the reported power draw from the HWInfo64. This way any user can check their graphics card for power consumption easily.

This card, unlike the other RTX graphics cards that I have tested, was not hitting the power target that often. The maximum power target of this card is 111%.

Thermal Performance

I am not using Furmark or any other stress app for thermal performance checking. Instead, the reported temperatures are actually from the gaming session using The Witcher 3 at a 4k resolution for a minimum of 30 minutes. MSI Afterburner is used to record the temperatures during the gaming session. The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition was idling at 37°C. On stock clocks, it maxed to 69°C and with overclocking it maxed to 73°C at 29°C ambient.

Software

Fire Storm is the name of the utility that ZOTAC provides with their graphics cards and this time they have revamped its design making it more user-friendly and simpler and this is what I am appreciating as well. The user can download the application from their website.

The above picture shows the main interface of the application and a quick look alone suffices to tell how effective this new interface is. We have a ZOTAC logo on the top left side. Next, we have a fan circle showing the fan speed in %age. It has Auto, Manual, and Advanced modes.

The advanced mode will allow the user to create a custom fan curve profile based on the requirements. There is no Auto stop function on this card.

The bottom circle on the main interface shows the GPU thermals. ZOTAC GAMING is printed on the bottom left side. The main circle in the center is showing the Core Clock and Memory Clock in MHz. There is a listing of GPU1 up to GPU 4 on the right side of this circle. This allows the user to quickly switch to the respective graphics card in case of using multiple graphics cards. The user can save and load up to 3 profiles for each card.

The rightmost side shows the Advanced options to overclock the graphics card and to increase the power target/voltage. Clicking on the Default button will reset the graphics card’s settings to the factory defaults. Since the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition has no LED lighting hence the Spectra is disabled in the app.

Clicking on the Settings icon will load the new interface. The first option allows the user to monitor the important parameters of the graphics card.

Next, we have various application-related settings.

Information will show the Graphics card’s specifications much like the GPU-Z but in a lesser manner.

I have found the ZOTAC FireStorm application easy to use and without any hiccup. The OC Scanner is a new thing which would determine the optimal possible performance settings in the best manner for the user. Unfortunately, the OC Scanner resulted in an error and did not produce any result.

Conclusion

Well, who could have expected NVIDIA to go all out on their Turing architecture even if that means cutting the very basic variable out of the equation, aka Ray Tracing closely followed by the Tensor Cores? Well, AMD’s rushed-out RX 590 could have given a clue as to what is coming from the other side! The all-new TU116 is a revamped GPU from NVIDIA aimed at bringing balanced performance, power, and cost for gamers of 1080p gaming.

The very nomenclature of GTX is indicative of the fact that there is no dedicated hardware for the RT and Tensor. This is done to bring the sub $300 cost-effective graphics solution yet remaining inside the Turing architecture.

In our previous content, we took a look at the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660Ti Amp edition and found it performing that well for 1080p gaming. Maybe, NVIDIA is trying to fill the spaces in the market with the various SKUs in the same category, making it a challenging proposition for the competition; otherwise, having two SKUs for 1080p gaming may not make sense to many.

Today, I have taken a spin on ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition graphics card based on the very same TU116 SM. This is a factory-overclocked card using a custom PCB. The dimension of the graphics card is 209.6×119.3x41mm (LxHxW), making it a dual-slot design. It is based on TU116 GPU from NVIDIA using 12nm technology with a die size of 284 mm² and packs 6600M transistors.

It has 48 ROP and 88 TMU units with 1408 CUDA Cores or shader units. The pixel fill rate is 88.6 GPixel/s, and the texture fill rate is 162.4 GTexture/s. This card has 6 GB from Micron using GDDR6 with a bus width of 192-bit and a cap at 192.1 GB/s bandwidth. The base clock on this card is 1530MHz, with a boost clock of 1845MHz. The card is designed to fit in over 99% of the systems with a focus on a compact design, and it comes ready for a VR experience.

The design of the graphics card follows a wraparound approach which is what I have been looking for as it gives better and bold aesthetics. The shroud is made of plastic but is quite sturdy, and it is symmetrical from its sides. It mimics ZOTAC’s brand logo in design from all aspects.

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition features their Icestorm 2 cooling solution. It comprises 2x 90mm fans designed for better static pressure and maximum airflow yet remaining at silent levels of the operations. Then there is a wide array of the aluminum-based heatsink, which has more length and height than the PCB.

It has 3x 6mm nickel-coated copper heat pipes making direct contact with the two nickel-plated copper plates. The main copper plate is making contact with the GPU and the VRAM chips. There are thermal pads between the copper plate and the VRAM chips. The ZOTAC was considerate enough to provide a proper cooling solution for the VRMs as well.

The second copper plate is making contact with the VRMs using the thermal pads. The much larger surface area of the wide array heatsink combined with 2x 90mm fans ensures effective heat dissipation.

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition has 3x Display Ports 1.4 and 1x HDMI 2.0b port for the connectivity options and has support for multiple displays. It has a single 8-pin power connector and is rated for 130W power.

There is no LED lighting on this card. I could not check for the power phases as I did not open the card due to restrictions from the source. The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition does not have any SLI finger or NVLink, for that matter, which is a design constraint from NVIDIA. The card supports Vulkan 1.0, DX_12, OpenGL up to 4.5 APIs.

The graphics card was put to the test in 14 games using various APIs and at all three resolutions. Yes, I have even checked the performance on 2160p though NVIDIA is clearly aiming this card only for 1080p gaming, and I can see why. On average, this card has given approximately a 13% performance boost over the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB.

This performance boost is not that significant if you are an owner or user of the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB. Please, keep in mind that NVIDIA is aiming this card as an upgrade path for the users of the GeForce GTX 960 and GeForce GTX 1060 3GB. Unfortunately, I could not test the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB version due to non-availability; otherwise, it would have cleared the picture.

If you already have a GeForce GTX 1070 or GeForce GTX 1070Ti and thinking of changing the card, then my recommendation would be RTX 2060. The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Amp Edition would make its case for the first-time buyer who does not want to break the wallet and would still get comparable performance at 1080p, particularly for the GeForce GTX 960 users.

NVIDIA is at it again, with a more efficient architecture-balanced GPU in terms of performance, power, and cost, delivering performance through GTX 1660 for the 1080p budget users, which outshines the competition, at least from what we have tested; this is definitely a card worth looking at if you are in the market.