Power, Temperature, and Noise - The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Review, Feat. EVGA XC GAMING: Turing Sta

June 2024 ยท 2 minute read

Power, Temperature, and Noise

As always, we'll take a look at power, temperature, and noise of the GTX 1660, though after having seen the GTX 1660 Ti in a similar if not identical design, we aren't expecting anything out of the ordinary. As mentioned earlier, we've seen the XC Black board with the GTX 1660 Ti not too long ago.

Using the same TU116 GPU as the GTX 1660 Ti, the voltages are unsurprisingly the same.

NVIDIA GeForce Video Card Voltages
ModelBoostIdle
GeForce GTX 16601.037V0.656V
GeForce GTX 1660 Ti1.037V0.656V
GeForce RTX 20601.025v0.725v
GeForce GTX 1060 6GB1.043v0.625v

As for clockspeeds, the same broad points from the GTX 1660 Ti review apply. Clocks at +10W TDP and at reference 120W TDP are only slightly altered, and the trend of NVIDIA's conservative boost estimates continues.

GeForce Video Card Average Clockspeeds
GameGTX 1660EVGA
GTX 1660 XC
GTX 1660 TiGTX 1060 6GB
Max Boost Clock

2160MHz

2160MHz

2160MHz

1898MHz

Boost Clock1830MHz1830MHz1770MHz1708MHz
Battlefield 11880MHz1885MHz1888MHz1855MHz
Far Cry 51889MHz1897MHz1903MHz1855MHz
Ashes: Escalation1874MHz1872MHz1871MHz1837MHz
Wolfenstein II1832MHz1861MHz1825MHz1835MHz
Final Fantasy XV1865MHz1869MHz1855MHz1850MHz
GTA V1894MHz1898MHz1901MHz1872MHz
Shadow of War1879MHz1882MHz1860MHz1861MHz
F1 20181880MHz1886MHz1877MHz1865MHz
Total War: Warhammer II1890MHz1893MHz1908MHz1875MHz

Compared to the official average boost clock of the GTX 1660 Ti, the differences are also minor.

Power Consumption

Idle Power Consumption

Load Power Consumption - Battlefield 1

Load Power Consumption - FurMark

Meanwhile when it comes to idle power consumption, the GTX 1660 falls in line with everything else at 83W. With contemporary desktop cards, idle power has reached the point where nothing short of low-level testing can expose what these cards are drawing.

All told, NVIDIA has very good and very consistent power control here. and it remains one of their key advantages over AMD, and key strengths in keeping their OEM customers happy.

Temperature

Idle GPU Temperature

Load GPU Temperature - Battlefield 1

Load GPU Temperature - FurMark

Noise

Idle Noise Levels

Load Noise Levels - Battlefield 1

Load Noise Levels - FurMark

Turning again to EVGA's card, despite being a custom open air design, the GTX 1660 XC Black doesn't come with 0db idle capabilties and features a single smaller but higher-RPM fan. The default fan curve puts the minimum at 33%, which is indicative that EVGA has tuned the card for cooling over acoustics. But the curve is a little more forgiving at higher temperatures, and doesn't ramp up as much, reducing their noise levels significantly from the Ti XC Black.

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