You May Remember Me (Under-performing gtx 1660) :: Hardware and Operating Systems

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Tofu Mar 4, 2020 @ 3:20pm

You May Remember Me (Under-performing gtx 1660)

Hi All,

I recently posted about buying a friend a used gtx 1660 6gb that was going cheap ($130/€115/£100) to upgrade his gtx 1060 3gb. I was concerned because not only did we find no improvement on fps, but it was actually performing worse than his 3gb 1060. Just to remind you, here are his specs:

i5 7500 3.4GHz
Asus H110M-R
8gb DDR4 2400MHz in single channel
Aerocool Integrator 500w psu

Here's the UPDATE!

I took on board many of your comments and suggestions, such as it could be bottlenecked by the cpu, it could be his bad ram, it could be not getting enough power from the psu etc. So I took my 2070 super out and installed the 1660 in my own rig, to do some further testing where none of those factors should be an issue. My specs are as follows:
i5 9600k 3.7GHz
MSI Z390-A Pro
16gb DDR4 3200MHz dual channel
Corsair RM850w psu

The only problem, is that the 1660 is still waaaaaay under performing.

Following your suggestions, this is what I did:

1. Use DDU in safe mode to remove all old drivers
2. Install 1660
3. Custom install the latest 1660 driver/PhysX and no other nonsense
4. Checked GPU-Z which reported the card correctly as a 6gb 1660 (I am 99% sure the card is legit), PCIe x16 3.0, correct base clock of 1530mhz and boost clock of 1785mhz
5. Checked Afterburner which reported the same clock speeds, and showing correct idle voltage of 0.775, running at 35c idle
6. Proceeded to benchmark various games and directly compare to his 1060 3gb (in his lower spec rig), using all the same in-game graphic settings as him.

These included:
- Heaven Unigene benchmark, 1080p ultra settings. His 1060 3gb scored average of 60fps, the 1660 in my 9600k rig scored average of 49fps.
- GTA V using the same very high settings, walking a lap around my bunker next to each other. He had an average of 85fps. I had average of 75fps.
- Rust, using same low-mid graphic settings, running along the beach next to each other. His 1060 3gb was getting 95fps average, I was getting 90fps average with the 1660.

This trend continued in everything we tried. I was monitoring usage/voltage/temps using CPUID HWMonitor for each game and there are a couple of things to note. Clock speeds = normal. Voltage = normal. CPU usage = normal. HOWEVER, despite all this, the 1660 power usage is always at 80% when idle and 100% under load. ALSO, the idle temperature is normal, however under load the temperature is not going above 50c. From my research it should be reaching 70c+ under load, so for some reason it seems to be staying very cool despite it's constant high usage. I don't know if these 2 factors are normal or not, but it surprised me in comparison to my 2070 super which when idle is always less than 20% power usage.

I have taken pictures of my monitoring and results, but didn't want to spend ages uploading them all, so let me know if any of them would be particularly useful.

Hopefully these updated results and tests might shed some light on what the problem is, as I would be expecting this card to be at least 20% fps boost in comparison to the 1060 3gb. This is the last post I make on this before I just cut my losses and sell it as under-performing on eBay!

Thanks in advance!

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Showing 1-15 of 23 comments

emoticorpse Mar 4, 2020 @ 3:42pm

Seems like it's a problematic card for whatever reason. Can't you try the warranty? or is it completely void because of how you got it?

Bad 💀 Motha Mar 4, 2020 @ 3:46pm

Crap psu and not enough ram.

emoticorpse Mar 4, 2020 @ 3:49pm

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:
Crap psu and not enough ram.

He tried it in a low spec computer and his own with higher specs, not sure if you read that part.

Snow Mar 4, 2020 @ 3:49pm

Whenever graphics card is not close to 100% usage - it's being bottlenecked by CPU. This is especially the case for GTAV - the game has way more on-screen objects than it should have, this with almost any rig CPU will bottleneck. Try settings grass, draw distance and population to minimum, see if that makes a difference.

russy23 Mar 4, 2020 @ 3:49pm

Maybe it is a dodgy card flashed with the 1660 bios..just throwing it out there

Bad 💀 Motha Mar 4, 2020 @ 3:51pm

Originally posted by emoticorpse:
Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:
Crap psu and not enough ram.

He tried it in a low spec computer and his own with higher specs, not sure if you read that part.

Regardless of the gpu, my reply still stands as what needs to change.

Probably a crap gpu, return it, try a different model.

[☥] - CJ - Mar 4, 2020 @ 4:13pm

Well...
Could always try BIOS flashing it i suppose...

Waldherz Mar 4, 2020 @ 6:58pm

You guys clearly didnt ready any of what OP said....

To OP: Whatever you do, try to send thaz card back and get a replacement.
This does sound more like a card specific issue than something with you, your system and your usage of the system.
Definitely RMA that card.

hawkeye Mar 4, 2020 @ 9:19pm

It appears to be the card. Little wonder it was cheap.

What you can do is run a benchmark like Passmark and compare the result against its database.

https://www.passmark.com/products/performancetest/index.php

https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeForce+GTX+1660&id=4062

Last edited by hawkeye; Mar 4, 2020 @ 9:20pm

Tofu Mar 4, 2020 @ 9:36pm

Just woke up, thanks for all your replies. To be honest, I’m quite pleased to hear most of you say it’s a card issue, because I just couldn’t think of anything else that I’ve been doing wrong. Pretty new to pc building and was just trying to help a friend out with a little upgrade. I won’t be able to return it, I messaged the seller and he replied ‘it worked fine when I tested it’, which implies he bought it from someone else and probably just plugged it in to check it had a display before moving it along. Paid bank transfer, not PayPal, which was a risk that hasn’t paid off on this occasion. eBay it is!!!

#10

CursedPanther Mar 4, 2020 @ 9:44pm

Apparently the original owner was selling it for a reason and now you finally get it.

This is why I never buy used hardware.

#11

Tofu Mar 4, 2020 @ 10:18pm

Originally posted by CursedPanther:
Apparently the original owner was selling it for a reason and now you finally get it.

This is why I never buy used hardware.

This is true, but while I won’t stop buying used hardware for friends or re-selling, a lesson has definitely been learned and that’s to use PayPal for anything that could potentially have an issue not seen by the naked eye.

#12