We have played with a lot of cards over the years and the RoG STRIX GTX 1660Ti 06G is easily in the top five for enjoyment. With a decent factory overclock ‘out of the box’ it delivers surprisingly good performance; however, buying this card and running at factory settings is not what it was meant for. Instead, everything from its upsized heatsink to its rather potent fans to its extremely robust (for its class) power delivery subsystem cries out for taking it on an overclocking adventure.
This is where this card distinguishes itself from the average GTX 1660Ti. If you are looking for a GTX 1660Ti class card that can take anything you can throw at it, and urge you on to even greater heights this is the card you should be looking at. Equally impressive is that it is perfect for the novice wanting to get their feet wet in manual overclocking – as it is incredibly mild mannered and very forgiving.
For those not interested in going all the way past insane and into plaid overclocking territory there is still a lot to be said about opting for this card over the competition. First and foremost are those three fans combined with a heatsink bigger than we have seen on higher TDP cards is a winning combination. Under typical loads at factory frequency settings this card is whisper quiet. The only minor disappointment is in order to get truly silent noise levels you do have to place it in quiet mode and give up a smidgen of performance. Not much, but it would have been nice to have seen 0Dba results while idling in ‘performance mode’.
To us, there really are only two issues that will remove it from contention for some potential buyers. Firstly, is the asking price. At $330 USD it is edging awfully close into RTX 2060 territory (which start at about $50 more). An RTX 2060 will offer even more performance, come with uber-fast GDDR6 RAM… and be even better at higher resolutions. However, unless you are willing to move up past the magic $400 price point most are also going to be louder, less over-clocking friendly, and generally not as fun to play with. This is also a rather large step up in the budget, and for many even $50 more is a bridge too far. So, ‘(somewhat) near RTX 2060 price’ or not the ASUS RoG STRIX GTX 1660Ti O6G does make a great argument in its favor – it just is not going to be optimal for everyone.
To us the real issue is the size of this card. Yes, this card is as big as some GTX 1070s we own. It is even bigger than some GTX 1080Ti’s we own. That is the tradeoff you have to be willing to make when you opt for this card over smaller GTX 1660Ti variants: loss of some case compatibility in return for incredible performance.
Those are the pros and cons of the ASUS RoG STRIX GTX 1660Ti O6G. However, if we were to summarize our opinion of the ASUS RoG STRIX GTX 1660Ti O6G in one word that word would be value. For an extra twenty or thirty dollars over the cost of a decent NVIDIA GTX 1660Ti, buyers are getting a GTX 1660Ti card that makes a lot of NVIDIA GTX 1660Ti cards look over-priced in comparison. Put another way, if you are looking for a 1080P or 1440P card that is a good value, but does not care about Ray Tracing and can afford the asking price, this card demands to be on your short list of cards for further consideration. With its release, buyers need not bother looking for ‘gently used’ GTX 1070s anymore. This card is the better value… lower CUDA core count or not.
The Review
ASUS RoG STRIX GTX 1660Ti
We have played with a lot of cards over the years and the RoG STRIX GTX 1660Ti 06G is easily in the top five for enjoyment. With a decent factory overclock ‘out of the box’ it delivers surprisingly good performance; however, buying this card and running at factory settings is not what it was meant for. Instead, everything from its upsized heatsink to its rather potent fans to its extremely robust (for its class) power delivery subsystem cries out for taking it on an overclocking adventure.
