NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q vs GTX 1060 – comfortable win for the Max-Q
Not a while ago there was a graphics card that was the go-to if you want a capable gaming laptop, without destroying your budget. However, one of the latest NVIDIA chips offers you very good performance at a relatively low cost and is easily manageable in terms of temperatures.
You can check out our Top Laptop Graphics Ranking to see these two graphics cards and many more.
Specs overview
The newer competitor of the bunch is built around the 12nm Turing architecture, while the GTX 1060 relies on a 16nm Pascal chip. In terms of CUDA core count, the GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q has 1536, whereas the GTX 1060 has 1280. However, the Turing graphics card works at a lower frequency – 1140-1335 MHz compared to 1404-1670 MHz on the older model. This helps it have a significantly lower TDP – 60W vs 80W.
Either of them is equipped with a 192-bit 6GB VRAM – GDDR6 for the GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q and GDDR5 for the GTX 1060, respectively. Due to the Max-Q design, however, both of them have the same Bandwidth – 192 GB/s.
Benchmarks
Synthetic benchmarks show around 10% advantage in favor of the GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q with the difference going above 20% in the Unigine Superposition benchmark.
Gaming tests
This pattern continues in AAA gaming, with the exception of the Rise of the Tomb Raider, where the difference is negligible.
| Far Cry 5 | Full HD, Normal (Check settings) | Full HD, High (Check settings) | Full HD, Ultra (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q | 88 fps | 81 fps | 76 fps |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 | 73 fps | 68 fps | 63 fps |
| Rise of the Tomb Raider (2016) | Full HD, Medium (Check settings) | Full HD, Very High (Check settings) | Full HD, MAX (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q | 109 fps | 55 fps | 36 fps |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 | 102 fps | 51 fps | 34 fps |
| Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands | Full HD, High (Check settings) | Full HD, Very High (Check settings) | Full HD, Ultra (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q | 70 fps | 61 fps | 40 fps |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 | 61 fps | 53 fps | 35 fps |
Conclusion
Once again the Turing architecture has proven its worth and managed to grasp the win in this showdown. There is no “however” here, though, the GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q is better in every paragraph – performance, heat output and ability to be integrated into a smaller device.
All laptops equipped with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q (6GB GDDR6)
All laptops equipped with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB GDDR5)
Author: Alex Iliev
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I have heard about this graphics card and finally, I came to know about the details for it. But it would be great to get the review of this which will be helpful in choosing whether it is suitable or not.
Well, we don’t really have a dedicated review on the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q, however, you can check our review of the HP Pavilion Gaming 17 2019 ( https://laptopmedia.com/review/hp-pavilion-gaming-17-2019-review-its-cheap-but-is-it-worth-it/ ). It is equipped with this exact graphics card and you can draw some conclusions on thermal efficiency and clock speeds.