Graphics cards/Comparison
13 specifications
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660
On paper, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 has more shading units. Shading-unit counts are not directly comparable across different architectures, so read that row as context rather than a verdict. Specifications describe what each card is designed to do; how much of that either one holds under continuous load is a separate question.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB
NVIDIA · GeForce GTX 10 · Desktop
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660
NVIDIA · GeForce GTX 16 · Desktop
Compute
Memory
Power and platform
A check marks the higher figure only on rows where higher is unambiguously better. Rows without one are not ties; they are specifications where “better” has no meaning.
Reading the table
What the difference means.
3 years apart
The GTX 1660 (Turing, 2019) is 3 years newer than the GTX 1060 6GB (Pascal, 2016). A newer architecture brings more than speed: newer video encoders and decoders, newer upscaling and frame generation, and a longer run of driver updates ahead of it.
Video memory
Both carry 6 GB, so neither has the advantage where memory is the limit: high resolutions, heavy textures and local AI models fill both at the same point.
Shading units
The counts differ, 1,408 against 1,280, but these are different designs, and a shading unit on one is not the same amount of work as on the other. The row cannot be used to rank this pair.
Board power
Both are rated at 120 W, so they ask the same of a case and a power supply.
What no table says
How much of its speed a graphics card keeps after the first minute depends on the cooling and the power limit of the machine it is in. If you own one of these, measure it: the test is free and runs in this browser.
Questions
- Is the GTX 1060 6GB better than the GTX 1660?
- On the specifications they are closely matched. They are different designs, so the raw counts cannot rank them. Frame rates depend on the game and its settings, and how much speed either card keeps after ten minutes depends on its cooling, which is what a sustained test measures.
- Can the GTX 1060 6GB and the GTX 1660 be compared on these figures alone?
- Only in part. They are different designs, so counts such as shading units do not convert one to one. Running the same sustained graphics test on each machine gives a figure that can be compared directly.
More comparisons
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB vs AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT 4GB
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB vs Intel Arc A580
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 vs AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT 4GB
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 vs Intel Arc A580
Every figure on this table is a design target. None of it is a measurement.
Nothing above describes how a graphics card behaves twenty minutes into a sustained workload, which is where two chips with nearly identical specifications routinely diverge. A boost clock is a ceiling the vendor permits, not a rate the chip sustains, and whether it holds depends on the cooling, the case, the power profile and the room. None of those appear on a specification sheet.
We deliberately do not reduce these figures to a single score. A composite invented from specifications would look authoritative and measure nothing, and choosing the weights would be choosing the winner.