Nvidia May Be Working on GTX 1660 Ti Positioned Between GTX 1060, RTX 2060

A few weeks ago, we covered rumors that Nvidia would launch either a GTX 1160 or a GTX 1660 Ti as a non-RTX, Turing-based follow-up to its current high-end family of GPUs. We’re hearing more rumors about the 1660 Ti version of that part, with new data suggesting it’ll drop into space below the RTX 2060, possibly as a GTX 1060 direct replacement.

We’d expect memory bandwidth to be much closer to the RTX 2060 than the GTX 1060 given the expected 192-bit memory bus. The listed $209 price for the GTX 1060 reflects the current cost of 6GB cards; we’d expect the GTX 1660 Ti to debut at ~$249 if Nvidia intends to establish it as the major midrange replacement for the 1060.

If the TU116 is Nvidia’s RTX-less GPU for the midrange segment, we’d expect to see the company deploy it in at least one other configuration, similar to how the GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti both share a design. Typically we’d expect Nvidia to release at least one more low-end GPU custom-built for the entry-level market rather than attempting to cover the entire $100 – $249 segment with a single chip — it’s much easier to deliver lower power consumption and better performance/watt by building a new core rather than simply disabling pieces of an existing design.

There’s still no word on when the GTX 1660 Ti might launch, but Nvidia has reportedly nearly finished selling off its Pascal inventory overage. Once that’s finished, there’s nothing keeping the company from completing its top-to-bottom overhaul and bringing new cards to market. Assuming these plans are true, it will be interesting to see how consumers respond to a hypothetical GTX 1660 Ti with lower maximum performance but a more typical mainstream price against the RTX 2060, which added ray tracing support and features like DLSS, but also effectively increased Nvidia’s pricing at the same model number. The 1660 Ti versus RTX 2060 would offer an opportunity to test which type of product consumers prefer.

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