NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER vs AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT

GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER vs Radeon RX 6500 XT compared

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 and the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT are the best budget gaming GPUs from team green and team red. But which performs the best for the money. In terms of pricing, these two cards are very close, so making a purchase decision will depend on features and performance.

AMD is no stranger to budget GPUs, they've dominated this space for years, with NVIDIA focusing on the high-end line-up. However, the status quo may be shifting with the 1660 SUPER. It is a GTX series card with no raytracing features, but with a comparable level of performance to the older but still capable RTX 2060. No doubt, this makes it a rather compelling option for the budget minded gamer.

In response, AMD offers the Radeon RX 6500 XT with a slightly lower retail price, build on the tried and tested RDNA 2 architecture found in both the Xbox Series X and PS5 consoles. It's the lowest end card in their 6000 series line up, but that doesn't mean it's slow. This is a great option for 1080p gaming and even 1440p gaming with slightly lower settings.

Specifications compared

Both cards are competing in the same space, so they both have similar specs and power requirements. One notable difference in that the 1660 SUPER has 6 GB of memory compared to the 6500 XT with only 4 GB. With modern titles, this can have a significant impact on performance. With too little memory, the card will not be as efficient since it will need to swap game data in and out of memory. This can be something to keep in mind if you're going to be using the card for a few years.

In most cases, the 1660 SUPER is the victor, with faster memory and more compute units. However, on paper, the 6500 XT is slightly faster in raw performance numbers, but we will see how this translates to real world usage next.

Benchmarks compared

In our benchmarks, the GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER beats the Radeon RX 6500 XT in terms of performance. It manages to edge out the 6500 XT in all of our tests. In other benchmarks, the conclusion is the same. Despite the 6500 XT being theoretically faster, it's unable to match the pace of the 1660 SUPER. This could be due to less mature drivers and less attention from game developers during optimisation.

The 6500 XT is slightly newer and less expensive. It may even be reduced in price to compensate in the future. However, until then, all specs and GPU benchmarks considered, will recommend the GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER over the Radeon RX 6500 XT.