Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti Turing card spotted, possibly for Feb. 22 launch
A baby version without ray-tracing cores seems to be on the way.
Nvidia's current GeForce RTX line, which incorporates its latest Turing architecture and ray-tracing cores, is pretty pricey given that most games don't yet take advantage of ray tracing. So it makes sense that Nvidia would offer a less expensive alternative. Now that rumored alternative's been spotted in the wild, with the names GeForce GTX 1660 Ti and GTX 1660.
The sightings come via news site VideoCardz (which says it received photos directly from card-maker Palit) and Hexus (which got its from Reddit and Imgur). The new models are expected to ship on Feb. 22.
We don't have many specs -- or more important, pricing -- save the ones circulating on the web: no mention of ray tracing (unlike the RTX models); T116 GPU (rather than T106); 1,536 CUDA cores (compared to 1,920 in the 2060). It's much smaller than the full-size desktop cards, so clearly intended for lower power, compact and presumably budget-ish gaming desktops .
The naming scheme is potentially confusing, though. Nvidia's series names (for example, 900 series, 1000 series and 2000 series) have traditionally indicated the generation of architecture used in the GPU -- e.g. Pascal for the 1000 series and Turing for the 2000 series.
It's understandable to have it bear the "GTX" branding since it lacks ray tracing, and "1660" does put it between the "10" models and the "20" models, but it's likely to cause confusion.
Nvidia didn't immediately reply to a request for comment.
