GeForce GTX 1660 vs GT 520

Place in performance ranking	1101	171
Place by popularity	not in top-100	43
Value for money	0.01	25.03
Architecture	Fermi 2.0 (2010−2014)	Turing (2018−2021)
GPU code name	GF119	Turing TU116
Market segment	Desktop	Desktop
Release date	13 April 2011 (13 years ago)	14 March 2019 (5 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$59	$219
Current price	$88 (1.5x MSRP)	$252 (1.2x MSRP)

Value for money

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

GTX 1660 has 250200% better value for money than GT 520.

Technical specs

General performance parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider their benchmark and gaming test results. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores	48	1408
CUDA cores	48	no data
Core clock speed	810 MHz	1530 MHz
Boost clock speed	no data	1785 MHz
Number of transistors	292 million	6,600 million
Manufacturing process technology	40 nm	12 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	29 Watt	120 Watt
Maximum GPU temperature	102 °C	no data
Texture fill rate	6.5 billion/sec	157.1
Floating-point performance	155.52 gflops	no data

Size and compatibility

Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).

Bus support	16x PCI-E 2.0	no data
Interface	PCIe 2.0 x16	PCIe 3.0 x16
Length	5.7" (14.5 cm)	229 mm
Height	2.7" (6.9 cm)	no data
Width	1-slot	2-slot
Supplementary power connectors	None	1x 8-pin

Memory

Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.

Memory type	DDR3	GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount	1 GB (DDR3)	6 GB
Memory bus width	64 Bit	192 Bit
Memory clock speed	900 MHz (DDR3)	8000 MHz
Memory bandwidth	14.4 GB/s	192.1 GB/s
Shared memory	no data	-

Video outputs and ports

Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.

Display Connectors	Dual Link DVI-IHDMIVGA (optional)	1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort
Multi monitor support	+	no data
HDMI	+	+
Maximum VGA resolution	2048x1536	no data
Audio input for HDMI	Internal	no data

API support

List of supported graphics and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX	12 (11_0)	12 (12_1)
Shader Model	5.1	6.5
OpenGL	4.2	4.6
OpenCL	1.1	1.2
Vulkan	N/A	1.2.131
CUDA	+	7.5

Synthetic benchmark performance

Non-gaming benchmark performance comparison. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.

Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark performance score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

GT 520 0.80

GTX 1660 30.19
+3674%

GTX 1660 outperforms GT 520 by 3674% based on our aggregated benchmark results.

Passmark

This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark, part of Passmark PerformanceTest suite. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various types of load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.

Benchmark coverage: 25%

GT 520 309

GTX 1660 11691
+3683%

GTX 1660 outperforms GT 520 by 3683% in Passmark.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics

Fire Strike is a DirectX 11 benchmark for gaming PCs. It features two separate tests displaying a fight between a humanoid and a fiery creature made of lava. Using 1920x1080 resolution, Fire Strike shows off some realistic graphics and is quite taxing on hardware.

Benchmark coverage: 14%

GT 520 380

GTX 1660 14055
+3599%

GTX 1660 outperforms GT 520 by 3599% in 3DMark Fire Strike Graphics.

GeekBench 5 OpenCL

Geekbench 5 is a widespread graphics card benchmark combined from 11 different test scenarios. All these scenarios rely on direct usage of GPU's processing power, no 3D rendering is involved. This variation uses OpenCL API by Khronos Group.

Benchmark coverage: 9%

GT 520 1270

GTX 1660 57152
+4400%

GTX 1660 outperforms GT 520 by 4400% in GeekBench 5 OpenCL.

Gaming performance

Let's see how good the compared graphics cards are for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in FPS.

Average FPS across all PC games

Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular games across different resolutions:

Full HD	2−3 −4200%	86 +4200%
1440p	1−2 −4700%	48 +4700%
4K	0−1	28

Advantages and disadvantages

Performance score	0.80	30.19
Recency	13 April 2011	14 March 2019
Cost	$59	$219
Maximum RAM amount	1 GB (DDR3)	6 GB
Chip lithography	40 nm	12 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	29 Watt	120 Watt