Nvidia GTX 1660 and 1660 Super Retirement Rumors

Nvidia has reportedly decided to phase out some of the last remnants of the Turing graphics card era, according to rumors shared on China's Bobantang tech forums. This means it has decided to "completely discontinue" the GeForce RTX 2060, the 2060 Super, as well as the GTX 1660 and 1660 Super. Removing these popular options will leave quite a void in Nvidia's budget to midrange offerings, a high volume segment.

This comes as we're seeing a few final gasps of life in the way of Turing-based graphics card deals. Amazon has the RTX 2060 for $179 right now, an all-time low. You can also find the Zotac GTX 1660 for $179 and the Zotac GTX 1660 Super for $199... but why would you buy those slower cards for the same or higher prices?

Nvidia Turing retired? — (Image credit: Nvidia)

Earlier this month we reported about whispers from supply chain sources, stating that the GeForce RTX 2060 and RTX 2060 Super were about to be discontinued. Now that appears to have happened, if the latest rumors are to be believed.

All the above mentioned Nvidia Turing graphics cards remain available at US-based online retailers, but that could change quickly once the situation filters through to retailers looking to replenish stocks.

On the topic of stocks and inventories, the source also indicates that there remains a "small amount of inventory," of the GTX 1660/Super TU116 GPUs. However, Nvidia hasn't wielded the knife on the GTX1650 and 1630 TU117 GPUs, notes the forum poster. These continue to be supplied to graphics card makers.

If you check out our GPU hierarchy feature, you will see that all Nvidia has left to address a significant and popular consumer segment, in the wake of the alleged Turing cull, is the Ampere generation GeForce RTX 3050. Sadly for the RTX 3050, it lived in the value and performance shadow of the RTX 2060 cards and, even with this removed, it is roundly beaten by AMD's Radeon RX 6600 / XT cards.

Nvidia Turing retirement leaves a big gap — Latest Nvidia Turing retirements leave a big gap (Image credit: Future)

Recently we wrote about how AMD's graphics cards offer the best value across the full gamut of performance segments, except for the very top halo graphics cards. Some Cyber Monday price probing reveals that the best RTX 3050 is still priced on a par with the RX 6650 XT (both in the $250–$270 range), but is completely crushed by the RX 6600 which can be found for $209.

There are signs of Nvidia shuffling around some GeForce RTX 30-series SKUs with the new RTX 3060 8GB and the new RTX 3060 Ti with GDDR6X. However, with the phasing out of so many midrange Turning cards, Nvidia needs to widen the appeal of the RTX 3050. Perhaps it can make a desktop RTX 3050 Ti and reduce the price of the current RTX 3050 to better suit its performance level.

Nvidia may be priming the supply chain ahead of some new Ampere choices for the rather neglected entry-level to midrange market segment. This appears to be logical, but please add salt to the Bobantang sourced news about it happening right now. We look forward to some compelling new options from Nvidia, in this supposedly vacated space, to fight back against AMD and the new competition from Intel.

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Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

6 Comments Comment from the forums

Giroro

Just sell your car and buy a 4090 instead. If you still can't afford it, then start selling your blood.
We all have to pitch in and work together to help Jensen "bad grandpa" Huang afford the world's largest mega yacht. He really needs our help this time, guys. You wouldn't want him to be embarrassed by a vacation in the world's second largest yacht, like some kind of third world peasant.
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chibiwings

I'm hoping that my GTX 1070 still hold for a year or two.😞
Reply
artk2219

Admin said:
More rumors from China indicate that the GeForce RTX 2060, 2060 Super, GTX 1660, and 1660 Super, are no longer being produced, leaving a potentially large gap in the important budget to midrange segment.

Nvidia GTX 1660 and 1660 Super Retirement Rumors : Read more

More sales for the RX 6600 I guess, AMD also has a large gap between the 6500 XT and 6600, with the 2060's and 1660's gone theres nothing really to fit in that performance bracket. I guess this could be addressed with RTX 3050 or RX 6600 price cuts to sub 200, but who knows when that will happen. Heh, maybe AMD ramps production of the RX 5600 to fit in that socket, that would work, not sure if its cheaper to make than the 6600 though.

https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/radeon_rx_6500_xt_review,27.html
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gnyff

In my (admittedly not well updated) world, the 1650 is one of the few reasonable options for low profile graphics. I think only professionals and people having trouble getting their expenses high enough (!) are seriously looking at the more capable RTX A2000...
But maybe AMD has or will stepped/step up their low profile "game"? ;-)
In any case, I hope some manufactures will see the need for a good low profile GPU - at least the Nvidia chips are (still) there! (And I think most small form factor PCs could spare 25-50W and a connector more than the 75W capability of the PCIe-connector... Not that it seem probable (unfortunately) that the manufacturers would go for that option! ;-)
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🥱 just stop buying them don’t give them any business
Reply
DSzymborski

gnyff said:
In my (admittedly not well updated) world, the 1650 is one of the few reasonable options for low profile graphics. I think only professionals and people having trouble getting their expenses high enough (!) are seriously looking at the more capable RTX A2000...
But maybe AMD has or will stepped/step up their low profile "game"? ;-)
In any case, I hope some manufactures will see the need for a good low profile GPU - at least the Nvidia chips are (still) there! (And I think most small form factor PCs could spare 25-50W and a connector more than the 75W capability of the PCIe-connector... Not that it seem probable (unfortunately) that the manufacturers would go for that option! ;-)

Nobody's stepping up their low-profile game, simply because of the pressure from both sides; there's a very slim window in which a GPU is low-power enough for the cooling solutions on a low-profile GPU to be adequate but the GPU is robust enough to not compete with the improving integrated GPUs from below. Further complicating matters is that very few in the enthusiast communities, the ones actually upgrading PCs, place any priority on GPUs being low-profile. So it's a losing proposition for the manufacturers.
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