Word of the impending shutdown of production on these mainstream GPUs comes from Chinese media( via TechSpot(Opens in a new window)). Nvidia reportedly ended production on the RTX 2060 cards in early November. Now it's adding the wallet-friendly GTX 1660 to the list as well. Both cards resonated with gamers seeking 1080p gaming on a budget. The RTX 2060 is currently the second most popular GPU in the Steam Hardware Survey(Opens in a new window). The GTX 1660 is the eighth. The RTX 2060 lineup includes several models: the OG RTX 2060 from 2019 with 6GB of RAM, the 12GB version from 2020, and the RTX 2060 Super with 8GB of VRAM. These GPUs range in price from around $170 to $400.
The Asus TUF GTX 1660, from an era where GPUs were tiny. (Credit: Asus)
The GTX 1660 was always a curiosity, as it was released to seemingly counter the bad press Nvidia's RTX cards were getting. If you recall, the Turing line was the first to support ray tracing. However, very few titles supported it, and enabling it had a profound impact on performance. This seemingly caused Nvidia to release a Turing GPU without ray tracing, aka the GTX 1660. This line is comprised of three GPUs: The original 1660, the 1660 Ti, and the Super version, all with 6GB of VRAM. This is a true bang-for-the-buck GPU, with some models going for a smidge over $100 on eBay.
This is seemingly the latest attempt by Nvidia to clear the field for its upcoming RTX 4060. It also is trying to get rid of its existing RTX 3060 stock as well, so giving buyers fewer options could push people upwards in the GPU food chain. It's unclear what kind of pricing the RTX 4060 will have, but if the past is precedent, it'll be expensive. Nvidia has increased pricing significantly for its 40-series GPUs. Although that's worked out fine for the flagship 4090, it's not the case with the $1,200 RTX 4080. Buyers are seemingly fed up with what they see as price gouging on these high-end models.
Despite Nvidia's efforts, these GPUs will still exist for some time, at least on eBay. Once they disappear, the market will see a dearth of affordable GPUs if Ampere is your only non-40-series option. The RTX 3050 is the most affordable card, and it's almost $300. The RTX 3060 just goes up from there. It's not a fantasy to envision the RTX 4060 costing $499 or something similar, either. It's a bad situation that is seemingly only going to get worse—unless AMD can undercut Nvidia with its midrange cards the way it's doing with its high-end RDNA3 GPUs.
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