Best GPU Upgrade for GTX 1660 Super: 5 Picks Ranked (2026)

The best GPU upgrade for a GTX 1660 Super is the Sapphire Pulse RX 9060 XT 16GB. It runs on the same single 8-pin lead your 1660 Super uses, it keeps a full x16 link on an older PCIe 3.0 board, and it nearly triples your video memory, from 6 GB to 16 GB.

That platform is the whole story here. Most 1660 Super systems run a 450 to 550 W supply, a B450 or B365 class board and a Ryzen 5 3600 or Core i5-10400. Every pick below is ranked against that machine, not a test bench.

Our top pick: Sapphire Pulse RX 9060 XT 16GB

It is the biggest jump you can make without touching the power supply, and the 16 GB buffer keeps it out of the texture trouble that sinks 8 GB cards in newer games.

Sapphire 11350-03-20G Pulse AMD Radeon™ RX 9060 XT Gaming OC Graphics Card with 16GB GDDR6, AMD RDNA 4

$649.99

Buy the Sapphire Pulse RX 9060 XT 16GB on Amazon

Quick picks

Specs at a glance

How we measured the jump

No single review benches a 1660 Super against this generation, so we lean on two same-bench comparisons instead. The first two charts come from one PCGamesN test system at 1080p with no upscaling. They put the three entry cards side by side in a game that fits inside 8 GB and in one that does not. For scale against your current card, published aggregates put the RTX 5060 roughly 60 to 140 percent ahead of a 1660 Super at 1080p, depending on how many memory-hungry 2025 and 2026 games the suite carries. The full breakdown of that matchup lives in our GTX 1660 Super to RTX 5060 verdict.

Read the two PCGamesN charts together. In F1 24 the three cards land close, and every one of them is a long way past a 1660 Super. In Indiana Jones the 8 GB RTX 5060 drops to 23 frames per second while the 16 GB cards hold 78 and 91. That gap is memory, not compute, and it is why 16 GB anchors this list. The index chart is the step up: the RX 9070 sits about 40 percent above the 9060 XT at 1440p, the same shape as the gap in our RTX 3060 upgrade guide.

How we picked: PSU, PCIe 3.0 and your CPU

We started from the box most 1660 Super owners have. NVIDIA rated the 1660 Super for a 450 W system, and plenty of these PCs shipped with exactly that, often with a single PCIe power lead. So the first filter was power. Three of the five picks run on one 8-pin connector and draw between 145 and 180 W, close enough to the 125 W you have now that a healthy 550 W unit carries them. Our PC wattage guide walks through the headroom math if you are unsure what yours can take.

The second filter was the slot. A B450 or B365 board runs PCIe 3.0. The RX 9060 XT and RX 9070 use a full x16 link, so they lose next to nothing there. The RTX 5060 and 5060 Ti use x8, which drops to PCIe 3.0 x8 on these boards. The penalty is small while a game fits in VRAM and grows once an 8 GB card spills, because the overflow has to cross that narrower link. Reports put the 16 GB 5060 Ti's loss at up to about 5 percent at 1080p.

Third, the CPU sets a ceiling. A Ryzen 5 3600 or i5-10400 is still a fine gaming chip, but at 1080p an RX 9070 class card will often wait on it, so the 9070 is a 1440p pick only. That is also why nothing above it made the list. If you are weighing a CPU swap first, our guide to whether you should upgrade your GPU covers the order of operations.

One card we left off on purpose: Intel's Arc B580. On paper it is a strong 12 GB budget card, but reports show heavy driver overhead with Ryzen 2000 and 3000 class CPUs, exactly the chips most 1660 Super systems run. On a newer platform it is a different conversation.

Best Overall: Sapphire Pulse RX 9060 XT 16GB

Sapphire 11350-03-20G Pulse AMD Radeon™ RX 9060 XT Gaming OC Graphics Card with 16GB GDDR6, AMD RDNA 4

$649.99

Buy the Sapphire Pulse RX 9060 XT 16GB on Amazon

Specs

What it does well

This is the cleanest upgrade a 1660 Super owner can buy. On the PCGamesN bench it held 78 frames per second in Indiana Jones and 87 in F1 24 at 1080p with no upscaling, and the second number beat both Nvidia cards in the same test. Against a 6 GB card from 2019, that is a different class of machine.

The fit matters as much as the speed. It uses one 8-pin lead like your current card, it draws 160 W against the 1660 Super's 125 W, and its x16 link means an older PCIe 3.0 board costs it nothing. FSR 4 is also a real step up from older FSR versions, so upscaling at 1440p finally looks good on a Radeon card.

What you give up

No DLSS and no NVENC. If you stream through OBS or lean on DLSS in your library, the Nvidia cards below do that better. Ray tracing at 1440p is a stretch for this class too: it runs, but you will be trading settings for it.

The bus is 128-bit, narrower than the 192-bit bus on the card you are replacing. Bandwidth still nets out higher, but past 1440p the narrow bus shows. Buyers have also flagged that 9060 XT pricing swings hard from one board partner to the next, and the Pulse usually sits above the cheapest boards.

Who it's for

The 1080p high-refresh or entry 1440p player on a 1660 Super era platform with a decent 550 W supply. If you want one card that just works in that box, buy this one. For more options at this resolution, see our best GPUs for 1080p gaming.

Best Value: PowerColor Reaper RX 9060 XT 16GB

PowerColor Reaper AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB GDDR6

Buy the PowerColor Reaper RX 9060 XT 16GB on Amazon

Specs

What it does well

Same chip, same 16 GB and the same benchmark results as our top pick, on PowerColor's simpler Reaper board. You get every advantage that put the 9060 XT at the top of this list: the x16 link, the single 8-pin connector and the memory headroom.

The size is the reason it earns its own slot. At 200 mm long and two slots thick, it fits the compact and prebuilt towers a lot of 1660 Super systems live in. PowerColor lists a 500 W minimum supply for it.

What you give up

The Reaper is PowerColor's value cooler, not the Hellhound. It is a smaller dual-fan design, so under long gaming sessions it runs warmer and louder than the Pulse. There is no factory overclock either, so expect a couple of frames less than the Sapphire in the same game.

Everything the top pick gives up applies here too: no DLSS, no NVENC and limited ray tracing headroom.

Who it's for

The owner of a small case or an OEM tower from Dell, HP or Lenovo who wants the 9060 XT 16GB on the most compact board that still has two fans. Measure your case first. If it has room for a longer card, the Pulse is the quieter way to buy the same chip.

Best Premium: Sapphire Pulse RX 9070

Sapphire 11349-03-20G Pulse AMD Radeon™ RX 9070 Gaming Graphics Card with 16GB GDDR6, AMD RDNA 4

Buy the Sapphire Pulse RX 9070 on Amazon

Specs

What it does well

The RX 9070 is the top of what makes sense on a 1660 Super era platform. In our rescaled aggregate it lands about 40 percent above the RX 9060 XT at 1440p, and it pairs 16 GB with a 256-bit bus, double the width of the cheaper cards here.

It also keeps the full x16 link, so a PCIe 3.0 board is not the limit. At 1440p this is the card that turns high settings into the default rather than the goal.

What you give up

Power is the catch. It needs two 8-pin leads and a quality 650 W class supply, and many OEM 450 W units carry a single PCIe lead. For most owners this is a GPU and PSU purchase, so budget for both.

The CPU is the other limit. On a Ryzen 5 3600 or i5-10400 at 1080p, an RX 9070 class card will often wait on the processor, so a chunk of what you paid for goes unused. Buy it for a 1440p monitor, not for more frames at 1080p.

Who it's for

The 1660 Super owner moving to a 1440p monitor and replacing the power supply in the same order. If you are not doing both, one of the 9060 XT picks is the smarter money.

Best Budget: Gigabyte RTX 5060 Windforce OC

GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 5060 WINDFORCE OC 8G Graphics Card, Cooling System, 8GB 128-bit GDDR7, PCIe 5.0, Manufactured by NVIDIA, DisplayPort & HDMI - Video Output Interface, GV-N5060WF2OC-8GD Video Card

$459.99$499.99

Buy the Gigabyte RTX 5060 Windforce OC on Amazon

Specs

What it does well

This is the lowest-power real upgrade on the list. At 145 W on one 8-pin lead it is barely more demanding than the 1660 Super, so even a modest OEM supply copes. In games that fit in its memory it is a full generational jump: 72 frames per second in F1 24 at 1080p Ultra High on the PCGamesN bench.

It also brings DLSS for the first time. The 1660 Super has no tensor cores, so DLSS 4 upscaling, Multi Frame Generation and the newer NVENC encoder are all new to you here.

What you give up

Eight gigabytes. On the same bench that produced 72 frames in F1 24, this card returned 23 in Indiana Jones at 1080p Ultra while the 16 GB 9060 XT held 78. That is not a settings tweak away. It is what running out of frame buffer looks like, and our 8GB VRAM explainer covers which games hit it.

The x8 link makes that worse on your board. Once an 8 GB card spills past its memory, the overflow crosses a PCIe 3.0 x8 link, half the lanes your 1660 Super uses. That combination is why this card sits in the budget slot and not higher.

Who it's for

The esports and older-AAA player at 1080p on a tight budget and a 450 to 550 W OEM supply you cannot replace. If your library is Valorant, CS2, Fortnite and Rocket League, it is a clean jump. If it leans on new single-player releases, spend up to a 16 GB card.

Editor's Pick: MSI RTX 5060 Ti Ventus 2X (16 GB)

MSI GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16G Ventus 2X OC Plus Graphics Card - RTX 5060 Ti GPU, 16GB GDDR7 (28Gbps/128-bit), PCIe 5.0 - Dual-Fan Thermal Design (2 x STORMFORCE Fan) - HDMI 2.1b, DisplayPort 2.1b

Buy the MSI RTX 5060 Ti Ventus 2X (16 GB) on Amazon

Specs

What it does well

This is the Nvidia route done right. It was the fastest card in the PCGamesN Indiana Jones run at 91 frames per second, and its 16 GB buffer means the x8 link matters far less than it does on the 8 GB RTX 5060. MSI's short Ventus 2X board also fits most older cases.

You get the full Nvidia stack on top: DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation, the broadest upscaling support across older and newer games, and NVENC for streaming and recording. For a streamer coming off a 1660 Super, that encoder alone changes the experience.

What you give up

Power and money. NVIDIA recommends 600 W of system power here, the highest of the single 8-pin picks, so an older 450 W unit is out. It also costs more than the 9060 XT and trades blows with it in raster rather than winning outright, as F1 24 shows.

On a PCIe 3.0 board the x8 link costs a little, with reports putting it at up to about 5 percent at 1080p. It is still a 128-bit card, so treat it as a strong 1080p and solid 1440p card rather than a 1440p max-settings card. Our RTX 5060 vs RTX 5060 Ti comparison covers where the extra memory pays off.

Who it's for

The streamer or DLSS-library player who wants this to be the last GPU for this platform and has, or will buy, a quality 600 W supply.

Bottom line: the best GPU upgrade for a GTX 1660 Super

If you want one answer, buy the Sapphire Pulse RX 9060 XT 16GB. It runs on your current power lead, keeps a full link on your PCIe 3.0 board and gives you 16 GB for the next few years. If your case is small, take the PowerColor Reaper RX 9060 XT 16GB for the same chip. If you stream or want DLSS, take the MSI RTX 5060 Ti Ventus 2X (16 GB) and check your supply first. If you are moving to 1440p and replacing the PSU anyway, step up to the Sapphire Pulse RX 9070. Buy the 8 GB RTX 5060 only for an esports-first library on a supply you cannot change.

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