AMD Radeon 540 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Comparison

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti and the AMD Radeon 540 occupy the same 41st percentile among all GPUs, yet their benchmark profiles could not be more different. The GTX 1660 Ti averages 7,723 points across its full suite of tests, while the Radeon 540 averages 7,673—a razor-thin 0.7% margin that places them as direct rivals. But the head-to-head data reveals a split personality: the NVIDIA card crushes OpenCL workloads with a 725.2% advantage, while the AMD card dominates Vulkan by 36.4%. This is not a story of overall parity; it is a tale of two completely different performance landscapes.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The most striking result in the head-to-head comparison is the Geekbench OpenCL score. The GTX 1660 Ti posts 51,029 points against the Radeon 540’s 6,184 points. That is a 725.2% delta—the NVIDIA card is more than eight times faster in this compute-heavy API. The data indicates that for any workload leveraging OpenCL, the GTX 1660 Ti is in an entirely different performance class. This massive gap likely stems from the GTX 1660 Ti’s 1,536 shading units and 5.437 TFLOPS of FP32 throughput, compared to the Radeon 540’s 384 shading units and 908.5 GFLOPS. The 5.4x raw compute advantage translates directly into this overwhelming OpenCL lead.

However, the Vulkan results flip the script entirely. The Radeon 540 scores 9,162 in Geekbench Vulkan, while the GTX 1660 Ti manages only 5,827. The delta is -36.4% from NVIDIA’s perspective, meaning AMD leads by over half again. This is a remarkable inversion: a GPU with vastly lower compute specifications outperforming a much more powerful card in a modern graphics API. The Radeon 540’s GCN 4.0 architecture, with its 1:1 FP16 ratio, appears to handle Vulkan’s asynchronous compute characteristics far more efficiently than the Turing-based GTX 1660 Ti in this specific benchmark. It serves as a reminder that API implementation can matter as much as raw silicon.

Outside the head-to-head tests, the GTX 1660 Ti’s broader benchmark suite shows its strengths. In Passmark G3D, it scores 12,871, which is 41.4% higher than its own average score of 7,723—indicating strong DirectX 11 performance. The Radeon 540 has no equivalent data in the fact pack, only the two Geekbench results. The GTX 1660 Ti also shows robust compute capability with a Passmark GPU Compute score of 5,226, and it handles legacy APIs well: Passmark DirectX 9 at 190, DirectX 10 at 66, and DirectX 11 at 103. The Radeon 540’s absence from these tests means the data cannot confirm its legacy performance, but the OpenCL gap suggests it would struggle to match these figures.

The average benchmark scores deserve scrutiny. The GTX 1660 Ti’s average of 7,723 comes from ten distinct tests, while the Radeon 540’s 7,673 average comes from just two. That means the AMD card’s Vulkan score is carrying its entire average, while NVIDIA’s is dragged down by its weak Vulkan showing. If the Radeon 540 were subjected to the same ten-test battery, its average would likely collapse—the data shows no evidence it can replicate the GTX 1660 Ti’s Passmark scores. The 0.7% delta in average score is therefore misleading; it reflects test selection bias, not true performance parity.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU wins more head-to-head benchmarks?

A: The split is exactly even. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti wins Geekbench OpenCL with a 725.2% advantage, while the AMD Radeon 540 wins Geekbench Vulkan with a 36.4% margin. Each card claims one victory.

Q: Why is the GTX 1660 Ti so much faster in OpenCL?

A: The GTX 1660 Ti has 1,536 shading units, 96 TMUs, and 48 ROPs, delivering 5.437 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. The Radeon 540 has 384 shading units, 24 TMUs, and 16 ROPs, yielding just 908.5 GFLOPS. This 5.4x raw compute gap translates into the 725.2% OpenCL score difference.

Q: How does the Radeon 540 beat the GTX 1660 Ti in Vulkan despite weaker specs?

A: The Radeon 540’s GCN 4.0 architecture implements FP16 at a 1:1 ratio with FP32, meaning 908.5 GFLOPS of FP16 compute. The GTX 1660 Ti uses a 2:1 ratio for FP16, offering 10.87 TFLOPS but only when properly utilized. The data shows the Radeon 540’s Vulkan implementation scores 9,162 versus 5,827 for NVIDIA, suggesting better driver or architectural optimization for this specific API test.

Q: What are the average benchmark scores for each card?

A: The GTX 1660 Ti averages 7,723 points across ten tests, including Passmark G3D at 12,871 and Passmark GPU Compute at 5,226. The Radeon 540 averages 7,673 points from just two Geekbench tests: 6,184 in OpenCL and 9,162 in Vulkan.

Q: Do both cards occupy the same performance percentile?

A: Yes, both the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti and the AMD Radeon 540 sit at the 41st percentile among all GPUs. Their average scores differ by only 0.7%, placing them statistically in the same performance tier.

Q: Which card has better memory bandwidth?

A: The GTX 1660 Ti offers 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth from 6 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus, with 12 Gbps effective memory speed. The Radeon 540 provides just 24.00 GB/s from 1024 MB of GDDR5 on a 32-bit bus, at 6 Gbps effective. NVIDIA’s bandwidth advantage is 12x.

Architecture Differences

The architectural divide between these two GPUs is generational. The GTX 1660 Ti uses NVIDIA’s Turing architecture on a 12 nm TSMC process, packing 6,600 million transistors into a 284 mm² die. This yields a transistor density of 23.2M per mm². The Radeon 540 employs AMD’s GCN 4.0 architecture on a 14 nm GlobalFoundries process, with 2,200 million transistors across a 103 mm² die—a density of 21.4M per mm². The GTX 1660 Ti uses three times more transistors on a die nearly three times larger, reflecting Turing’s more complex compute and rasterization pipelines.

The compute configurations diverge sharply. The GTX 1660 Ti fields 1,536 shading units, 96 texture mapping units, and 48 raster operation units, producing 84.96 GPixel/s pixel rate and 169.9 GTexel/s texture rate. The Radeon 540 is equipped with 384 shading units, 24 TMUs, and 16 ROPs, yielding 18.93 GPixel/s and 28.39 GTexel/s. NVIDIA’s advantage in shading units is 4x, in TMUs 4x, and in ROPs 3x. The FP32 throughput difference is 5.4x: 5.437 TFLOPS versus 908.5 GFLOPS.

FP16 processing reveals a philosophical difference. The GTX 1660 Ti offers 10.87 TFLOPS of FP16 at a 2:1 ratio, meaning it can double throughput when workloads support reduced precision. The Radeon 540 offers 908.5 GFLOPS at a 1:1 ratio, meaning FP16 runs at the same speed as FP32—no acceleration at all. This explains why the GTX 1660 Ti excels in compute-heavy OpenCL workloads, while the Radeon 540’s Vulkan advantage must come from elsewhere, likely driver-level scheduling rather than raw throughput.

Memory architecture reinforces the gap. The GTX 1660 Ti uses 6 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus, achieving 288.0 GB/s bandwidth. The Radeon 540 has just 1024 MB of GDDR5 on a 32-bit bus, with 24.00 GB/s bandwidth. The NVIDIA card offers 12x the bandwidth and 6x the memory capacity. This makes the GTX 1660 Ti suitable for modern textures and high resolutions, while the Radeon 540’s tiny 1 GB frame buffer severely limits its practical gaming utility.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ across nearly every measurable specification. The GTX 1660 Ti is built on a 12 nm process, versus 14 nm for the Radeon 540. Transistor counts are 6,600 million versus 2,200 million. Die size is 284 mm² versus 103 mm². The GTX 1660 Ti has a base clock of 1500 MHz and boost clock of 1770 MHz, while the Radeon 540 lists no base or boost clocks in the data. Memory speeds are 12 Gbps effective for NVIDIA versus 6 Gbps effective for AMD.

Memory capacity is 6 GB GDDR6 versus 1024 MB GDDR5. Bus width is 192-bit versus 32-bit. Bandwidth is 288.0 GB/s versus 24.00 GB/s. Shading units number 1,536 versus 384. TMUs are 96 versus 24. ROPs are 48 versus 16. Pixel rate is 84.96 GPixel/s versus 18.93 GPixel/s. Texture rate is 169.9 GTexel/s versus 28.39 GTexel/s. FP32 is 5.437 TFLOPS versus 908.5 GFLOPS. FP16 is 10.87 TFLOPS (2:1) versus 908.5 GFLOPS (1:1).

The GTX 1660 Ti draws 120 W TDP and requires a 1x 8-pin power connector with a 300 W suggested PSU. The Radeon 540 draws only 50 W, needs no power connectors, and has a 250 W suggested PSU. The GTX 1660 Ti is dual-slot with dimensions of 229 mm length, 111 mm height, and 35 mm width. The Radeon 540 is single-slot with no listed dimensions. The GTX 1660 Ti offers 1x DVI, 1x HDMI 2.0, and 1x DisplayPort 1.4a outputs. The Radeon 540 provides 2x DisplayPort 1.4a.

The GTX 1660 Ti supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The Radeon 540 supports DirectX 12 (12_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.3. The PCIe interface differs: PCIe 3.0 x16 for NVIDIA versus PCIe 3.0 x8 for AMD. The GTX 1660 Ti released on 2019-02-21 with a launch MSRP of 279 USD. The Radeon 540 released on 2017-04-19 with no listed MSRP. Both are end-of-life products.

The Verdict

The data makes one thing clear: the GTX 1660 Ti is the superior GPU by virtually every objective measure. It has 4x the shading units, 4x the TMUs, 3x the ROPs, 12x the memory bandwidth, and 6x the memory capacity. Its FP32 compute is 5.4x higher, its pixel rate is 4.5x higher, and its texture rate is 6x higher. It supports newer API versions across the board. The only benchmark where the Radeon 540 wins—Geekbench Vulkan—cannot compensate for the NVIDIA card’s overwhelming advantages in every other category.

The Radeon 540’s sole justification is its Vulkan result. At 9,162 versus 5,827, it leads by 36.4% in that specific test. But the data also shows this is an outlier: the Radeon 540’s OpenCL score of 6,184 is 725.2% lower than the GTX 1660 Ti’s 51,029. If a workload is entirely Vulkan-based and the Radeon 540’s 1 GB memory is sufficient, it might edge ahead. But the context is damning: the Radeon 540 has no Passmark results, no DirectX scores, and no compute benchmarks beyond the two Geekbench tests. Its 41st percentile ranking is built on a foundation of just two data points.

The GTX 1660 Ti, by contrast, demonstrates consistency across ten benchmarks. Its Passmark G3D score of 12,871 is 66.9% above its own average, and its DirectX 11 score of 103 shows solid legacy support. The GTX 1660 Ti’s 120 W TDP is higher than the Radeon 540’s 50 W, but it also delivers 5.4x the compute per watt based on the FP32 figures. The GTX 1660 Ti’s 279 USD launch MSRP reflects its positioning as a genuine performance part.

For anyone choosing between these two, the decision is straightforward: the GTX 1660 Ti is the pick for anything beyond the most Vulkan-specific, low-memory workloads. The Radeon 540 might suffice for basic 2D tasks or as a display output card, given its single-slot design and no power connector requirement. But for gaming, compute, or any general-purpose GPU work, the GTX 1660 Ti’s data is unequivocal. It wins the OpenCL test by 725.2%, matches the Radeon 540 in overall percentile, and provides a full benchmark suite that the AMD card cannot match. The Radeon 540’s Vulkan victory is a statistical anomaly, not a reason to choose it.