NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile Comparison

The desktop-class NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER and the mobile NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti occupy nearly the same performance tier in the aggregate data, with the GTX 1660 SUPER posting an average benchmark score of 12986 against the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile’s 12940, a marginal 0.4% difference. This places both cards at the 53rd percentile of all GPUs, and the nearest-rival list confirms the tie: the GTX 1660 SUPER leads the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile by that same 0.4%, while the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile trails the GTX 1660 SUPER by 0.4%. The head-to-head benchmark breakdown, however, tells a far more lopsided story. The GTX 1660 SUPER wins 9 of the 10 direct comparisons, often by double-digit percentages, while the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile manages a single win in Geekbench OpenCL. This is not a story of two equal cards; it is a story of two cards whose average scores are pulled together by one strong compute result from the mobile part, masking consistent wins for the older desktop GPU in rasterization and API-specific tests.

The Verdict

Choose the GTX 1660 SUPER if you are building a desktop system and care about raw rasterization performance across a wide range of APIs. The data is unambiguous: it wins DirectX 9 by 57.5%, DirectX 11 by 36.8%, and Passmark G3D by 25.8%. It also wins the modern 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test by a staggering 172.5%, scoring 1278 versus the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile’s 469. This card is the practical pick for a gamer who wants consistent frame rates in older and current titles without relying on a single compute-heavy workload.

Choose the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile if your priority is a laptop or a system where power draw and physical footprint trump raw performance. The data shows a 75 W TDP against the GTX 1660 SUPER’s 125 W, and it is an IGP-class part with no power connectors, making it the only reasonable choice for portable devices. Its single benchmark win — Geekbench OpenCL at 57915 versus 52490, a 9.4% advantage — suggests it has a compute edge that could matter in certain productivity tasks, but this does not translate into gaming wins. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile also brings hardware ray tracing and tensor cores, but the benchmark data does not show a performance benefit from those features in the tested workloads. If you need a discrete desktop card, the GTX 1660 SUPER is the better performer; if you need a mobile solution, the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile is the only one that exists in this comparison.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two is generational and fundamental. The GTX 1660 SUPER uses the TU116 chip on a 12 nm TSMC process, while the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile uses the GA106 chip on an 8 nm Samsung process. The transistor counts reflect this shift: the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile packs 12,000 million transistors against the GTX 1660 SUPER’s 6,600 million, and the transistor density nearly doubles from 23.2M per mm² to 43.5M per mm². Interestingly, the die size is similar — the TU116 is 284 mm² and the GA106 is 276 mm² — but the newer node allows far more transistors in a slightly smaller area.

The compute resources are where the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile should theoretically dominate. It has 2560 shading units versus 1408, 80 tensor cores, and 20 ray tracing cores, while the GTX 1660 SUPER has none of the latter two. The FP32 throughput is close, with the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile at 5.299 TFLOPS and the GTX 1660 SUPER at 5.027 TFLOPS, a 5.4% difference. However, the GTX 1660 SUPER has higher clocks — a 1530 MHz base and 1785 MHz boost against the mobile part’s 735 MHz base and 1035 MHz boost — which explains why the desktop card wins in most tests despite fewer cores. The GTX 1660 SUPER also has more texture mapping units (88 versus 80) and more ROPs (48 versus 32), leading to a texture rate of 157.1 GTexel/s versus 82.80 GTexel/s and a pixel rate of 85.68 GPixel/s versus 33.12 GPixel/s. The memory subsystem also favors the desktop card: 6 GB GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus delivers 336.0 GB/s, while the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile has 4 GB GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, yielding 192.0 GB/s. The mobile part uses PCIe 4.0 x16 while the desktop uses PCIe 3.0 x16, but this does not appear in the benchmark results as a decisive factor.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test is the single largest gap in the entire comparison. The GTX 1660 SUPER scores 1278 against the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile’s 469, a 172.5% advantage. This is not a close race; it suggests the mobile part’s lower clocks and reduced memory bandwidth cripple its DX12 performance despite having more shaders and dedicated RT cores. In Vulkan, the GTX 1660 SUPER wins again, scoring 57102 against 55812, a modest 2.3% lead. The Geekbench OpenCL result is the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile’s sole victory: 57915 versus 52490, a 9.4% margin. This may reflect the mobile part’s higher FP32 throughput and tensor core compute, but it is an outlier compared to the rest of the data.

The Passmark suite shows a clear pattern of desktop dominance. In DirectX 9, the GTX 1660 SUPER scores 189 against 120, a 57.5% win. In DirectX 11, it scores 104 against 76, a 36.8% win. The DirectX 10 test is closer, with 65 against 60 for an 8.3% margin, and DirectX 12 is nearly tied at 50 versus 49, a 2% edge. The Passmark G3D test, which is a general gaming metric, shows the GTX 1660 SUPER at 12699 versus 10093, a 25.8% win. The 2D test is also lopsided: 805 versus 498, a 61.6% advantage for the desktop card. The GPU compute test goes to the GTX 1660 SUPER as well, 5076 versus 4305, a 17.9% margin. Across all ten tests, the GTX 1660 SUPER wins nine, with an average delta that is heavily skewed by the Steel Nomad result. The only test where the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile leads is OpenCL, and that single win is not enough to overcome the consistent losses elsewhere.

FAQ

Q: Is the GTX 1660 SUPER always faster than the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile?

A: No. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile wins the Geekbench OpenCL test, scoring 57915 against 52490, a 9.4% advantage. However, the GTX 1660 SUPER wins the other nine head-to-head tests, including a 172.5% margin in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12.

Q: Which card has more memory bandwidth?

A: The GTX 1660 SUPER has 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth from 6 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile has 192.0 GB/s from 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus. The desktop card offers 75% more bandwidth.

Q: Can the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile use ray tracing?

A: The specification lists 20 RT cores and 80 tensor cores, so it supports ray tracing hardware. The benchmark data does not include a ray tracing test, so its performance impact cannot be quantified from this pack. The GTX 1660 SUPER has no RT or tensor cores.

Q: Which card has a higher boost clock?

A: The GTX 1660 SUPER boosts to 1785 MHz, while the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile boosts to 1035 MHz. The desktop card also has a higher base clock at 1530 MHz versus 735 MHz.

Q: What is the TDP difference?

A: The GTX 1660 SUPER has a 125 W TDP and requires a 300 W suggested PSU with a single 8-pin connector. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile has a 75 W TDP, no power connectors, and is classified as an IGP part.

Q: Which card has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The GTX 1660 SUPER has an average benchmark score of 12986, and the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile has 12940. The delta is 0.4% in favor of the GTX 1660 SUPER, and both sit at the 53rd percentile of all GPUs.

Where Each One Wins

The GTX 1660 SUPER wins in every rasterization-heavy category that matters for gaming. Its DirectX 9 lead of 57.5% and DirectX 11 lead of 36.8% make it the clear pick for older titles and current esports games that rely on these APIs. The 25.8% win in Passmark G3D reinforces that it is the better all-around gaming card. The 172.5% blowout in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 suggests it handles modern DX12 workloads far better, likely due to its higher memory bandwidth and pixel rate. For 2D desktop work, it also wins by 61.6%, which is surprising but consistent with its higher ROP count. The GTX 1660 SUPER also wins the GPU compute test by 17.9%, so even in compute, the desktop card is generally ahead despite the mobile part’s tensor cores.

The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile wins only in Geekbench OpenCL, a 9.4% margin. This makes it the better choice for OpenCL-based compute workloads, which could include certain physics simulations, video encoding tasks, or OpenCL-accelerated productivity apps. It also holds the architectural advantage of RT and tensor cores, which are absent from the GTX 1660 SUPER, but the pack provides no benchmark data to show a benefit from these features. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile’s 75 W TDP and IGP form factor mean it wins in scenarios where power efficiency and portability are the primary constraints, such as laptops or small-form-factor systems with no room for a discrete power connector. The GTX 1660 SUPER is the performance winner; the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile is the mobility winner.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ in nearly every core specification. The GTX 1660 SUPER uses a 12 nm TSMC process with 6,600 million transistors on a 284 mm² die, while the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile uses an 8 nm Samsung process with 12,000 million transistors on a 276 mm² die. The transistor density is 23.2M per mm² for the desktop card and 43.5M per mm² for the mobile part. Clock speeds differ significantly: the GTX 1660 SUPER runs at 1530 MHz base and 1785 MHz boost, while the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile runs at 735 MHz base and 1035 MHz boost. Memory also differs: the GTX 1660 SUPER has 6 GB GDDR6 at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective) on a 192-bit bus yielding 336.0 GB/s, while the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile has 4 GB GDDR6 at 1500 MHz (12 Gbps effective) on a 128-bit bus yielding 192.0 GB/s.

The compute units are different in count and capability. The GTX 1660 SUPER has 1408 shading units, 88 TMUs, and 48 ROPs, with no RT or tensor cores. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile has 2560 shading units, 80 TMUs, and 32 ROPs, plus 20 RT cores and 80 tensor cores. The pixel rate is 85.68 GPixel/s for the desktop card versus 33.12 GPixel/s for the mobile part, and the texture rate is 157.1 GTexel/s versus 82.80 GTexel/s. FP32 performance is close, at 5.027 TFLOPS versus 5.299 TFLOPS, but FP16 differs drastically: the GTX 1660 SUPER hits 10.05 TFLOPS with a 2:1 ratio, while the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile stays at 5.299 TFLOPS with a 1:1 ratio. The TDP is 125 W versus 75 W, the GTX 1660 SUPER is dual-slot with a 1x 8-pin connector and a 300 W suggested PSU, while the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile is IGP with no connectors. The bus interface is PCIe 3.0 x16 versus PCIe 4.0 x16. The GTX 1660 SUPER supports DirectX 12 (12_1), while the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2). Display outputs differ: the GTX 1660 SUPER has 1x DVI, 1x HDMI 2.0, and 1x DisplayPort 1.4a, while the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile is portable-device dependent. The GTX 1660 SUPER is 229 mm long, 111 mm tall, and 35 mm wide; the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile has no listed dimensions. Release dates are October 2019 for the desktop card and May 2021 for the mobile part. The GTX 1660 SUPER has a launch MSRP of 229 USD; the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile has no MSRP listed.