GeForce RTX 2060 is only 5 to 10 percent faster than the GTX 1660 Ti on laptops

On desktops, jumping from a GeForce GTX 1660 Ti to the GeForce RTX 2060 can bring a substantial 25 to 35 percent boost in raw graphics horsepower. On laptops, however, it's a very different story.

While the difference between a mobile GTX 1660 Ti and desktop GeForce GTX 1660 Ti is marginal at only about 5 percent according to 3DMark benchmarks, the difference between a mobile RTX 2060 and desktop GeForce RTX 2060 is much wider by up to 25 to 30 percent. This means that the jump in performance from a GTX 1660 Ti laptop to an RTX 2060 laptop will be significantly smaller at just 5 to 10 percent on average.

As an example, our chart below compares the Aorus 15 with GTX 1660 Ti graphics to the average performance of an RTX 2060 on laptops and the results are very close by just single-digit percentage points on average. In contrast, the performance advantage of a proper desktop RTX 2060 is 30 to 35 percent faster than the mobile version of the GTX 1660 Ti.

The results are important to note because shoppers might assume that the performance difference between a GTX 1660 Ti laptop and an RTX 2060 laptop would be equivalent to the performance difference between a GTX 1660 Ti desktop and an RTX 2060 desktop. Unfortunately, the gimped RTX 2060 for laptops means that shoppers interested in a new laptop would be paying more money for a much smaller boost in performance.

In other words, gamers on a budget would be better off with a less expensive GTX 1660 Ti laptop because performance is only marginally worse than a pricier RTX 2060 laptop. Performance-per-dollar dips rather significantly if considering the latter especially if you have no intentions of enabling ray-tracing or DLSS features.