GTX 660Ti Reviews

[AnandThenMan]

[H] to me goes the way the wind blows, if you know what I mean.

 

[piesquared]

What kind of an enthusiast card overclocks 5%? The competing cards have been overclocking 40-50% and destroy the 660 in performance.

 

[RussianSensation]

What kind of an enthusiast card overclocks 5%? The competing cards have been overclocking 40-50% and destroy the 660 in performance.

(43.75% overclock with 37.5% performance increase). Even makes the 7970 look bad.

Beating 590 in Lost Planet 2....

38.8% scaling in Anno 2070, Oh yes!

Oh she is fast, blowing past 7970 no problem

Source

That's what I've been saying this whole time and people keep comparing GTX660Ti vs. an 800mhz 7950. If GTX660Ti ~ 7950 at stock speeds, what happens when 7950 is overclocked 43%? Rhetorical question.

 

[lopri]

A good 1080 card but memory bandwidth too castrated for 1600p but then again most 1600p users not in the market for cards < $300

Actually I think this card is more balanced in terms of memory configuration, if we ignore the weird paring of its inner working. 670 and 680 both suffer from low memory bandwidth. GK104 needs much faster memory to truly shine.

NV gave the same amount/speed of memory to 660, and I think they made a right decision. (Although it at the same time somewhat devalues 670/680) I am not a fan of its introductory price but let's see what happens in near future.

 

[SirPauly]

It's simple for me:

Does the performance and efficiency of Kepler hitting the 300 dollar price-point, coupled with nVidia's differentiation compelling for some? Probably

Does the performance and the OC prowess of AMD's competing sku's, coupled with AMD's strengths compelling for some? Probably.

As some like to offer their views on one or the other is the obvious choice; it's simple for me: choose the one that best fits one's needs and personally allow the market to decide how well the products do over-all.

It's wonderful to have choice.

 

[KompuKare]

But on the Nvidia customer loyalty discussion, I see it ALL the time. People either have no clue who AMD is, or consider them low end or unreliable, they really have no idea what AMD is all about. Can't blame Nvidia for that, AMD has gawd awful marketing, in some cases the marketing they do is worse than none at all.

As someone who was burned by bumpgate (and who harps on about it any chance I get), I really am constantly amazed that Nvidia have pretty much gotten away with what was by far the #1 issue in terms of GPU (un)reliability of all time. If you contrast their response with Intel and the SB chipset recall:

- After lawsuits, NV eventually spend $250 million on some of those affected (nobody I know got anything whether they had a faulty G86M, G92 or faulty nForce chipsets). I would estimate that less than half of those affected got anything.

- After a bug is found the SB chipset's SATA3 controller (which would only have been a fatal bug in laptops designs since desktop motherboards would most likely have always had a SATA2 controller to fall back on), Intel spend close to $1 billion to sort out everyone who might have been affected

Hence why I won't buy Nvidia anymore :-(

 

[blastingcap]

What kind of an enthusiast card overclocks 5%? The competing cards have been overclocking 40-50% and destroy the 660 in performance.

This is what TPU had to say about MSI's Power Edition: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_660_Ti_Power_Edition/31.html

The maximum stable clocks of our card are 1075 MHz core (5% overclock) and 1800 MHz memory (20% overclock).

MSI's card reaches the lowest maximum GPU clock, but ends up delivering the highest performance. Memory OC works better than on any other card which is probably due to the cooled memory chips. I am not 100% sure what causes this performance advantage that we also see in our non-overclocked benchmarks. My best guess is that MSI added some secret sauce to their BIOS, by, for example, increasing the power limit of the card, which means that the card will boost higher for longer, while other cards run into the power limiter.


So overclocking the core 5% and memory 20% got them about 13% improvement in framerates in the one game they tested. For that game at least, the 660 Ti is memory-bandwidth-starved. If that is true for other games as well, then maybe we'll see 660Ti owners brag about memory oc's rather than core.

Agreed though that a 7950 beats the 660 Ti when both are max-oc'd. Many, though not all 7950s, are artificially cut-down chips rather than 7970 rejects. Translation: you can probably hit 1.2 GHz with most 7950s, given a moderate jolt of overvoltage. And a 1.2Ghz 7950 is going to be significantly faster than a 660 Ti with 5/20% overclock. However, all of that comes at the cost of much higher wattage/heat. Maybe also noise depending on the cards in question.

NV does have PhysX, CUDA, A-Vsync, strong SLI support, and all the usual reasons for going NV.

 

[cmdrdredd]

At 1080p it will probably do ok. I will still recommend a 7950 and some overclocking first for a single card. If you are doing 2560x1440 or higher then I am not confortable recommending any single card solutions and certainly not a 660ti sli configuration. Thats my opinion.

 

[Olikan]

However, all of that comes at the cost of much higher wattage/heat. Maybe also noise depending on the cards in question.
NV does have PhysX, CUDA, A-Vsync, strong SLI support, and all the usual reasons for going NV.

at max oc, a single 7950 is going to be faster\equal than two non-oc 660Ti in SLI...
it doesn't matter anything that you say, it's 300 bucks saved...

 

[Phynaz]

Anand says the TDP of the Zotac card is 150w and the MSI card is 170w.

Techreport says both cards have a TDP of 190w. What's up with that?

 

[VulgarDisplay]

I still don't regret my decision to buy a 7970 at launch. I was a little worried for a while there.

This card makes no sense at all for the price. Aftermarket 7950's all day. If the 660Ti was going for about 250 it would be a game changer.

 

[llee]

Anand says the TDP of the Zotac card is 150w and the MSI card is 170w.

Techreport says both cards have a TDP of 190w. What's up with that?

That's strange, seeing as a reference GTX670 has a rated TDP of 170w.

 

[Crap Daddy]

at max oc, a single 7950 is going to be faster\equal than two non-oc 660Ti in SLI...

I can't believe what you just said.

 

[Olikan]

yes, at max OC a 7950 beats/tie a 660 SLI....since it beats a 7970 GE

 

[chimaxi83]

edit: he beat me to it ^^

 

[96Firebird]

Looks like you guys are comparing 2 different resolutions...

 

[RussianSensation]

It's not just resolutions but also because Sweclockers only tested 5 games (BF3, Shogun 2, STALKER, Metro 2033 and Anno 2070).

In contrast, ComputeBase tested 15 games and specifically the games where 660Ti doesn't do so well (Skyrim with mods, Batman AC with high AA, Arma 2, Risen, Dirt Showdown, etc.).

That's why it's good to look at multiple reviews. Sometimes 1 review covers A LOT of games and then the average looks completely different from say a website that only tested 4-5 games.

3D Center compiled 12 Reviews averaged and 660Ti lost to an 800mhz 7950 overall. It'll be an absolute slaughter if a 7950 @ 1.1-1.2ghz is compared to an overclocked 660Ti. At the end of the day it comes down to what games a person plays. If a gamer prefers FXAA and doesn't use 8AA, then those benchmarks are also irrelevant to that user. If the main game is BF3, then all those performance issues in other games are irrelevant to that gamer. For example if a gamer mainly plays WOW and Guild Wars 2, then maybe 660Ti is better than 7970 GE for that user. Overall though it seems 7950 performs more consistently in a wide variety of games, it has real 3GB of VRAM and much higher overclocking headroom and ability to handle MSAA should someone want that. The $50 BL2 is what makes the 660Ti bundle look attractive.

 

[Crap Daddy]

yes, at max OC a 7950 beats/tie a 660 SLI....since it beats a 7970 GE

I don't even now where to begin. I suggest you to read this review:

http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/3026/nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-ti-review---3-way-sli-included

 

[Zap]

It's simple for me:
...
It's wonderful to have choice.

:thumbsup: Amen, brotha'!

I'm probably going to get a GTX 660 Ti for myself, and am considering the short Zotac card. Why?
1) I would have otherwise purchased Borderlands 2.
2) I'm downsizing my main rig from ATX to mini ITX and need a card no longer than 9.5", which seems to rule out all the faster Radeons such as the 7950, which seem to be 10.5".
3) I don't think the extra performance of the GTX 670 is worth the extra $100 for me.
4) A 9.5" card will completely fill the space, but the Zotac is under 8" which gives more breathing room in the tiny case that I will be using.

 

[AnandThenMan]

As someone who was burned by bumpgate (and who harps on about it any chance I get), I really am constantly amazed that Nvidia have pretty much gotten away with what was by far the #1 issue in terms of GPU (un)reliability of all time.

They got away with it partially because people have short memories. And people blamed the likes of HP instead of Nvidia. If fact just about every single person I talked to that had a laptop die on them blamed the name on the case, not Nvidia.

 

[Silverforce11]

:thumbsup: Amen, brotha'!

I'm probably going to get a GTX 660 Ti for myself, and am considering the short Zotac card. Why?
1) I would have otherwise purchased Borderlands 2.
2) I'm downsizing my main rig from ATX to mini ITX and need a card no longer than 9.5", which seems to rule out all the faster Radeons such as the 7950, which seem to be 10.5".
3) I don't think the extra performance of the GTX 670 is worth the extra $100 for me.
4) A 9.5" card will completely fill the space, but the Zotac is under 8" which gives more breathing room in the tiny case that I will be using.

What mITX case? Sugo 5/6+ can fit 10.5 cards.

Check out mine, in sig.

 

[KompuKare]

They got away with it partially because people have short memories. And people blamed the likes of HP instead of Nvidia. If fact just about every single person I talked to that had a laptop die on them blamed the name on the case, not Nvidia.

I had already figured that, hence why don't understand why NV is back in Apple's laptops since Apple was probably the one OEM who handled their customers the best in the whole saga. My personal failure was actually a BFG 8800GT and at that stage BFG were no more (not that their warranty in Europe way much good - think it was 3 years if registered).

 

[antef]

:thumbsup: Amen, brotha'!

I'm probably going to get a GTX 660 Ti for myself, and am considering the short Zotac card. Why?
1) I would have otherwise purchased Borderlands 2.
2) I'm downsizing my main rig from ATX to mini ITX and need a card no longer than 9.5", which seems to rule out all the faster Radeons such as the 7950, which seem to be 10.5".
3) I don't think the extra performance of the GTX 670 is worth the extra $100 for me.
4) A 9.5" card will completely fill the space, but the Zotac is under 8" which gives more breathing room in the tiny case that I will be using.

I'm also curious which case you got. I recently downsized as well but only went to mATX, I wasn't sure I was prepared to face the trade-offs of mini-ITX.

 

[Olikan]

I don't even now where to begin. I suggest you to read this review:

http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/3026/nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-ti-review---3-way-sli-included

not sure, but amd drivers might be old there, crossfire is very broken in this review...and they only say nvidia drivers

 

[blastingcap]

Based on various reviews like TPU's (5% oc) and HWC's (at http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...6090-nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-ti-review-22.html) it would seem that many GK104s didn't make the cut to become GTX 670s, and NV stockpiled those semi-defective chips until they got enough of them to make a SKU for them. Meanwhile the top-rated GK104 chips are mostly in professional cards (MUCH more profitable than GeForce). Leftover GK104s are turned into 680 GTX. Some of them are artificially cut down into GTX 670s, and some GK104s that didn't make the cut will also be turned into GTX 670s.

Bottom line: don't expect much in the way of overclocks for your GTX 660Ti. However, since it's mainly bandwidth-starved, what may matter more is how well your memory overclocks. Like the TPU test where a 5% core oc and 20% memory oc translated to +13% framerates for that particular game. Other games may vary, and more testing should be done.