GTX 660Ti Reviews

[cmdrdredd]

check out how bad the 660ti does in Skyrim with 4xAA even at 1920. http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...6090-nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-ti-review-16.html


and then it really tanks with 8x AA as even the 7870 is beating the crap out of it. http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...6090-nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-ti-review-20.html

TechPowerup seemed to have a similar result where a 7870 beats it at 1920x1200

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_660_Ti_Power_Edition/22.html

 

[Silverforce11]

Because they use skyrim mods which boost vram usage?

BF3 CAN use extra vram (above 1gb), but it doesn't need it. Its dynamic LOD has always been that way.

 

[fleshconsumed]

People should stop comparing the 660Ti with the 7950. They are in different leagues. Even if the 660Ti wins in some games and under certain circumstances overall the 7950 is a better card. But it is also priced higher. The 660Ti goes against the 7870 while being obviously the better choice at the same price.

Except that 7950 can be purchased for as low as ~$317 right now, that's a spitting distance from $300 660ti MSRP. They're compared on price.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Not a fan of the asymmetrical interface. Might as well just pass the .5GB savings on to the customer.

I would bet by the time 1.5GB is a bottleneck; the 660Ti GPU core is a bottleneck as well. That extra .5GB won't make a difference except for marketing.

[bold]Still, it's better price/performance than 680/70[/bold]

Oh really...660ti is $300 and the 670 is $400 right? Look at this and tell me it's a better buy.

Now maybe you can say "nobody plays Metro 2033" but I assure you tomorrow's games won't likely be running like Skyrim or Diablo 3. Take a look at benchmarks for Sleeping Dogs. It's a very optimized engine and runs well on good hardware, but turn up the AA and even a single 670 struggles a bit. $100 goes a long way for longevity of a GPU.

Heck why even stop at Nvidia cards. A $330 7950 would be even better in terms of price vs performance. Can stretch even further with a little overclocking.

Because they use skyrim mods which boost vram usage?

BF3 CAN use extra vram (above 1gb), but it doesn't need it. Its dynamic LOD has always been that way.

They use High resolution texture pack which is a Bethesda add on. It's not 4k textures or ENB mod. It's official.

Except that 7950 can be purchased for as low as ~$317 right now, that's a spitting distance from $300 660ti MSRP. They're compared on price.

This is true and people need to realize this because the GTX 660ti is not priced to compete with the 7870 at all. Oh I get it, the 7950 is still more expensive. Yeah I get that but bring your own lunch and skip the fast food for a week and you're there. Or heck...I probably have $20 worth of change under the seat in my car.

 

[toyota]

Because they use skyrim mods which boost vram usage?

BF3 CAN use extra vram (above 1gb), but it doesn't need it. Its dynamic LOD has always been that way.

what? they used the official high res texture pack and the game is tanking because of AA not because of the amount of vram.

 

[Silverforce11]

Yeah but other games dont seem to tank very much with 4x AA, its only skyrim where the perf loss is huge.

Im just trying to understand why, is it more than 1.5gb vram usage thats causing it?

 

[antef]

I already bought Borderlands 2 so I'll be selling the copy that comes with the 660 Ti, hopefully for around $40. That makes the 660 Ti $70 cheaper than the 7950 (both at Newegg), simplified my decision quite a bit.

Thanks, awesome suggestion. Which 660 Ti did you get?

Edit: Also what is the best way to sell a coupon like that...right here on FS/FT? I think I'm going to do exactly this as soon as I pick a card.

 

[Atreidin]

Aren't there games that use more memory if it's there (like by rendering things further away), but will just render less things if there is less memory? I seem to recall Nvidia zealots practically screaming at people about how this was one reason why 3GB didn't matter over 2GB.

I think it would then be possible in those situations that this card would run slower with 2GB than if it only had 1.5GB (albeit with more stuff on the screen), since the game would use the extra-slow 512MB when it wouldn't have otherwise. In a way, that would be really funny.

Please correct me if my thinking is wrong.

 

[toyota]

Yeah but other games dont seem to tank very much with 4x AA, its only skyrim where the perf loss is huge.

Im just trying to understand why, is it more than 1.5gb vram usage thats causing it?

no as the card does have 2gb of vram anyway. even the 670 suffers a bit with high levels of AA in that game compared to the AMD cards. and it must just be how the AA is getting applied. some games take a big hit and some games dont I guess and it can impact AMD and Nvidia differently.

 

[nervx]

Its a shame evga sent out the sc version. Some of their better versions are using a 680 board which makes me wonder if they can be modded or flashed into a 670.

 

[RussianSensation]

People should stop comparing the 660Ti with the 7950. They are in different leagues. Even if the 660Ti wins in some games and under certain circumstances overall the 7950 is a better card. But it is also priced higher. The 660Ti goes against the 7870 while being obviously the better choice at the same price.

Newegg has good aftermarket 660Tis for $299.99 + 7.56 shipping = $307.56. It does come with BL2 though.

An equivalent 7950 is $317 with shipping in with 3 games. That's only a $10 difference.

A good 7870 goes for $280 all in. That's $27 less than the 660Ti.

So which is 660Ti closest to 7950 or 7870? Also, 7870 has always been a huge waste of $ since HD7850 is $240. To me it's more like if someone wants to spend $200-250, HD7850 is the target. If someone wants to spend $250-300, then I think 7870/660Ti fall into that but clearly the 7950 can be found for barely more than a 660Ti. So it has to be considered a contender. This is no different if someone has a budget of $300-350. Then suddenly 7950 is a direct competitor.

I just don't think 7870 is a good competitor since people on our forum would buy a 7850 and OC it instead. Someone buying a 660Ti is probably looking at that vs. 7950. BL2 gives NV a huge advantage. I think BL2 and most people not wanting to overclock will ensure the 660Ti is an amazing seller. Also, it's NV's marketing of putting factory pre-overclocked 660Ti for reviews but some are still using a stock 800mhz 7950 as a comparison. These little things NV gets away with and the card looks great in reviews that don't use MSAA as much. :thumbsup:

The average consumer will buy NV anyway, at all price levels. A lot of those gamers don't overclock. In fact NV said 80% of their buyers don't even tweak settings in games. So you can basically assume that 80% of GPU buyers are noobs, with 20% comprising people who know what they are buying. That's why they spent 5 years launching GeForce Experience. This was discussed during GTX690 launch. This is no different than Toyota Camry and Honda Accord outselling everything in their class. Consumers want the safe choice and 660Ti provides exactly that with a good free game. There is no question at all that 660Ti will far outsell the 7870 and 7950. That still doesn't make it the enthusiast's choice imo. That fact that it can't handle MSAA well and is not really a 2GB card are huge huge red flags to me. I'd never spend $300 on a card that can't even perform the basic functions of what I expect out of a $300 card. It's basically spending $300 on a 1.5GB card today. May not matter now but like I said before I made this mistake with $300 8800GTS 320mb and I paid a price for it.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Newegg has good aftermarket 660Tis for $299.99 + 7.56 shipping = $307.56. It does come with BL2 though.

An equivalent 7950 is $317 with shipping in with 3 games. That's only a $10 difference.

A good 7870 goes for $280 all in. That's $27 less than the 660Ti.

So which is 660Ti closest to 7950 or 7870? Also, 7870 has always been a huge waste of $ since HD7850 is $240. To me it's more like if someone wants to spend $200-250, HD7850 is the target. If someone wants to spend $250-300, then I think 7870/660Ti/7950 fall into that but clearly the 7950 can be found for barely more than a 660Ti.

I just don't think 7870 is a viable competitor since people on our forum would buy a 7850 and OC it instead. Someone buying a 660Ti is probably looking at that vs. 7950. BL2 gives NV a huge advantage. :thumbsup:

What if you hated borderlands and it always crashed? You wouldn't be excited for BL2.

BL2 shouldn't matter at all. Yeah it's there but not everyone will even care about it or like it. I ignore the bundles and free stuff and compare everything based on what you are playing or looking to play. I doubt everyone who was gonna buy Borderlands 2 is running out to get a 660ti just because it comes free lol.

 

[toyota]

Its a shame evga sent out the sc version. Some of their better versions are using a 680 board which makes me wonder if they can be modded or flashed into a 670.

you cant flash or mod a 192 bit 24 rop card into a 256 bit 32 rop card.

 

[Haserath]

Oh really...660ti is $300 and the 670 is $400 right? Look at this and tell me it's a better buy.

Now maybe you can say "nobody plays Metro 2033" but I assure you tomorrow's games won't likely be running like Skyrim or Diablo 3. Take a look at benchmarks for Sleeping Dogs. It's a very optimized engine and runs well on good hardware, but turn up the AA and even a single 670 struggles a bit. $100 goes a long way for longevity of a GPU.

Heck why even stop at Nvidia cards. A $330 7950 would be even better in terms of price vs performance. Can stretch even further with a little overclocking.

Yep, that graph shows it's better price/performance than 680/70.

It's 3/4 the price of the 670 and it performs slightly above that even in that graph. At worst it should be 3/4 the 670 and at best it could be equal.

I wasn't comparing to AMD cards.

 

[notty22]

And then there are benching/settings that show the 660 perform well in Metro vs other cards. Here with a explanation.

The stock 660 is clocked 10% less than the 670. Clock them the same, and in certain settings the card performs more closely. That's where it looks more like a good value.

Metro is another game that has been favoring AMD’s GCN architecture over NVIDIA’s Kepler architecture, albeit less so than Crysis. The results still have the GTX 660 Ti struggling, but now it’s at least clearly ahead of the 7870, beating it by 7%. The 7950 however leads by similar 7%, which means the GTX 660 Ti is splitting the difference and is not competitive enough in this game.
The factory overclocked cards on the other hand show us that there is some hope for GTX 660 Ti, even with its memory bus castration. Both the Gigabyte and Zotac cards can edge out the 7950, an important distinction since they need to justify costing about as much as a 7950. At the same time this is part of the reason why AMD felt the need to do the 7950B, since only the B can outpace overclocked GTX 660 Ti cards.

 

[RussianSensation]

That's where it looks more like a good value.

If you want to talk about value, those 2 charts clearly revealed that a used HD6950 2GB @ 6970 shader unlock is better value than all those cards (or GTX470 Oced :sneaky. I've seen 6950 2GB @ 6970 speeds with remaining warranty go for $160-170. How does a $300 GTX660Ti compare to that? People looking for the most value will never buy a new card. Also, GTX570 was $260 with free games at least 1 year ago. It took 20 months for GTX660Ti to launch and beat that card for $50 less. This isn't to say that 660Ti is a scapegoat since this pretty much applies to this entire generation. At least in the case of 670 the value card was clear: it provided > 7970 and ~ 680 for months for $100 less. 660Ti isn't faster than the 7950, overclocks worse, performs worse with MSAA, has less VRAM....power consumption and $10-20 savings + BL2 are the standouts.

I am just not sure throwing the value card at the 660Ti makes any sense when HD7850 costs way less and 7950 overclocks like a champ giving at least some long-term comfort to handle next gen games. Actually value wise 660Ti is actually a risky choice here among new cards since it can't do handle MSAA consistently and only has 1.5GB of effective VRAM.

 

[notty22]

At least you didn't tell me how the AMD cards are free. Comparing used cards to launch pricing is never logical. Says Spock from Vulcan. lol
Kidding by the way.

 

[tviceman]

It does though if you look at reviews that cranked up AA. A stock 7950 beats it by 5% overall with 8AA.

Now see what happens if AT's review used higher AA modes:

Batman AC was tested with just 4AA at AnandTech. Take it to 8AA and 7950 leads by 16%.
Skyrim was also tested with 4AA at AT. Take it to 8AA and 7950 leads by 24%.

It looks like the gtx660ti does a decent job at 4xAA. When did 8xAA become a requirement for judging how manly a video card is? The quality differences are so indiscernably, incredibly, minutely, you-can-only-tell-in-screenshots small that during actual motion image 93.765 of anyone will be able to tell or, more importantly, give two sh!ts. Sometimes you make some excellent points (specifically when you talk about value) but in this case (8x vs. 4x performance from a value perspective) point is so insignificantly not worth linking articles to and debating about that it reminds me a baseball statistician who is talking about percentage of strikes thrown by left handed pitchers on the outer half of the plate vs. right handed batters in the 7th inning or later during a night game in July and how it affects outcomes of tie games. :|

The market is muddied. Do you play at 1080p, 1440p, or have surround monitor setups? Are you planning on purchasing Borderlands 2 at full price or near it? Do you game with a 120hz monitor? Is 8xAA that much more important than 4xAA? Is 4xAA that much more important than no AA? What is your budget limit? <--------------------These are seriously way more important questions than "does the gtx660ti have the bandwidth for 8xAA at 2560x1600 or 1920x1200".

 

[AnandThenMan]

I think it's fair to say that this card shows itself quite well when sites stick to Nvidia's review guide and go easy on it. But it seems too gimped to me, from an engineering perspective I find the memory arrangement strange. I was going to buy this card pending reviews, but I'm skipping it and instead will try and get a good deal on a 670 instead.

BTW I run 8xAA whenever I can, sometimes I hardly see any difference but most of the time I like the visuals it's easier on the eyes after hours of gaming.

 

[n0x1ous]

How about those 480s? Those cards will have long staying power. Oced = 580 SLI. Not much upgrade path for you n0x prob. not until GTX780.

Yeah the 480s still get the job done for me @ 1080 4x MSAA. And the 1.5gb has still proven to be enough for that so far in my case. If we see 780 gk110 with 40 percent more performance than a 680 for around $550 I will pick up 2 on launch day.

What about you RS? About all you can do till next generation is 7970 Xfire. U should be able to pick one up for a pretty good price soon if not already with some of the deals.

 

[JAG87]

People should stop comparing the 660Ti with the 7950. They are in different leagues. Even if the 660Ti wins in some games and under certain circumstances overall the 7950 is a better card. But it is also priced higher. The 660Ti goes against the 7870 while being obviously the better choice at the same price.

People easily forget that the 7950 was priced $450 not too long ago. It is not exactly a mid-range card, the only reason it became one is because it wasn't competitive at $450.

 

[Attic]

People easily forget that the 7950 was priced $450 not too long ago. It is not exactly a mid-range card, the only reason it became one is because it wasn't competitive at $450.

I still wouldn't call the 7950 a mid range card, and wouldn't consider $300 a midrange price segment. 200-250 is midrange IMO, anything higher than that and the buyer should expect extreme performance.

The 450 price was at a time before nVidia was in the game with the 670/680 and the 7950 competed with and beat a ~$450 GTX580 at the time. The 580 was an extreme card during this time.

Now >6mo's since it's release the 7950 has come down in price due to competition from nVidia, and it provides a solid value in the current market,... though still clearly high end for most folks considering blasting $300 on a vid card.

 

[zaydq]

People easily forget that the 7950 was priced $450 not too long ago. It is not exactly a mid-range card, the only reason it became one is because it wasn't competitive at $450.

AMD took advantage of the market considering Nvidia wasn't out with their new offerings. It took them some time to price cut but they did. The 7950 is still AMD's higher end card but they've slotted themselves in a position of not trying to outdo Nvidia, but to price accordingly. They put the 7850 price down, the 7870 just below 660ti pricing, the 7950 equal to or just above and the 7970 in between the 670 and 680. According to some reviews the 660ti seems to bounce between running with a stock 7870 and running with a stock 7950. Now, when overclocking, the gtx 660ti can no longer compete with a 7950 (both oc'd) and then is competing with a 7850/7870.

Hence, logically, for the enthusiast that is A: Not an Nvidia fanboy, B: Does their research and C: Is an overclocker. It would be hard pressing to get a gtx 660ti when you've got the cheaper comparable 7850/7870 or the slightly more expensive, shit tons faster 7950 when overclocked.

The 660ti doesn't do anything for the middle market, in my eyes AMD runs the middle market show by winning on price/perf on both ends of the $300 dollar price segment.

 

[JM Popaleetus]

http://www.asus.com/Graphics_Cards/NVIDIA_Series/GTX660_TIDC2TG2GD5/#specifications

Wonder how the ASUS TOP version is going to perform at...and be priced at...

 

[GoodRevrnd]

I was about to buy a used GTX 580, but given how these cards perform and that they come w/ a Borderlands 2 coupon, I'm not sure that makes sense any more. Trying to decide at what price the 580 becomes worth it again.