The GeForce GTX 660 Ti Review, Feat. EVGA, Zotac, and Gigabyte
by Ryan Smith on August 16, 2012 9:00 AM ESTBattlefield 3
Its popularity aside, Battlefield 3 may be the most interesting game in our benchmark suite for a single reason: it’s the first AAA DX10+ game. It’s been 5 years since the launch of the first DX10 GPUs, and 3 whole process node shrinks later we’re finally to the point where games are using DX10’s functionality as a baseline rather than an addition. Not surprisingly BF3 is one of the best looking games in our suite, but as with past Battlefield games that beauty comes with a high performance cost.
The reduction in memory bandwidth and ROP throughput coming from the GTX 670 comes with roughly an 11% performance cost here, just about splitting the difference between the best and worst case scenarios. This is important for the GTX 660 Ti since it means the card doesn’t surrender NVIDIA’s performance advantage in BF3. At 1920 with FXAA that means the GTX 660 Ti has a huge 30% performance lead over the 7950, and even the 7970 falls behind the GTX 660 Ti. The only real disappointment here is that 1920 with MSAA isn’t quite playable – 53fps means that framerates will bottom out in the mid-20s, which isn’t desirable.
Meanwhile the factory overclocked cards continue to up the ante, and ends up being another game that factory overclocks offer a decent improvement. Zotac tops the factory cards at 10%, followed by Gigabyte and EVGA. We’re once again seeing the impact of Zotac’s memory overclock, and how in memory bandwidth limited situations it’s more important than Gigabyte’s higher power target, though Gigabyte does come close.
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Ryan Smith - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
For the Zotac card we merely need to reduce the clockspeeds. NVIDIA has an enforced voltage limit of 1.175v, so the voltages are identical for both reference cards and factory overclocked cards.Galcobar - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
Ah, dagnabit, meant to say "as I understand NVIDIA's base/boost clock implementation."Galcobar - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
If the base clock isn't affected by the software, would that not skew the results or are you expecting the card never to operate at the overclocked base clock?Ryan Smith - Friday, August 17, 2012 - link
I'm not sure I follow you. The base clock is affected by software. We have full control over the base clock through clock offsets.just4U - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
I was hoping these cards would come in under the $250 price point. I don't really see them as substantially lower at $300. If I were in the market for a card today I'd probably settle on the 7950 over the 660TI as it looks like it has room to grow with better drivers.. and seems like the 3G might actually benifit it in the long run.. or I'd just get a 670 and call it a day.Pixelpusher6 - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
"Otherwise the memory layout is the same as the reference GTX 660 Ti with 6 chips on the front and 8 on the back." - page 5Ok I'm confused here because a few pages back it said:
"The only difference we can find on this PCB is that instead of there being solder pads for 16 memory chips there are solder pads for 12, reflecting the fact that the GTX 660 Ti can have at most 12 memory chips attached."
I get that this is a custom PCB so it might vary from the reference PCB but I don't understand how it can be equipped with 14 memory chips and if it is then is it a mix of 2Gb and 1Gb chips? Can you please explain?
Also for people that are referencing the 7870 on newegg at $250 can you please provide a link because the cheapest card I found was @ $279.99 AFTER a mail in rebate. Seems to me to be sitting much closer to $300 than $250.
Overall I was surprised by the performance of this card, I figured it would be a dog in games like Metro 2033 and Crysis having that extra ROP unit / memory bus cut down.
Ryan Smith - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
That was meant to be 2 on the back, not 8. Sorry about that.seasick - Friday, August 17, 2012 - link
they've tweaked gk104 resulting a new chip more of a gk105 ..lolbut this card gtx660ti is shitt
a highly overclocked would beat it(maybe 2fps more but who care)...and is $60 less ...this card is made for gamers who wants efficiency more than performance
right now the hd7950 is the best vfm card followed by gtx670
TheJian - Monday, August 20, 2012 - link
Can you prove anything you've said? Links to reviews showing this please. You can overclock the 660TI also. I backed my opinion all over this comment section. I'd be more than happy to look at some data if you have ANY. No 2560x1600 though, I already proved nobody uses it. No 24in sold that use it on newegg. No 27's go that high either...ROFL. Please...LInks and data.The 660TI is the best VFM card for 98% of us. We don't run in 2560x1600.
CeriseCogburn - Sunday, August 19, 2012 - link
No they cannot, they just lie a lot.Now the 7950 has "easily a 35% to 45% overclock out of the box- or a 50% overclock easily".