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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Nfarce - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
The GTX 680 is 20% higher in performance than the 660Ti but it comes at a lofty 67% higher price tag. The 670 is just 10% faster but still comes at a 33% price premium. I was upset after dropping 5 Benjamins on an EVGA 680 Superclocked when the 670 came out. I should have waited on THAT card and saved a hundred. Now this card is out and two of these in SLI will slaughter my 680 by a 35% margin for just another 20% in cost (according to Guru3D's SLI tests). Just damn on my timing and decisions. Methinks I'm selling the 680 for a $50 loss and get two of these for $600. Sure beats the original plan of spending $1,000 in a 680 SLI setup.CeriseCogburn - Sunday, August 19, 2012 - link
This place and Tom's very conveniently left out the 680 in all the charts but made biased assured that the 7970 was in every single one of them.TheJian - Monday, August 20, 2012 - link
Another 680 at newegg is $499 (lots of choices). Two 680's will smoke the two 660's for $100 less. Since you already own one ;) If you buy two of either, I hope you're going to run them at 5760x1200 (3 monitors or 3840x1200? two monitors?). Wasted power otherwise. 1920x1200 is already 100fps+ in almost everything on a GTX 680.But sorry about you jumping early :) That's the price any of us pay for being first on the block to have the latest toys :) Also note, you can turn down both 680's and have a silent seriously butt kicking machine until you actually need the power. No heat or noise until you actually need it. Let's face it, two 680's is a LOT of freaking performance.
Congrats if you've got an extra $500 laying around in these times :) Might want to wait for labor day specials though ;)
xKrNMBoYx - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
Is that a typo or is the Zotac GTX 660 Ti AMP! memory clock 600 MHz fasterRyan Smith - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
That's not a typo. They are offering a factory memory overclock; the only such vendor to do so according to the list I have.Jaguar36 - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
I'd love to see SC2 come back, particularly with the new Arcade games. Some of them can easily bring even a top card to its knees. The final battle of a Desert Strike game will crush even the best cards.TheJian - Tuesday, August 21, 2012 - link
Nah, I'm sure people would whine because it's another victory for Nvidia at 1920x1200 and below (heck I think above also). They could have benched it as before but Ryan probably wanted to leave it out :) He might have had to make a conclusion then, even at 2560x1600... ;)http://www.anandtech.com/show/6025/radeon-hd-7970-...
Note that article is from 6/22/2012. and they used it again here:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6096/evga-geforce-gt...
7/22/2012...
You see, at 1920x1200 ULTRA + 4xMSAA the GTX670 already scores 121.2 vs. 108.3 for the 7970GE (7970 only gets 99, and the 7950 gets 88.2fps). So you would have the GTX 660 TI smoking the 7970Ghz edition. That wouldn't look too good when it's supposed to be competing against the 7850/7950...LOL. The GTX 670 even beats the 7970GHZ edition in the 2% market share 2560x1600 also. So it may have looked pretty bad against the 660 here also. It would have made his 2560x1600 digs and conclusion even worse and hard to even argue there. Ryan was smart here...Just not quite smart enough if you look at the big picture of evidence.
Understand why they won't bench SC2 again now? Why not run the last version patch that works fine? Did 1.51 not work too (released 8th? a week ago from review date). Instead he keeps in Warhead from 2008 and an engine from 2007 that was only used in 7 games vs. the much more TAXING Crysis 2 (not 1) with DX11 patch and Ultra res patch which turns on a crapload of stuff like:hardware tessellation, soft shadows with variable penumbra, improved water rendering, particle motion blur and shadowing, Parallax Occlusion Mapping, full-resolution High Dynamic Range motion blur, & hardware-based occlusion culling.
"can it run crysis?"...Wrong question, can it run crysis 2! :) I still think it would be close or a loss for NV though with 660. It would be a close call, probably a wash...But that wouldn't help ryan either :) Hence the 2008 game.
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
This place for these vidcards is goners man. Good job.Stas - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
Disappointed. Was hoping to see it match 7950 to drive the prices down... But it actually loses to 7950. Let alone o/c potential. Ugh... keep waiting.TheJian - Tuesday, August 21, 2012 - link
I'm not even going to waste my time with this BS comment. But see my response to Ryan's lame excuse over 2560x1600 for all the details you SHOULD have seen in his review (and some that he SHOULD have put IN the review). It only one ONE game @1920x1200. In my response to ryan I prove you can't run at 2560x1600 and stay above 30fps.Nice try though. :) Slower my butt.