The GeForce GTX 660 Ti Review, Feat. EVGA, Zotac, and Gigabyte
by Ryan Smith on August 16, 2012 9:00 AM ESTMeet The Zotac GeForce GTX 660 Ti AMP! Edition
Our next GTX 660 Ti of the day is Zotac’s entry, the GeForce GTX 660 Ti AMP! Edition. As indicated by the AMP branding (and like the other cards in this review) it’s a factory overclocked card; in fact it has the highest factory overclock of all the cards we’re reviewing today, with both a core and memory overclock.
| GeForce GTX 660 Ti Partner Card Specification Comparison | ||||||
| GeForce GTX 660 Ti(Ref) | EVGA GTX 660 Ti Superclocked | Zotac GTX 660 Ti AMP! | Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC | |||
| Base Clock | 915MHz | 980MHz | 1033MHz | 1033MHz | ||
| Boost Clock | 980MHz | 1059MHz | 1111MHz | 1111MHz | ||
| Memory Clock | 6008MHz | 6008MHz | 6608MHz | 6008MHz | ||
| Frame Buffer | 2GB | 2GB | 2GB | 2GB | ||
| TDP | 150W | 150W | 150W | ~170W | ||
| Width | Double Slot | Double Slot | Double Slot | Double Slot | ||
| Length | N/A | 9.5" | 7.5" | 10,5" | ||
| Warranty | N/A | 3 Year | 3 Year + Life | 3 Year | ||
| Price Point | $299 | $309 | $329 | $319 | ||
Zotac will be shipping the GeForce GTX 660 Ti AMP at 1033MHz for the base clock and 1111MHz for the boost clock. This represents a sizable 118MHz (13%) base overclock, and a 131MHz (13%) boost overclock. Meanwhile Zotac will be shipping their memory at 6.6GHz, a full 600MHz (10%) over the reference GTX 660 Ti. The latter overclock will stand to be very important, as we’ve already noted the GTX 660 Ti is starting off life as a memory bandwidth crippled card. Power consumption willing, the GTX 660 Ti AMP is in a good position to pick up at least 10% on performance relative to the reference GTX 660 Ti.
Like the EVGA card we just took a look at, Zotac’s GTX 660 Ti is based on NVIDIA’s reference board, so we’ll skip the details here. Rather than using a blower like EVGA however, Zotac is using an open air cooler – dubbed the dual silencer – that is well suited for a board of this length. The cooler uses a pair of 70mm fans, mounted over an aluminum heatsink that runs nearly the entire length of the card. Attaching the heatsink to the GPU itself is a trio of copper heatpipes, which transfer heat from the GPU to various points on the heatsink. Meanwhile the VRMs are cooled by a smaller, separate heatsink that fits under the primary heatsink; given the size and the location, it’s hard to say just how well this secondary heatsink is being cooled.
Altogether the card measures just 7.5” in length, an otherwise itty-bity card made just a bit longer thanks to some overhang from Zotac’s cooler. Zotac advertises their dual silencer as being 10C cooler and 10dB quieter than the competition, and while this may strictly be true when compared to some blowers, it’s not appreciably different than the dual-fan open air heatsinks that are extremely common on the market today. In fact among all of the cards we’re reviewing today this is unquestionably the most standard of them, as Zotac and several other NVIDIA partners will be shipping reference clocked cards built very similar to this. For this reason we’ll be using Zotac’s card as our reference card for the purpose of our testing.
Moving on, power and display connectivity is the same as with the GTX 670 and other cards using NVIDIA’s PCBs. This means 2 PCIe power sockets and 2 SLI connectors on the top, and 1 DL-DVI-D port, 1 DL-DVI-I port, 1 full size HDMI 1.4 port, and 1 full size DisplayPort 1.2 on the front.
Rounding out the package is the usual collection of molex power adapters and quickstart guides, along with a trial version of Trackmania Canyon. However the real star of the show as far as pack-in games goes will be Borderlands 2 through NVIDIA’s launch offer.
Wrapping things up, Zotac is attaching a $329 MSRP to the GeForce GTX 660 Ti AMP, which makes it a full $30 more expensive than reference-clocked cards and reflecting the greater factory overclock. This also makes it the most expensive card in today’s review by $10. Meanwhile for the warranty Zotac is offering a base 2 year warranty, which is extended to a rather generous full limited lifetime warranty upon registration of the card.
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CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
I really didn't read your rant just skimmed your crybaby whine.So who cares you had an emotional blowout. Take some midol.
Galidou - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
Attacking and attacking again, you have so much respect it's almost admirable. Respect is the most important thing in the world, if you can't have some for even people you don't know, I'm sorry but you're missing on something here.Galidou - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
I love it when people state their disrespectful opinion as a fact. Really drives their point home, yep.CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
Take a look at your 7950 SKYRIM LOSS in triple monitor to the 660Ti and the 660Ti also beats the 7950 boost and the 7970 !5760x1080 4x aa 16x af
ROFLMAO !
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2012/08/16/nvidia...
YES, YOU DID YOUR "RESEARCH"... now you've lost every stupid argument you started. Stupid.
Galidou - Tuesday, September 4, 2012 - link
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GT...http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canu...
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-66...
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6159/the-geforce-gtx...
Every review shows the 660ti under EVEN the 7870 and your review shows the 660 ti performing to the level of a 7970, flawed bullscrap. Your website has a problem, the same you have, it has a choosen side aka Fanboyism.
I have both right now my wife uses the 660 ti in her pc for Guild wars 2 at 1080p and I bought the 7950 and overclocked both in my pc to test and the 7950 hands down tramples over the gtx 660 ti even both fully overclocked. I tested with skyrim on 3 monitor 5760*1080 and that's the only game I play.
Now don't get MAD, I never said the gtx 660 ti is a bad card, it works wonders. But it gets trampled at 5760*1080 in skyrim end of the line...
TheJian - Monday, August 20, 2012 - link
Actually I think they need to raise the clocks, and charge more, accepting the fact they will run hotter and use more watts. At least they can get more for the product, rather than having people saying you can OC them to 1100. Clock the normals at 900/1000 and the 7970@1050/1100 or so. Then charge more. Of course Nv is putting pricing pressure on them at the same time, but this move would allow them to be worth more out of the box so it wouldn't be as unreasonable. AT out of the box right now you can't charge more because they perform so poorly against what is being sold (and benchmarked) in the stores.With NV/Intel chewing them from both ends AMD isn't making money. But I think that's their fault with the mhz/pricing they're doing to themselves. They haven't ripped us off since the Athlon won for 3 years straight. Even then, they weren't getting real rich. Just making the profits they should have deserved. Check their 10yr profit summary and you'll see, they have lost 6bil. So I'd have to say they are NOT pricing/clocking their chips correctly, at least for this generation. These guys need to start making more money or they're going to be in bankruptcy by 2014 xmas.
Last 12 months= sales 6.38bil = PROFITS= - 629 million! They aren't gouging us...They are losing their collective A$$es :(
http://investing.money.msn.com/investments/stock-p...
That's a LOSS of 629 million. Go back 10yrs its about a 6.x billion loss.
While I hate the way Ryan did his review, AMD needs all the help they can get I guess... :) But Ryan needs to redo his recommendation (or lack of one) because he just looks like a buffoon when no monitors sell at 2560x1600 (30inchers? only 11, and less than this res), and steampowered.com shows less than 2% use this res also. He looks foolish at best not recommending based on 1920x1200 results which 98% of us use. He also needs to admit that Warhead is from 2008, and should have used Crysis 2 which is using an engine based on 27 games instead of CryEngine 2 from 2007 and only 7 games based on it. It's useless.
Galidou - Tuesday, August 21, 2012 - link
''profits they should have deserved''You speak like if they had to overcome Intel and Nvidia's performance is easy and it's all their fault because they work bad. AMD got a wonderful team, you speak like you ever worked there and they don't do shit, they sit on their chair and that's the result of their work.
Well it isn't, if you wanan speak like that about AMD, do it if you work there. No one is better placed to say if a company is really good or bad than the employees themselves. So just stop speaking like if designing these over 3 billions transistor things is as easy as saying ''hello, my name is Nvidia fanboy and AMD is crap''.
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
AMD is crap. It's crap man, no getting around it.Galidou - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
Too late Cerise, you lost all credibility by not being able to have an objective(it means it is undistorted by emotions) opinion and you rather proved you're way too much emotive to speak about video cards manufacturer.You too speak like if you ever worked at AMD and sure it is not the case, just visiting their headquarters would make your eyes bleed because in your world, this place is related to hell, with an ambient temperature averaging 200 degrees celsius, surrounded by walls of flesh, where torture is a common thing. And in the end, the demons poop video cards and force you to buy or kill your family.
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
Your opinion - " i'm did my research ima getting my 7950 for my triple monitor SKYRIM..."Take a look at your 7950 SKYRIM LOSS in triple monitor to the 660Ti and the 660Ti also beats the 7950 boost and the 7970 !
5760x1080 4x aa 16x af
ROFLMAO !
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2012/08/16/nvidia...
There isn't a palm big enough in the world to cover your face.