The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Review: GK106 Fills Out The Kepler Family
by Ryan Smith on September 13, 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.
BF3 has always favored NVIDIA’s architectures, so it comes as no surprise here that this is another good showing for the GTX 660. Realistically speaking MSAA is out of the question here since the minimum framerates would drop into the 20s, but performance is still high enough for 1920 on Ultra quality with FXAA. Here the GTX 660 trails the GTX 660 Ti by 12% while stopping just short of completely clobbering the 7800 series. At 71fps it can beat the 7870 by 19% and even beats the 7950 by 14%. Much like Portal 2 this is a game where the 7950 should by all rights be winning, so it’s curious just what is going on under the hood that has NVIDIA’s architectures doing so well here.
Even among NVIDIA cards however this is another strong showing for the GTX 660. Here it improves on the performance of the GTX 460 by 76%, a difference so large that it sees the GTX 660 crack 60fps at 1920 when the GTX 460 can’t crack 60fps at 1680.
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yeeeeman - Saturday, September 15, 2012 - link
Really, G80 was a revolution on its own. Spectacular jump in performance compared to the previous generation, and combined with 65nm process technology gave birth to some of the finest video cards.The real setback here, is the fact that the gaming industry is driven by the lowest common denominator, and we all know that consoles are the most important. They are sold in the largest quantities, and most games are designed for their power, not higher.
For PCs, games receive a DX11 treatment, with some fancy features, than enhance the quality a little bit, but it can never make up for the fact that the textures and the game is designed for a much slower platform.
So given these facts, why change my 9600GT, when it can handle pretty much everything?
steelnewfie - Saturday, September 15, 2012 - link
"For the 2GB GTX 660, NVIDIA has outfit the card with 8 2Gb memory modules"Should read outfitted.
Also 8 2Gb memory modules? Did you mean 2GB? Either is incorrect by my math.
If there are 8 banks should not each module be 256 MB?
Otherwise, great articles, keep up the good work!
Ryan Smith - Saturday, September 15, 2012 - link
Individual memory modules are labeled by their capacity in bits, not bytes. So each module is 2 gigabits (Gb), which is 256MB. 8x2Gb is how the card ends up with 2 gigabytes (GB) of RAM.MrBubbles - Saturday, September 15, 2012 - link
Cool, I have a GTX 260 and since NVidia is deliberately breaking their driver support for games like Civ 5 I guess this is the card to get.saturn85 - Saturday, September 15, 2012 - link
nice folding@home benchmark.JWill97 - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
For me, I really think it's the best card you can buy at this price. Not a fan (neutral) of both NVidia or AMD, but really, at $200+ segment nvidia takes it. But I still wondering, why all reviewers aren't using Maxpayne3 as one of the game benchmark? A lot of cards would be struggle playing it.Grawbad - Friday, March 1, 2013 - link
"NVIDIA has spent a lot of time in the past couple of years worrying about the 8800GT/9800GT in particular. “The only card that matters” was a massive hit for the company straight up through 2010, which has made it difficult to get users to upgrade even 4 years later."I am one of those. I purchased a 9800 GTX and that sucker runs everything. Mind you, all my other components were quality too so I didn't bottleneck myself. But this card has run everything I have ever thrown at it.. Only recently have I had to start watching the AA a bit. Which is why I am now, 5 years later in the market for a new card. 5 Years.
Indeed, those cards were astounding.
Mine was an EVGA 9800 GTX with a lifetime warranty. Thank goodness for that as it finally went out on me this year and I had to RMA it. And now that I am looking into getting a new card it seems EVGA has dropped their lifetime warranty. That makes me sad.
Anyways, yeah, those were are are still great cards. I mean, if you picked up a 9800 GTX today, you will be able to run even the newest games. Albeit youll need to turn down aa and such, but you can still get GREAT graphics out of most anything even today.