The GeForce GTX 660 Ti Review, Feat. EVGA, Zotac, and Gigabyte
by Ryan Smith on August 16, 2012 9:00 AM ESTMeet The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Ti OC
Our final GTX 660 Ti of the day is Gigabyte’s entry, the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Ti OC. Unlike the other cards in our review today this is not a semi-custom card but rather a fully-custom card, which brings with it some interesting performance ramifications.
| 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 | ||
The big difference between a semi-custom and fully-custom card is of course the PCB; fully-custom cards pair a custom cooler with a custom PCB instead of a reference PCB. Partners can go in a few different directions with custom PCBs, using them to reduce the BoM, reduce the size of the card, or even to increase the capabilities of a product. For their GTX 660 Ti OC, Gigabyte has gone in the latter direction, using a custom PCB to improve the card.
On the surface the specs of the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Ti OC are relatively close to our other cards, primarily the Zotac. Like Zotac Gigabyte is pushing the base clock to 1033MHz and the boost clock to 1111MHz, representing a sizable 118MHz (13%) base overclock and a 131MHz (13%) boost overclock respectively. Unlike the Zotac however there is no memory overclocking taking place, with Gigabyte shipping the card at the standard 6GHz.
What sets Gigabyte apart here in the specs is that they’ve equipped their custom PCB with better VRM circuitry, which means NVIDIA is allowing them to increase their power target from the GTX 660 Ti standard of 134W to an estimated 141W. This may not sound like much (especially since we’re working with an estimate on the Gigabyte board), but as we’ve seen time and time again GK104 is power-limited in most scenarios. A good GPU can boost to higher bins than there is power available to allow it, which means increasing the power target in a roundabout way increases performance. We’ll see how this works in detail in our benchmarks, but for now it’s good enough to say that even with the same GPU overclock as Zotac the Gigabyte card is usually clocking higher.
Moving on, Gigabyte’s custom PCB measures 8.4” long, and in terms of design it doesn’t bear a great resemblance to either the reference GTX 680 PCB nor the reference GTX 670 PCB; as near as we can tell it’s completely custom. In terms of design it’s nothing fancy – though like the reference GTX 670 the VRMs are located in the front – and as we’ve said before the real significance is the higher power target it allows. Otherwise the memory layout is the same as the reference GTX 660 Ti with 6 chips on the front and 2 on the back. Due to its length we’d normally insist on there being some kind of stiffener for an open air card, but since Gigabyte has put the GPU back far enough, the heatsink mounting alone provides enough rigidity to the card.
Sitting on top of Gigabyte’s PCB is a dual fan version of Gigabyte’s new Windforce cooler. The Windforce 2X cooler on their GTX 660 Ti is a bit of an abnormal dual fan cooler, with a relatively sparse aluminum heatsink attached to unusually large 100mm fans. This makes the card quite large and more fan than heatsink in the process, which is not something we’ve seen before.
The heatsink itself is divided up into three segments over the length of the card, with a pair of copper heatpipes connecting them. The bulk of the heatsink is over the GPU, while a smaller portion is at the rear and an even smaller portion is at the front, which is also attached to the VRMs. The frame holding the 100mm fans is then attached at the top, anchored at either end of the heatsink. Altogether this cooling contraption is both longer and taller than the PCB itself, making the final length of the card nearly 10” long.
Finishing up the card we find the usual collection of ports and connections. 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. Meanwhile toolless case users will be happy to see that the heatsink is well clear of the bracket, so toolless clips are more or less guaranteed to work here.
Rounding out the package is the usual collection of power adapters and a quick start guide. While it’s not included in the box or listed on the box, the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Ti OC works with Gigabyte’s OC Guru II overclocking software, which is available on Gigabyte’s website. Gigabyte has had OC Guru for a number of years now, and with this being the first time we’ve seen OC Guru II we can say it’s greatly improved from the functional and aesthetic mess that defined the previous versions.
While it won’t be winning any gold medals, in our testing OC Guru II gets the job done. Gigabyte offers all of the usual tweaking controls (including the necessary power target control), along with card monitoring/graphing and an OSD. It’s only real sin is that Gigabyte hasn’t implemented sliders on their controls, meaning that you’ll need to press and hold down buttons in order to dial in a setting. This is less than ideal, especially when you’re trying to crank up the 6000MHz memory clock by an appreciable amount.
Wrapping things up, the Gigebyte GeForce GTX 660 Ti OC comes with Gigabyte’s standard 3 year warranty. Gigabyte will be releasing it at an MSRP of $319, $20 over the price of a reference-clocked GTX 660 Ti and $10 less than the most expensive card in our roundup today.
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TheJian - Sunday, August 19, 2012 - link
You forgot to mention the extra heat, noise and watts it takes to do that 1250mhz. Catching NV's cards isn't free in any of these regards as the 7950 BOOST edition already shows vs. even the zotac Amp version of the 660ti.AMD fanboys might call these features these days I guess...
Galidou - Monday, August 20, 2012 - link
7950 boost is a reference board, as we said before, 4 out of 18 boards are reference on newegg. It's unlikely people will buy reference cooler from AMD because they're plain bad if you overclock. Will people putting the reference design out of the way when speaking about overclock....Noise and temperature when overclocked on either for example Twin Frozr3 from MSI or sapphire OC are ALOT more silent and cool even fully overclocked....
TheJian - Monday, August 20, 2012 - link
Nearly every card on newegg is OC'd by manufacturer and the top listed boost isn't even the top it can do by default which os a Nice.CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
The GTX 580 was already way ahead, so it didn't have to catch up to 6970. When OC'ed it was so far ahead it was ridiculous.That's why all the amd fans had a hissy fit when the 680 came out - it won on power - frames, features, price - all they could whine about was it wasn't "greatly faster" than last gen (finally admitting of course the 580 STOMPED the pedal to the floor, held it there, and blew the doors off everything before it).
See, these are the types of bias that always rear their ugly little hate filled heads.
Galidou - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
''ugly little hate filled heads''The sentence speaks for itself about who's writing it, you're one of them sorry, if it wasn't so filled with hate maybe I could pass but.... no.
It won for the first time on power/performance, let'S not do like it has always been like that.... and before even if they didn't win on that front you speak like they won on everything forever. There's nothing good about AMD we already know your opinion, you don'T have to spread some more hatred on the subject, we know it.
Just do yourself a favor, stop lacking respect to others for something everyone already knows about you, you hate AMD end of the line.
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
You were wrong again and made a completely false comparison, and got called on it.Should I just call you blabbering idiot instead of hate filled biased amd fanboy ?
How about NEITHER, and you keeping the facts straight ?
HEY !
That would actually be nice, but you're not nice.
Galidou - Tuesday, August 21, 2012 - link
You didn't get the point of the memory controller/memory quantity they said here, poor newbie, let me explain things for you. On GCN there's 6 64bit memory bus, now divide 3gb of memory into 6, bingo 512mb each controller. Now take 2gb of memory and divide it by 3 memory bus of the 660 ti(192bit), ohhh you can't do this, what that means is there are 2 64 bit buses that takes care of a 512mb chip and the 2 other memory buses take care of 2x512 memory each.Asynchronous memory may not be that bad, it isn't a weirdo theory either, my little girl that's 10 years old would understand it if I would explain her that simple mathematical equation. Mr Cogburn the expert with less logic than a 10 y old girl... what are you doing here, you'Re so good, maybe you should join us at overclock.net and discuss with some pro overclockers and show us your results of your cpu/gpu on nitrogen if you're so pro about hardware.
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
Wow, and to think you just said you couldn't support the hatred, but there you go spreading your hatred again.The author is WRONG. Be a man and face the facts.
Galidou - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
I didn't use a damn word that lacked of respect to you in all my previous posts unlike you calling me dummy, stupid, and so on in some previous post. You used words nazi, evil, and so on against AMD but I'm the one who spread the HATE LOL COMON.Don't try me, you are the most disrespectful, but still knowledgeable, person I've ever seen at your times. You expect me to stay totally cold all the time in face of the fact you diminish and attack people calling them names because they are Fanboys.... COMON.
I speak once against your logic but every post you have is full of hatred and attack to people but ohhh when I say something ONCE, it's BAD. COMON.... Well I know it wasn't my best one and I offer you my dearest excuses, I truly am sorry. I was at the end of the roll, you're hard to follow, using everything you can to make us feel like AMD is realted to cancer, hell, nazis and such while I have a 4870 and 6850 crossfire that served me well.
Imagine someone attacking and diminishing the user of a product because he uses the said product and you're one owner of that said product. Someone lacking of respect to YOU in every way because you use that thing and you actually like it and it served you well, you had no problem with it but still he can't stop and almost tries to make you beleive that if you bought that, it'S because you are plain stupid. You'd be mad, well that's what you make feel to most of AMD users the way you speak of them.
I'm sorry for being such an ass comparing your logic to my 10 years old daughter while I know you're more logical than her. But you should really be sorry to any AMD video card owner that reads you because you really make em beleive AMD is the devil and their products are worthless while they're not.
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
Don't start out with a big lie, and you won't hear from me in the way you don't like to hear or see.You've got yourself convinced, you already did your research, you've said so, you've told yourself a pile of lies, WELL KEEP YOUR LIES TO YOURSELF THEN, in your own head, swirling around, instead of laying them on here then making up every excuse when you get called on them !
Pretty simple dude.
Here' let me help you, this is you talking:
" I've been brainwashed at overclockers and all the amd fanboys there have convinced me to "get into OC" and told me a dozen lies, half of which I blindly and unthinkingly repeated here as I attacked the guy who knew what he was talking about and proved me wrong, again and again. I hate him, and want him to do what I say, not what he does. I want to remain wrong and immensley biased for all the wrong reasons, because being an amd fanboy is my fun no matter how many falsehoods I spew that are very easily smashed by someone, whom I claim, doesn't know a thing after they prove me wrong, again and again".
Hey dude, be an amd fanboy, just don't spew out those completely incorrect falsehoods, that's all. Not that hard is it ?
LOL
Yeah, it's really, really hard not to, otherwise, you'd have a heckuva time having a single point.
I get it. I expect it from you people. You've got no other recourse.
Honestly it would be better to just say I like AMD and I'm getting it because I like AMD and I don't care about anything but that.