The GeForce GTX 660 Ti Review, Feat. EVGA, Zotac, and Gigabyte
by Ryan Smith on August 16, 2012 9:00 AM ESTOC: Power, Temperature, & Noise
Our final task is our look at the overclocking capabilities of our GTX 660 Ti cards. Based on what we’ve seen thus far with GTX 660 Ti, these factory overclocked parts are undoubtedly eating into overclocking headroom, so we’ll have to see just what we can get out of them. The very similar GTX 670 topped out at around 1260MHz for the max boost clock, and between 6.6GHz and 6.9GHz for the memory clock.
| GeForce 660 Ti Overclocking | |||||
| EVGA GTX 660 Ti SC | Zotac GTX 660 Ti AMP | Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC | |||
| Shipping Core Clock | 980MHz | 1033MHz | 1033MHz | ||
| Shipping Max Boost Clock | 1150MHz | 1175MHz | 1228MHz | ||
| Shipping Memory Clock | 6GHz | 6.6GHz | 6GHz | ||
| Shipping Max Boost Voltage | 1.175v | 1.175v | 1.175v | ||
| Overclock Core Clock | 1030MHz | 1033MHz | 1083MHz | ||
| Overclock Max Boost Clock | 1200MHz | 1175MHz | 1278MHz | ||
| Overclock Memory Clock | 6.5GHz | 6.8GHz | 6.6GHz | ||
| Overclock Max Boost Voltage | 1.175v | 1.175v | 1.175v | ||
As we suspected, starting with factory overclocked cards isn’t helping here. Our Zotac card wouldn’t accept any kind of meaningful GPU core overclock, so it shipped practically as fast as it could go. We were able to squeeze out another 200MHz on the memory clock though.
Meanwhile our EVGA and Gigabyte cards fared slightly better. We could push another 50MHz out of their GPU clocks, bringing us to a max boost clock of 1200MHz on the EVGA card and 1278MHz on the Gigabyte card. Memory overclocking was similarly consistent; we were able to hit 6.5GHz on the EVGA card and 6.6GHz on the Gigabyte card.
Altogether these are sub-5% GPU overclocks, and at best 10% memory overclocks, which all things considered are fairly low overclocks. The good news is that reference-clocked cards should fare better since their headroom has not already been consumed by factory overclocking, but binning also means the best cards are going to be going out as factory overclocked models.
Moving on to our performance charts, we’re going to once again start with power, temperature, and noise, before moving on to gaming performance.
Unsurprisingly, given the small power target difference between the GTX 670 and the GTX 660 Ti, any kind of overclocking that involves raising the power target quickly pushes power consumption past the GTX 670’s power consumption. How much depends on the test and the card, with the higher power target Gigabyte card starting with a particular disadvantage here as its power consumption ends up rivaling that of the GTX 680.
We also see the usual increase in load temperatures due to the increased power consumption. The Zotac and Gigabyte cards fare well enough due to their open air coolers, but the blower-type EVGA card is about as high as we want to go at 80C under OCCT.
Last but not least, looking at noise levels we can see an increase similar to the temperature increases we just saw. For the Zotac and EVGA cards noise levels are roughly equal with the reference GTX 680, which will be important to remember for when we’re looking at performance. Meanwhile the Gigabyte card continues to shine in these tests thanks to its oversized cooler; even OCCT can only push it to 46.8dB.
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CeriseCogburn - Sunday, August 19, 2012 - link
There are 8 OC 660Ti's on newegg right now and only 3 released at stock.By chance alone the reviewers will be reviewing an OC'ed 660Ti, as was pointed out in the article you did not read, there is NO "standard design" pushed by nVidia so the partners have a free reign to come out of the gate with OVERCLOCKS a rocking.
They have done so.
So now, OC is the standard and overwhelming production with the 660Ti
Get use to it.
Unfortunately AMD has been a severely restrictive control freak nazi master dom smacking down and hurting their partners and has not allowed freedom. Then, in the usual control monster hold the gamers back fashion, they finally okayed their GE crap to their broken and hurting partners so they could charge a lot more.
Evil, greedy, tyranny control, amd
Galidou - Sunday, August 19, 2012 - link
4 out of 18 cards for AMD are reference coolers on newegg, nothing different on the other side... 11 out of 18 are overclocked and the other 3 non-reference coolers that are not overclocked are begging to be boosted.So if OC is the standard, why not try to push it farther, factory overclocking versus aftermarket overclocking isn't much different if the video cards take it so easily. :)
''severely restrictive control freak nazi master dom smacking down and hurting'' even had to use the word Nazi... comon, be less of a fanboy, it's just childish, that was ridiculous. I'm not diminishing any of both companies, if you really want AMD to die, we'll all cry for no more competition will be alive. We'll be back to the days of geforce 2 gts at 800$. Praise the war and be a little more respectful please.
TheJian - Monday, August 20, 2012 - link
I don't want AMD to die, but I wouldn't mind seeing them bought as they're already well on their way to death without our help. I can't justify buying cpu's that completely suck now (granted our crappy court system took forever to pay AMD for Intel's crap), and won't do it just to help them out.If the courts had seen fit to pay them what they truly got screwed out of (I'm reminded of buying white box ASUS boards because Asus was afraid to even put their name on the box!) when they were on top for 3 years at least, we wouldn't be having this discussion. They should have been given 15-20 billion from the ill-gotten 60+ billion earned from that time forward (as I'm sure market share would have gone up with more money to produce more stuff, keeping the fabs etc). It's not my wallets job to help now. They need to claim bankruptcy and get bought. Management has blown their ability to compete due to the financial burdens now facing them.
http://investing.money.msn.com/investments/financi...
Take a look at the last 10 years. Overall a loss of 6 billion or so. The previous 10 looks no better. In fact I think if you go back to inception, they haven't made a buck overall. That's not good. Shares outstanding in those last 10 years...DOUBLED. DILUTED! 344mil to 698 mil. You can't keep selling shares to cover old debts forever. Eventually nobody will loan you money and you can't operate at that point.
The stock has been cut in half in the last 5 months. Intel will continue to crush them as they can't invest 4Bil like Intel is doing now over the next few years to stay ahead. You just can't win without R&D.
OC is the standard but you're talking about doing it on your own, vs sanctioned by the manufacturer and coming as default like that on almost every 660 TI out there (which is what he pointed out), then you go off about fans? He's talking about SPEEDS already OC'd on the cards by default regardless of the fan on it. The makers of the card (msi, xfx, gigabyte etc) are SELLING THEM OC'd. You don't have to do anything buy buy it and stick it in. It's already overclocked, and overclocking itself to the highest clock it can without damage (that's built into the 600 series, NV is a step ahead here). That changes on a per gpu basis too...Very nice.
Attack the man's data (if you can) not the nazi crap. Comparing the actions of one company to the actions of a well known person or group's actions (while I'd have chosen something other than nazi's) when said company is acting like them is valid. It's not disrespectful. His point wasn't they are killing Jews by the millions (or anyone else). His point was devs of cards are a bit peeved. I.E. only 2 have announced 7950 BOOST editions that I'm aware of. First, because they are already selling 900mhz+ versions that AMD doesn't want to see in the market (which is why I said Ryan should have benched one of his cards at this speed, what fool would buy REF or boost @850 when you can get a free 50-100mhz overclocked by the vid card makers already?), and second they don't care about want AMD wants after being shackled and wanting free reign, like you see on 660 TI's...all kinds of speeds from the launch, with rarely a REF CLOCKed card in sight! Do you get it now? It's not about the fan, it's about the speed the maker is willing to BACK out of the box by default and still warranty it without complaining about what you did to void their warranty. Cerise isn't putting AMD out of business, AMD is.
Galidou - Wednesday, August 22, 2012 - link
I was speaking to CeriseCogburn, he sees the company as the prime evil, just read ny of his post and you will see the hate, the knifes in his eyes. I'd be AMD and I'd have him arrested by the police, he's a madman and almsot goes up to throw menaces at the company, Using terms like greed, Nazis and so much more that I'll leave it up to you to read him from page 1 to 10 on this forum. I'd be an AMD employee reading this and I'd be like ''WTF, I'm just a human being working my best to feed my family, I'm not working for the devil...''''severely restrictive control freak nazi master dom smacking ''
''Evil, greedy, tyranny control, amd''
used just in the text above mine, how are those words any useful when defending an opinion, that's repression, lack of respect and total madness..... We're not speaking of an army that tries to take control of the world by domination coming up in your home and killing your children FFS.
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
Keep lying and crying crybaby.Galidou - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
I'd like to lie, but the posts have not been deleted and everyone can read them.Galidou - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
I don't know if you realised but they way you display your arguments, accuse so easily, attack and confront even the owners of the cards, that uses it right now and telling them everything crashes and is unplayable while they are using the cards with no problem, it discredit any or your credibility.You alone are making it worse, continue, I have no problem with that, the more you add things like your last post, the worse it is. I won't, I'm sorry for the way things are turning, I'm not going down to your level because I'm just a simple enthusiast.
And yet posting only to say ''Keep lying and crying crybaby'' is just another proof that SOMETIMES, your really just answering so you can have the last words. That was the most useless post I've ever seen....
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
Oh you're such a fool - it's nine months AFTER amd released their crap clocked cards with the LOCK on their core speed.dude, get a freaking clue
"oh dey released it juzz azz much wit oc,....i'm so stpooopid and such a liar.."
How about manning up : " I was wrong in front of my daughter every time, and I'm mad about that. She's going to be just as foolish as me (I hope)".
No nevermind, you KNOW IT.
ionis - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
"NVIDIA did see a lot of success last year with the GTX 560 driving the retirement of the 8800GT/9800GT"Just curious, where do you get these stats? I still haven't found a reason to upgrade from the 8800GT. It plays everything I throw at it great, on high, at 1680x1050.
Sufo - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
Interesting, as the 8800 GTX can barely crack 30fps in BF3 at that res on low. I guess they were talking about people who play mainly modern games.