The GeForce GTX 660 Ti Review, Feat. EVGA, Zotac, and Gigabyte
by Ryan Smith on August 16, 2012 9:00 AM ESTThe Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Bethesda's epic sword & magic game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is our RPG of choice for benchmarking. It's altogether a good CPU benchmark thanks to its complex scripting and AI, but it also can end up pushing a large number of fairly complex models and effects at once, especially with the addition of the high resolution texture pack.
For every Portal 2 you have a Skyrim, it seems. At 1920 the GTX 660 Ti actually does well for itself here, besting the 7900 series, but we know from experience that this is a CPU limited resolution. Cranking things up to 2560 and Ultra quality sends the GTX 660 Ti through the floor in a very bad way, pushing it well below even the 7870, never mind the 7900 series.
Altogether the GTX 660 Ti achieves about 80% of the performance of the GTX 670, making this another game that is hurt badly by the loss of a ROP block and memory bandwidth. At the same time the GTX 670 is the first NVIDIA card fast enough to compete with the 7950, so the GTX 660 Ti came into this benchmark with unfavorable odds. 68fps is more than playable, but hardcore Skyrim players are going to want to stick to cards with more memory bandwidth. At best, the bright spot for NVIDIA is that the GTX 660 Ti is nearly 100% faster than the GTX 560 Ti, a remarkable improvement, but also one being fueled by the meager 1GB of VRAM the latter has.
As for our factory overclocked cards, this is another case of Zotac leading the pack. Its memory overclock is exactly what’s needed to counter the GTX 660 Ti’s lack of memory bandwidth, which helps it easily clear EVGA and Gigabyte’s cards.
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Galidou - Saturday, August 18, 2012 - link
That's because Tom didn't use Portal 2 in benches and Nvidia is so gooood at it! Plus, instead of Dirt 3, he used dirt showdown and AMD is soooo good at it. So if you don't play: Balltefield 3, Dirt 3 and portal 2, there's a good chance that the 7870 might be better for you considering it wil performe equially/very close to the higher priced gtx 660.But again, if I'd be a heavy battlefield 3/portal 2 player, the choice is obvious...
Galidou - Saturday, August 18, 2012 - link
Correcting myself higher priced GTX 660 ti. But gotta remember at the same time, there's a limited quantity of Borderlands 2 they give away if you buy an Nvidia video card which should be a testament that their card perform well with this game and it's worth 60$ so you save that if you ever planned to buy it anyway....CeriseCogburn - Sunday, August 19, 2012 - link
Said the fella at the site that has been milking crysis one for amd fanboys for how long now, even as Crysis 2 has been out for almost a year now...Yeah, sure is all nVidia here (gag)(rolls eyes)(sees the way every review is worded)
TheJian - Monday, August 20, 2012 - link
Obvious for everyone else too. Quit looking at ryans comments and 2560x1600 where 98% of us don't run. He bases most of his junk comments and conclusion on 2560x1600...WHAT FOR?68 24in monitors on newegg...NOT ONE over 1920x1200.
52 27in monitors on newegg. 41 1920x1200 or less, only 11 at 2560x1440 (NOT 1600). HIs recommendations and crap comments are about a res you can't even get until you use multimonitor or a 30incher!
Already proved all the games run better at 1920x1200. See my other post to you...Its a lot more than battlefield and portal2, dirt 3..shogun2, Skyrim, Batman AC, Witcher2, Battlefield 3 Multiplayer, max payne 3, Civ5 (landslide again at 1920x1200 here anandtech). How many more you need? Don't point me to wins at 2560x1600 either... :) Unless we all are getting 30inchers for free soon (obama handouts?), it doesn't matter.
What games are OK to test without you calling them biased towards NV?
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
I thank you for telling the truth and putting up with the amd fanboys who can't find the truth with the swirling retarded amd fanboy redeye goggles sandblasted to their skulls.I really appreciate it as I don't feel like using the truth to refute the loons and taking so many hours to do so and having to rinse and repeat over and over again since nothing sinks into their insane skulls and manning up is something they never can do.
I do have hope though since a few obviously kept responding to you, and hence likely reading some (ADD and dyslexia may still be a problem by the looks of it though) so maybe in 20 years with a lot of global warming and hence more blood flow to their brains as they run around screaming the end is nigh, the facts everywhere presented over and over again will perhaps start just a tiny bit to begin sinking in to the mush.
LOL
I have to say, you definitely deserve a medal for putting up with them, and doing that large a favor pointing out the facts. I appreciate it, as the amd lies are really not friendly to us gamers and especially amd fanboys who always claim they pinch every penny (which is really sad, too).
Galidou - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
It wins at 1920*1080 often because the games are cpu limited and Nvidia has an advantage to use lower cpu ressources. It does mean something else too, if it's cpu limited, it means the graphics doesn'T push the system enough and at the same time means that when intensive graphically new games will come out, the cpu will be less in the way. What's bad in buying a video card that already maxes everything at 1080p and will do this for you in the future because these games are just not pushing it enough?I remember the gtx 580 when it came out, it was running everything in 1920*1080 while gtx 570 and radeon 6970 were already doing this still people bought gtx 580 and now they are more taxed it's useful at 1080p. But it's obvious gtx 660 ti is superior in many ways and many games but what I want you to understand you two(Cerise and Jian) well I should just say Jian, I understood a long time ago that Cerise has a closed mind on the subject, is that AMD has strenghts too it loses overall at 1080p and stock clocked cards, but someone can be happy with a card like that anyway..... While all along I've been discussing, I never said Nvidia was bad, I never dismissed their older gen card either as amazing parts too, while you just continued and try to make people beleive that you'll see AMAZING difference, HUMONGOUS GAINS by buying Nvidia and that AMD is cancer(or at least it looks like that in your eyes).
It's quite hard for anyone right now who's running a 7950 like I now do and my friend do and my 6850 crossfire did and my 4870 did. like my 8800gt, the gtx 460 I bought building computers for many of my friends do to just understand what rabble you might say about such a difference when 90% of their game is pegged at 60fps from high to ultra details. All these graphs reviews and everything else, they're not reflecting what the average user feels when they play their game.
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
" It's quite hard for anyone right now who's running a 7950 like I now do and my friend do "Wow, you didn't listen at all amd fanboy. So you have a report on triple mon Skyrim, or ... your mons not working in triple - you need some adapter or something else you have to buy ?
Let's have your SkyRim loss and crash numbers.... LET'S SEE unplayable 29-34 fps if you're sporting a sandy 2500k
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2012/08/16/nvidia...
Wow, cool, you lost.
TheJian - Monday, August 20, 2012 - link
I debunked all this already (see other posts). Besides they ran all cards at ref speeds...LOL. Bandwidth is NOT an issue where 98% of us run. 1920x1200 or below even on 27in monitors (only 11 27in at newegg have above 1920x1200 and it's less than tested here at 2560x1440). Ryan misleads over an over in this review as if we run on 30in monitors. WE DON'T. @1920x1200 you won't have memory problems from either side. Not even at msaa/af/fxaa etc. ALL of the 24in monitors at newegg have 1920x1200/1080. NOT ONE at 2560x anything. Only 11 27in that are 2560x1440 all 41 others are 1920x1080 (even less taxing than 1920x1200!). Ryan is just trying to stop people from buying Nvidia I guess. I'm not sure why he thinks 2560x1600 is important as I've already shown <2% use it in steampowered's hardware survey and you basically have to have a special 27 or 30in to run above 1920x1200 native. Raise your hand if you are running in that 2% user group? I don't see many hands...LOL. Also note of that 2% most are running multi-monitor & usually multi card setups. But ryan can't make a recommendation...LOL. He could if he would quit pretending we all use 2560x1600...ROFLMAO. I admit, at that res you MAY run into memory issues (for the 2% that do it).saturn85 - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
nice folding@home benchmark.martyrant - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
Is there anyone out there trying to mod this thing to a 670 yet if it's all the identical parts with one of the four rop/mem buses disabled. I'd imagine some of these things, even if binned as failed 670s, a few would most likely have all 4 rop/mem buses functional.This would be a pretty sweet upgrade path if so :) Would be the Radeon 6950 all over again (and all the previous generations that were able to either do softmods or if anyone remembers the pencil graphite trick back in the day).
Thanks for the review, I've been waiting for this one...even though I'm pretty disappointed. The 7970 I've seen on sale for $360 lately and right now it's looking like it's going to be the best bang for your buck. That's cheaper than a 670/680, only slightly more than a 660 Ti, and it's pretty much the performance crown single GPU for the most part, though AMD's drivers lately are scaring me.