The GeForce GTX 660 Ti Review, Feat. EVGA, Zotac, and Gigabyte
by Ryan Smith on August 16, 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.
The reduction in memory bandwidth and ROP throughput coming from the GTX 670 comes with roughly an 11% performance cost here, just about splitting the difference between the best and worst case scenarios. This is important for the GTX 660 Ti since it means the card doesn’t surrender NVIDIA’s performance advantage in BF3. At 1920 with FXAA that means the GTX 660 Ti has a huge 30% performance lead over the 7950, and even the 7970 falls behind the GTX 660 Ti. The only real disappointment here is that 1920 with MSAA isn’t quite playable – 53fps means that framerates will bottom out in the mid-20s, which isn’t desirable.
Meanwhile the factory overclocked cards continue to up the ante, and ends up being another game that factory overclocks offer a decent improvement. Zotac tops the factory cards at 10%, followed by Gigabyte and EVGA. We’re once again seeing the impact of Zotac’s memory overclock, and how in memory bandwidth limited situations it’s more important than Gigabyte’s higher power target, though Gigabyte does come close.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
313 Comments
View All Comments
TheJian - Sunday, August 19, 2012 - link
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...And it's $350. The only BOOST edition on newegg 2 days after this review.
A full 6 660 TI's for $299 (one after rebate). So, unfair to not include a card that looks like there's a $50 premium to the TI? I beg to differ. Also there are 11 cards available to BUY for 660 TI. Nuff said?
It was rightly picked on.
Google 7950 boost, you get $349 cheapest and availability is next to none. Google 7950b you don't even get a result for shopping. The radeon 7950 cheapest at newegg is already $319.99 (most after rebate). If you're looking at 1920x1200 and below the 660 TI is a no brainer. It is close in the games it loses in, and dominates in a few it wins in. Not sure why the nvidia 660 ti is even in the list, you don't buy that. Zotac's $299 is basically the bottom you buy and is faster than the ref design at 928mhz/1006 boost (not 915/boost 980), so consider the TI GREEN bar slower than what you'll actually buy for $299. Heck the 6th card I mentioned at $299 after rebate is running it's base at 1019 boost at 1097! So they are clocking regular cards at a full 100mhz faster than REF for $299. Another at $309 is also like this (1006/1084 boost). Knowing this you should be comparing the Zotac AMP (barely faster than the two I mention for $299 and 309) vs. the 7950 which is $320 at minimum!
Zotac AMP (only 14mhz faster base than $299/309 card) vs. 7950 (again more expensive by $20) @ 1920x1200
Civ5 <5% slower
Skyrim >7% faster
Battlefield3 >25% faster (above 40% or so in FXAA High)
Portal 2 >54% faster (same in 2560x...even though it's useless IMHO)
Batman Arkham >6% faster
Shogun 2 >25% faster
Dirt3 >6% faster
Metro 2033 =WASH (ztac 51.5 vs. 7950 51...margin of error..LOL)
Crysis Warhead >19% loss.
Power@load 315w zotac amp vs. 353 7950 (vs 373w for 7950B)! Not only is the 660TI usually faster by a whopping amount, it's also going to cost you less at the register, and far less at the electric bill (all year for 2-4 years you probably have it - assuming you spend $300-350 for a gaming card to GAME on it).
For $299 or $309 I'll RUN home with the 660 TI over 7950 @ $319. The games where it loses, you won't notice the difference at those frame rates. At todays BOOST prices ($350) there really isn't a comparison to be made. I believe it will be a while before the 7950B is $320, let along $299 of the 660 TI.
NVIDIA did an awesome job here for gamers. I'll wait for black friday in a few months, but unless something changes, perf/watt wise I know what I'm upgrading to. I don't play crysis much :) (ok, none). Seeding higher clocked cards or not, you can BUY them for $299, can't buy a BOOST for under $350. By your own account, only two makers of 7950 BOOST. Feel free to retract your comment ;)
CeriseCogburn - Sunday, August 19, 2012 - link
NO ONE plays crysis anymore, it's merely a placeholder to prop up AMD card stats. It's blatantly sick as Crysis 2 is out.It's IMMENSE bias for amd.
Galidou - Sunday, August 19, 2012 - link
They use Crysis 2 almost everywhere on the internet again because of one reason, it's heavy, no one plays 3dMark because it's not a game still it's always included in reviews because it's relevant to performance.TheJian - Monday, August 20, 2012 - link
Read it again...He said NOBODY plays CRYSIS. He's confirming what I said.The complaint wasn't about crysis 1...It was about benchmarking a game from 2008 that isn't played, and is based on CryEngine 2 which a total of 7 games were based on since 2007. Crysis 1, warhead, Blues Mars (what? Not one metacritic review), Vigilance (what? no pc version),Merchants of Brooklyn, no reviews, The Day (?) and Merchants of Brooklyn,(?) Entropia Brooklyn (?). Who cares?
The complaint is Anantech should use CRYSIS 2! With the hires patch and DX11 patch, with everything turned on. The CryEngine 3 game engine is used in 23 games, including the coming crysis 3! Though after a little more homework I still think this will be a victory for AMD, it's far more relevant and not a landslide by any means. But it IS relevant NV loser or not. Crysis 2 is still being played and I'm sure crysis 3 will for at least a while soon. 3x the games made on this engine...Warhead should be tossed and Crysis 2 used. But not without loading the 3 patches that get you all this goodness.
Galidou - Monday, August 20, 2012 - link
Well I meant Crysis, not the 2, confused there. Even if no one plays the first one it's still very intensive but true, they should use crysis 2 as it's more relevant of games played now...CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
Yes we all play 3dmark and upload our scores and compare.Not sure about you, you only play one game that now conveniently got an amd driver boost.
Good for amd they actually did something for once - although i'll be glad to hear how many times it crashes for you each night @ 1300 WC.
It will be a LOT. Believe me. 30 mods, not as many as myself, but you'll be going down with CCC often.
Galidou - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
Of all the video cards I had, and I had ALOT from the geforce 2 GTS up to my actually retreated 6850 crossfire(just received my Sapphire 7950 OC) I had close to 0 problems. How could you know anything about CCC while it's obvious you didn't have an AMD video card in years.I have 30 mods because it was already straining my limited video memory and I had a problem with one of them already(realistic sounds of thunder) which was related to my hi-fi sound card driver(asus xonar STX) that I found lately.
I had no problem with CCC at all, other than using it to scale my LCD TV so it fits all the screen and using my game profiles. I didn't touch it much in the last year. It played Dirt 2, 3, Skyrim, GTA 4, Fallout 3, Fallout NV, Oblivion!!, and so on without a problem. And yet, you try to tell me I'll have problem with a program you don't know a thing about.
But just so you might appreciate me for my efforts, my wife decided to change the 4870 for the forthcoming Guild wars 2 for energy and temperature reason. So I got her a 660 ti as my 6850 were already sold to a friend. She game at 1080p only and I didn't want to overclock her stuff so, it was obvious. At the same time I'll be able to compare both, but I already know I like Nvidia's UI more than AMD's CCC though they look quite alike now.
BTW just for the sake of it I researched with google:
AMD drivers keep crashing:
3,54 million results
Nvidia drivers keep crashing:
3,37 million results
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
The reason I say what I do is because I DO HAVE A LOT of amd cards, you DUMMY.CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
you're another idiot that gets everything wrong, attacks others for what they HAVE NOT SAID, gets corrected again and again, makes another crap offshot lie, then, OF COURSE - HAS A PERFECT DUAL AMD SETUP THAT HAS NEVER HAD A PROBLEM, EVA!That means you have very little experience, a freaking teensy tiny tiny bit.
Look in the mirror dummy.
Galidou - Sunday, August 19, 2012 - link
The 7950b is crap, I don't even want to hear about a reference design with a little boost. On newegg there are 4 cards out of 18 that are reference and the others are mainly overclocked models with coolers ALOT better which will overclock terribly good.It's easy for the average user to see the win for nvidia considering 20% of the overclock has been already done and there's not much headroom left..... Once overclocked, the only one that's faster for the 660 ti, remains portal 2.
The Zotac might only have 14mhz more on base clock but the core clock is not the thing here, the zotac is the better of the pack because it comes with memory overcloked to 6,6ghz which is the only weakness of the 660ti, memory bandwidth. There's a weird thing in here tho, I found the minimum fps on another review, but on anandtech, the minimum appeared only in the games that it was less noticeable, good job again Nvidia.