The GeForce GTX 660 Ti Review, Feat. EVGA, Zotac, and Gigabyte
by Ryan Smith on August 16, 2012 9:00 AM ESTThe First TXAA Game & The Test
With the release of the NVIDIA’s 304.xx drivers a couple of months ago, NVIDIA finally enabled driver support on Kepler for their new temporal anti-aliasing technology. First announced with the launch of Kepler, TXAA is another anti-aliasing technology to be developed by Timothy Lottes, an engineer in NVIDIA’s developer technology group. In a nutshell, TXAA is a wide tent (>1px) MSAA filter combined with a temporal filter (effectively a motion-vector based frame blend) that is intended to resolve that pesky temporal aliasing that can be seen in motion in many games.
Because TXAA requires MSAA support and motion vector tracking by the game itself, it can only be used in games that specifically implement it. Consequently, while NVIDIA had enabled driver support for it, they’ve been waiting on a game to be released that implements it. That release finally happened last week with a patch for the MMO The Secret World, which became the first game with TXAA support.
This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive review of TXAA (MMOs and deterministic testing are like oil and water), but seeing as how this is the first time TXAA has been enabled we did want to comment on it.
On the whole, what NVIDIA is trying to accomplish here is to implement movie-like anti-aliasing at a reasonable performance cost. Traditionally SSAA would be the solution here (just like it is to most other image aliasing problems), but of course SSAA is much too expensive most of the time. At its lower setting it is just 2x MSAA plus the temporal component, which makes the process rather cheap.
Unfortunately by gaming standards it’s also really blurry. This is due to the combination of the wide tent MSAA samples – which if you remember your history, ATI tried at one time – and the temporal filter blending data from multiple frames. TXAA does a completely fantastic job of eliminating temporal and other forms of aliasing, but it does so at a notable cost to image clarity.
Editorially speaking we’ll never disparage NVIDIA for trying new AA methods – it never hurts to try something new – however at the same time we do reserve the right to be picky. We completely understand the direction NVIDIA went with this and why they did it, especially since there’s a general push to make games more movie-like in the first place, but we’re not big fans of the outcome. You would be hard pressed to find someone that hates jaggies more than I (which is why we have SSAA in one of our tests), but as an interactive medium I have come to expect sharpness, sharpness that would make my eyes bleed. Especially when it comes to multiplayer games, where being able to see the slightest movement in the distance can be a distinct advantage.
To that end, TXAA is unquestionably an interesting technology and worth keeping an eye on in the future, but practically speaking AMD’s efforts to implement complex lighting cheaply on a forward renderer (and thereby making MSAA cheap and effective) are probably more relevant to improving the state of AA. But this is by no means the final word, and we’ll certainly revisit TXAA in detail in the future once it’s enabled on a game that offers a more deterministic way of testing image quality.
The Test
NVIDIA’s GTX 660 Ti launch drivers are 305.37, which are a further continuation of the 304.xx branch. Compared to the previous two 304.xx drivers there are no notable performance changes or bug fixes that we’re aware of.
Meanwhile on the AMD side we’re continuing to use the Catalyst 12.7 betas released back in late June. AMD just released Catalyst 12.8 yesterday, which appear to be a finalized version of the 12.7 driver.
On a final note, for the time being we have dropped Starcraft II from our tests. The recent 1.5 patch has had a notable negative impact on our performance (and disabled our ability to play replays without logging in every time), so we need to further investigate the issue and likely rebuild our entire collection of SC2 benchmarks.
| CPU: | Intel Core i7-3960X @ 4.3GHz |
| Motherboard: | EVGA X79 SLI |
| Chipset Drivers: | Intel 9.2.3.1022 |
| Power Supply: | Antec True Power Quattro 1200 |
| Hard Disk: | Samsung 470 (256GB) |
| Memory: | G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3-1867 4 x 4GB (8-10-9-26) |
| Case: | Thermaltake Spedo Advance |
| Monitor: |
Samsung 305T Asus PA246Q |
| Video Cards: |
AMD Radeon HD 6970 AMD Radeon HD 7870 AMD Radeon HD 7950 AMD Radeon HD 7950B AMD Radeon HD 7970 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 Zotac GeForce GTX 660 Ti AMP! Edition EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti Superclocked Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Ti OC NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 |
| Video Drivers: |
NVIDIA ForceWare 304.79 Beta NVIDIA ForceWare 305.37 AMD Catalyst 12.7 Beta |
| OS: | Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit |
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.