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 - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
No contribution there.claysm - Wednesday, August 22, 2012 - link
The article says that the 660 Ti is an average of 10-15% faster than the 7870, and that's true. But I feel that that average doesn't reflect how close those two cards really are in most games. If you throw out the results for Portal 2 and Battlefield 3 (since they are nVidia blowouts), the 660 Ti is only about 5% faster than the 7870.Now obviously you can't just throw those results away because you don't like them, but if you're not playing BF3 or Portal 2, then the 660 Ti and the 7870 are actually very close. And given the recent price drop of the 7870, it would definitely win the price/performance mark.
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
At what resolution ?Oh, doesn't matter apparently.
claysm - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
At every resolution tested. 1680x1050, 1920x1200, and 2560x1600.CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
Not true nice try though not really was patheticCeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
No PhysX, no adaptive v-sync, inferior 3D, inferior 3 panel gaming, no target frame rate, poorer IQ, the list goes on and on.you have to be a fanboy fool to buy amd, and there are a lot of fools around, you being one of them.
claysm - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
PhysX is not that great. There is only a single this year that will have PhysX support, and that is Borderlands 2. Most of the effects that PhysX adds are just smoke and more fluid and cloth dynamics. Sometimes a slightly more destructible environment.Adaptive V-Sync is cool, I saw a demonstration video of it.
Inferior 3D is true, although your next point is stupid. AMD's Eyefinity is much better than nVidia Surround.
I'm not a fanboy, Go to the bench and look at the results, do the math if you want. Barring BF3 and Portal 2, again since they are huge wins for nVidia, every other game on the list is extremely close. Of the 35 benchmarks that were run, it's the 8 from BF3 and Portal 2 that completely blow the average. The 660 Ti is more powerful, but the 7870 is a lot closer to the 660 Ti than the average would lead you to believe.
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
Yeah whatever - buy the slow loser without the features, say they don't matter, get the one with crappy drivers, say that doesn't matter.. throw out a few games, say they don't matter, ignore the driver support that goes back to the nVidia 6 series, that doesn't matter, ignore the pathetic release drivers of amd, say that doesn't matter... put in the screwy amd extra download junk for taskbar control in eyefinity, pretend that doesn't matter - no bezel peek pretend that doesn't matter...DUDE - WHATEVER ... you're a FOOL to buy amd.
Ambilogy - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
"Yeah whatever"Essentially when someone said that theres 5% diference you 'just forget about it, nothings here to notice I'm busy trolling'. bullshit
"- buy the slow loser"
So for you slower loser is a little dif in framerates only in the allmyghty 19XX x 1XXX res? where everything is playable with other cards also? what when new titles come and then some stuff starts to go wrong with 660ti?. you can actually ignore the difference now and future titles could go better for AMD for opencl stuff. You should have said "a little slower now, if we are lucky, still a little slower on the future". bullshit
"without the features, say they don't matter"
I don't actually notice phyxs playing... and... if 2% of people play in very high res, how many do you think plays at your marvelous nvidia 3d? bullshit. Its like saying this is bad because only 2% uses it, and this is good but the percentage is even less. bullshit
"get the one with crappy drivers"
You read that a lot of people had amd driver issues, nice, like a lot of people also has nvidia driver issues... do you know the percentage of driver failures? the failures stand out only because normal working drivers don't drive attention. Does not mean that its plagged by bugs. bullshit.
", say that doesn't matter.. throw out a few games, say they don't matter, ignore the driver support that goes back to the nVidia 6 series, that doesn't matter, ignore the pathetic release drivers of amd, say that doesn't matter... "
Hey nice! i know how to repeat stuff that I have already said without proving anything also! look: bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. The games you think matter can still be played, its future games that will tax this cards to new limits, then we will see, and if those include opencl, where will be your god? "well I could play battlefield 3 better some time ago, im sure these new games don't matter". or maybe a "yeah whatever" ? :)
And im tyred now, I think this card is a fail, what does it do that cards already didn't do? what market do they cover that was not previously covered?
OH NO BUT WE HAVE BETTER FPS FOR MAIN RESOLUTIONS
Well, good luck with that in the future... I'm sure a man will buy a good 7950 with factory oc that will go just about as well, still playable and nice, and when the future comes then what? you can cry, cry hard.
You cannot accept that your card is:
1. Easy to equalize in performance, with little performance difference in most games or actually none if OC is considered.
2. Focused on the marketing of some today games and completely forgot about future, memory bandwidth and so on.
3. Overly marketised by nvidia.
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
You cannot accept (your lies) that your card is:1. Easy to equalize in performance, with little performance difference in most games or actually none if OC is considered.
I don't have a problem with that. 660Ti is hitting 1300+ on core and 7000+ on memory, and so you have a problem with that.
The general idea you state, though I'M ALL FOR IT MAN!
A FEW FPS SHOULD NOT BE THE THING YOU FOCUS ON, ESPECIALLY WHEN #1 ! ALL FOR IT ! 100% !
Thus we get down to the added features- whoops ! nVidia is about 10 ahead on that now. That settles it.
Hello ? Can YOU accept THAT ?
If FOLLOWS 100% from your #1
I'd like an answer about your acceptance level.
2. Focused on the marketing of some today games and completely forgot about future, memory bandwidth and so on.
Nope, it's already been proven it's a misnomer. Cores are gone , fps is too, before memory can be used. In the present, a bit faster now, cranked to the max, and FAILING on both sides with CURRENT GAMES - but some fantasy future is viable ? It's already been aborted.
You need to ACCEPT THAT FACT.
The other possibility would be driver enhancements, but both sides do that, and usually nvidia does it much better, and SERVICES PAST CARDS all the way back to 6 series AGP so amd loses that battle "years down the road" - dude...
Accept or not ? Those are current facts.
3. Overly marketised by nvidia. "
Okay, so whatever that means...all I see is insane amd fanboysim - that's the PR call of the loser - MARKETING to get their failure hyped - hence we see the mind infected amd fanboys everywhere, in fact, you probably said that because you have the pr pumped nVidia hatred.
Here's an example of "marketised""
http://www.verdetrol.com/
ROFL - your few and far between and dollars still hard at work.
AMD adverts your butt in CCC - install and bang - the ads start flowing right onto your CCC screen...
Is that " Overly marketised" ?
I'm sorry you're going to have to do much better than that.