The GeForce GTX 660 Ti Review, Feat. EVGA, Zotac, and Gigabyte
by Ryan Smith on August 16, 2012 9:00 AM ESTFinal Words
Bringing the review to a close, it should come as no surprise that the launch of the GTX 660 Ti has ended up being a lot like the launches before it. Yet at the same time it’s not truly identical, as there’s a lot going on that makes it nothing like the launches before it.
Distilled to its essence, the GTX 660 Ti is yet another fine addition to the GTX 600 series thanks to the GK104 GPU. Compared to the GTX 670 it’s a bit slower, a lot cheaper, and still brutally efficient. For buyers who have wanted to pick up a Kepler card but have found the high-end GTX 670 and GTX 680 out of their price range, at $300 the GTX 660 Ti is at a much more approachable point on the price-performance curve, offering about 88% of the GTX 670’s performance for 75% of the price. Given the price of Kepler cards so far this is definitely a better deal, though it’s still by no means cheap. So in that respect the launch of the GTX 660 Ti is quite a lot like the launches before it.
What’s different about this launch compared to the launches before it is that AMD was finally prepared; this isn’t going to be another NVIDIA blow-out. While the GTX 680 marginalized the Radeon HD 7970 virtually overnight, and then the GTX 670 did the same thing to the Radeon HD 7950, the same will not be happening to AMD with the GTX 660 Ti. AMD has already bracketed the GTX 660 Ti by positioning the 7870 below it and the 7950 above it, putting them in a good position to fend off NVIDIA.
As it stands, AMD’s position correctly reflects their performance; the GTX 660 Ti is a solid and relatively consistent 10-15% faster than the 7870, while the 7950 is anywhere between a bit faster to a bit slower depending on what benchmarks you favor. Of course when talking about the 7950 the “anything but equal” maxim still applies here, if not more so than with the GTX 670. The GTX 660 Ti is anywhere between 50% ahead of the 7950 and 25% behind it, and everywhere in between.
Coupled with the tight pricing between all of these cards, this makes it very hard to make any kind of meaningful recommendation here for potential buyers. Compared to the 7870 the GTX 660 Ti is a solid buy if you can spare the extra $20, though it’s not going to be a massive difference. The performance difference is going to be just enough that AMD is going to need to trim prices a bit more to secure the 7870’s position.
On the other hand due to the constant flip-flopping of the GTX 660 Ti and 7950 on our benchmarks there is no sure-fire recommendation to hand down there. If we had to pick something, on a pure performance-per-dollar basis the 7950 looks good both now and in the future; in particular we suspect it’s going to weather newer games better than the GTX 660 Ti and its relatively narrow memory bus. But the moment efficiency and power consumption start being important the GTX 660 Ti is unrivaled, and this is a position that is only going to improve in the future when 7950B cards start replacing 7950 cards. For reasons like that there are a couple of niches one card or another serves particularly well, such as overclocking with the 7950, but ultimately unless you have a specific need either card will serve you well enough.
But enough about competition, let’s talk about upgrades for a moment. As we mentioned in our discussion on pricing, performance cards are where we see the market shift from rich enthusiasts who buy cards virtually every generation to more practical buyers who only buy every couple of generations. For these groups it’s a mixed bag. The GTX 660 Ti is actually a great upgrade for the GTX 560 Ti (and similar cards) from a performance standpoint, but despite the similar name it can’t match the GTX 560 Ti’s affordability. This entire generation has seen a smaller than normal performance increase at the standard price points, and the GTX 660 Ti doesn’t change this. If you’re frugal and on Fermi, you’re probably going to want to wait for whatever comes next. On the other hand performance is finally reaching a point where it’s getting very hard to hold on to GTX 200 series cards, especially as the lack of memory on those sub-1GB products becomes more and more prominent. The GTX 660 Ti can clobber any GTX 200, and it can do so with far less power and noise.
Finally, let’s discuss the factory overclocked cards we’ve seen today. Thanks to the fact that this is a virtual launch there’s an incredible variety of cards to pick from, with all of the major partners launching multiple cards with both the reference clocks and with factory overclocks. We’ve only been able to take a look at 3 of those cards today, but so far we like what we’re seeing.
Right now the partner card most likely to turn heads is Gigabyte’s GeForce GTX 660 Ti OC. Even if you ignore the overclock for a second it’s a GTX 660 Ti with an oversized cooler, which ends up being used to great effect. Thanks to Gigabyte’s Windforce 2X cooler it’s both cool and silent, which is always a great combination. Meanwhile the factory overclock alongside the higher power target is icing on the cake, although the lack of a memory bandwidth overclock means that the cooler is more valuable than the overclock.
But if you want something quite a bit smaller and generally a bit faster still, Zotac’s GeForce GTX 660 Ti AMP is no slouch. The memory overclock really makes up for GTX 660 Ti’s memory bandwidth shortcomings, and the size means it will fit into even small cases rather well. Its only downsides are that the $329 price tag puts it solidly in 7950 territory, and that the cooler is very average, especially when held up against what Gigabyte has done.
Finally there’s EVGA’s GeForce GTX 660 Ti Superclocked. The overclock is nothing to write home about – being just enough to justify the $10 price increase – but it’s otherwise a solid card. Even for 150W cards there’s still a need for blower type coolers, and EVGA will do a good job of filling that niche with their card.
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claysm - Friday, August 24, 2012 - link
I absolutely will ignore driver support for the 6 series cards. If you are using an AGP card, it's really REALLY time to upgrade.You are just as bad a fanboy for nVidia as any AMD guy here, moron. You are completely ignoring anything good about AMD just because it has AMD attached to it.
I'm completely confident that if AMD had introduced adaptive v-sync and PhysX, you would still say they suck, just because they came from AMD. If you read my post, it says that 660 Ti IS more powerful than the 7870. I was just pointing out that they are closer than they seem. I have no nVidia hatred, they have a lot of cool stuff.
And about the 660 Ti beating the 7950 at 5760x1080, look at the other three benchmarks, moron. The 7950 wins all of them, meaning BF3, Dirt 3, and Crysis 2. It only looses in Skyrim by and average of 2 FPS. Why didn't you include those games in your response.
And when I left the games out, I said that they merely blew the average out of proportion, but that you can't leave them out because you want to. You still have to calculate them in the total. Moron.
And for the record, I'm running a GTX 570, moron.
CeriseCogburn - Friday, August 24, 2012 - link
Look, the amd crew, you, talk your crap of lies, then I correct you.That's why.
Now, whatever you have that is "good by amd" go ahead and state it. Don't tell lies, don't spin, don't talk crap.
I'm waiting...
My guess is I'll have to correct your lies again, and your STUPID play dumb amnesia.
The reason one game was given with 660Ti in that highest resolution winning is very obvious, isn't it, the endless your bud giradou or geradil or geritol whatever his name is was claiming that's the game he was buying the 7950 for...
LOL
ROFL
MHO
Whatever - do your worst.
CeriseCogburn - Saturday, August 25, 2012 - link
" Fan noise of the card is very low in both idle and load, and temperatures are fine as well.Overall, MSI did an excellent job improving on the NVIDIA reference design, resulting in a significantly better card. The card's price of $330 is the same as all other GTX 660 Ti cards we reviewed today. At that price the card easily beats AMD's HD 7950 in all important criteria: performance, power, noise, heat, performance per Dollar, performance per Watt. "
LOL
power target 175W LOL
" It seems that MSI has added some secret sauce, no other board partner has, to their card's BIOS. One indicator of this is that they raised the card's default power limit from 130 W to 175 W, which will certainly help in many situations. During normal gaming, we see no increased power consumption due to this change. The card essentially uses the same power as other cards, but is faster - leading to improved performance per Watt.< br />Overclocking works great as well and reaches the highest real-life performance, despite not reaching the lowest GPU clock. This is certainly an interesting development. We will, hopefully, see more board partners pick up this change. "
Uh OH
bad news for you amd fanboys.....
HAHAHHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
The MSI 660Ti is uncorked from the bios !
roflmao
Ambilogy - Friday, August 24, 2012 - link
"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% !"
So you have not a problem with performance? good, because actually that means its a competitive card, not a omfg card. And if you want to oc a 660 you would just oc a 7950 so I don't see the omfg nvidia is so much better.
"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 ?"
So essentially when i ask how many people do actually 3D because you seem to think 2% is unimportant in resolution your answer is "well nvidia is 10 ahead because it has features ACCEPT BLINDLY". Not smart.
"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."
FPS are gone and future is fantasy? amd cards still perfom, they are very gpgpu focused and they do excellent for that, and still they don't have bad gaming performance while doing it because you just buy a pre OC version or something and you get still awesome performance (very similar to your 660ti god), say to me what is not enjoyable while playing with an AMD card mr fanboy.
And the future, well, future is gpgpu because allows big improvements to computing, yet is "fantasy". It's only non important because nvidia had good gpgpu in the past and not now?
"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.."
Yeah, calling fan-boy before actually noticing that nvidia told the reviewers how to review the card so it looked better, because get realist, if they include a horrible AA technique with no reason at all something is behind the table hiding you know. Haven't you noticed? theres a lot of discrepancy in 660ti's benchmarks around the web, from sites where the 660 loses to 870's radeons and where it wins to 970's, there is not a single liable review now, do you want to see the truth? buy a 660ti a 870 and a 950, and compare the 3, you will have the truth, thay they perform like they are priced and AMD cards are not shit.
CeriseCogburn - Saturday, August 25, 2012 - link
Hey, I answered the guys 3 questions. I made my points. I didn't say half of what you're talking about, but who cares.
The guy killed himself with point #1, so that's the end of it.
CeriseCogburn - Saturday, August 25, 2012 - link
Oh stop the crap. nVidia is 10 features ahead, I'm not the one who talked about resolution usage, so you've got the wrong fellow there.3D isn't the only feature... but then you know that, but will blabber like an idiot anyway.
Go away.
claysm - Saturday, August 25, 2012 - link
"I'm not the one who talked about resolution usage". You can't fault him for mixing up his trolls. Since almost everything you and TheJian have said is complete shit it's hard to keep track of who said what.And if you can objectively prove that I've lied about anything, I really would like to see it. And I mean objectively, not your usual response of entirely subjective 'AMD suckz lololol' presented in almost unreadably bad grammar.
I take that back, I won't read it anyways, since I know already know it'll be an nVidia love fest regardless of what the facts state. And I'll reiterate that I'm using an nVidia card. Moron.
CeriseCogburn - Saturday, August 25, 2012 - link
Oh it is not, he showed it all to be true and so does the review man.Get out of your freaking goggled amd fanboy gourd.
Look, I just realized another thing that doesn't bode well for you..
What nVidia did here was make a very good move, and the losses of amd on the Steam Hardware Survey at the top end are going to increase....
The amd fanboy is constantly crying about price - they're going to look at $299 with the excellent new game for free and PASS on the more expensive 7950 Russian is promoting EVEN MORE now.
Here let me get you the little info you're now curious about. ( I hope but maybe you're just a scowling amd fanboy liar still completely uninterested because you never got 1 fact according to you LOL sad what you are it's sad)
Aug 15th 2012 prdola0
" Looking at Steam Survey, it is clear why AMD is so desperate. GTX680 has 0.90% share, while even the 7850 lineup has less, just 0.62%. If you look at the GTX670, it has 0.99%. The HD7970 has only 0.54%, about half of what GTX680 has, which is funny considering that the GTX680 is selling only half the time compared to HD7970. It means that GTX680 is selling 4 times faster."
ROFL...
No one is listening to you fools, Russian included... now it's going to GET WORSE for amd....
CeriseCogburn - Saturday, August 25, 2012 - link
forgot link, sorry, page 2 commenthttp://www.anandtech.com/show/6152/amd-announces-n...
Okay, and that stupid 7950 boost REALLY IS CRAPPY CHIPS from the low end loser harvest they had to OVER VOLT to get to their boost...
LOL
LOL\
OLO
I mean there it is man - the same JUNK amd fanboys always use to attack nVida talking about rejected chips for lower clocked down the line variants has NOW COME TRUE IN FULL BLOWN REALITY FOR AMD....~!
HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA
AHHAHAHAHAHAA
omg !
hahahahahahhahaha
ahhahaha
ahaha
Holy moly. hahahahahhahahha
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
plus here the 660Ti wins in 5760x1080, beating the 7950 the 7950 boost, and the 7970...http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2012/08/16/nvidia...
Skyrim. So, throw that out too - add skyrim to your too short shortlist. Throw out your future mem whine. throw out your OC whine readied for 660Ti...
Yep. So the argument left is " I wuv amd ! " - or the more usual " I OWS nVidia ! " ( angry face )