The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Review: GK106 Fills Out The Kepler Family
by Ryan Smith on September 13, 2012 9:00 AM ESTFinal Words
Bringing our review of the first GK106-based video card to a close, it’s difficult not to sound like a broken record at times. The launch of the GeForce GTX 660 and the accompanying GK106 GPU is very much a by-the-numbers launch. This is by no means a bad thing, but it does mean that it’s a launch with very few surprises.
As far as NVIDIA’s execution goes, GK106 and the GTX 660 is exactly what they’ve needed to start filling in the gap between $100 and $300. Truth be told we would have liked to see the GTX 660 come in at $200 so that NVIDIA had a clear $200 contender – an always-popular price point – but given the performance of the GTX 660 that’s being a bit wishful on our part. Furthermore NVIDIA would still need to leave enough room for the eventual launch of the next GK106 part, which will be whatever goes between GTX 650 and GTX 660. So much like the GTX 460 1GB two years before it, the GTX 660 launches at $229.
To that end NVIDIA has done their launch planning well, and for $229 it’s hard to argue that they haven’t hit the right balance of price and performance. GeForce GTX 660 offers around 88% of the performance of the GTX 660 Ti at 1920x1200, making it a strong performer in its own right and the logical follow-up to the GTX 660 Ti. However on that note I think this is going to be one of the more unusual launches due to how inconsistent the performance gap between NVIDIA’s cards is, as the GTX 660 offers anywhere between 80% to 100% of the performance of the GTX 660 Ti, owing to the much different shader-to-ROP ratio of the GTX 660. In the right scenario the GTX 660 is every bit as fast as the GTX 660 Ti, though these scenarios are admittedly few and far between.
The real question of course isn’t how the GTX 660 compares to the GTX 660 Ti, but rather how it compares to the Radeon HD 7870 in the face of AMD’s earlier price drops. Even with a more balanced shader-to-ROP ratio for GTX 660, the question of who wins remains to be heavily dependent on the game being tested. AMD controls their traditional strongholds of Crysis, DiRT, and Civilization V, while NVIDIA controls Battlefield 3, Starcraft II, and Portal 2. The end result is that the GTX 660 is on average 4% ahead of the 7870, but once again this is an anything-but-equal scenario; even swapping out a single game could easily shift the balance, reiterating the importance of individual games when relative performance is so inconsistent.
Meanwhile when it comes to physical metrics like power consumption, temperature, and noise, NVIDIA does have a clear edge thanks to another efficient rendition of the Kepler architecture with GK106. GK106 doesn’t enjoy nearly the same advantage over Pitcairn that GK104 did over Tahiti, but it’s still enough to get the same job done with less power consumed and less noise generated. It’s also just enough to make GTX 660 the preferable card over 7870 (at least as far as reference cards go) though by no means is 7870 suddenly a poor choice.
The real wildcard for today’s launch is going to be the prevalence of factory overclocked cards, which are going to be showing up at the same $229 price point as reference cards. Factory overclocked cards will sacrifice GTX 660’s edge in power consumption, but of course they’ll extend the GTX 660’s performance lead. For major launch articles we’re always going to base our advice on reference clocked cards since those are by definition the bare minimum level of performance you can expect, but you’ll want to come back later today for our companion article that takes a look at some of the $229 factory overclocked cards launching today.
Ultimately how well the GTX 660 is received is up to AMD more than it is NVIDIA. The 7870 is already priced close enough to the GTX 660 that the price difference is negligible, and meanwhile AMD and their partners could easily trim another $10 or $20 off of the card’s price to match or beat NVIDIA’s pricing (all the while still offering a bundled game), at which point the sweet spot would once again shift back to AMD. Otherwise AMD is still not in a bad position, even if the GTX 660 is technically the better card.
Wrapping things up, as we briefly discussed earlier NVIDIA’s biggest hurdle isn’t AMD so much as it is themselves. The GTX 660 is a clear multi-generational upgrade over particularly old cards like the 9800GT and GTX 260, but compared to the Fermi cards of the last two years the performance jump isn’t quite as grand. Contrasting the launch of the GTX 660 to the launch of the GTX 460 1GB two years ago, NVIDIA is actually doing far better in this respect thanks to the fact that the GTX 660 offers an impressive 75% jump in performance over the GTX 460 1GB. But at the same time we’re now approaching a more frugal market segment; enthusiasts gamers can justify spending $300+ every 2 years for a next-generation video card even if the gains are only 50%, but mainstream gamers need a bigger jump. GTX 660 is unquestionably a meaningful upgrade to an aging Fermi card – these days Fermi is going to have a hard time hitting playable framerates at 1920 with a high degree of quality – but given the fact that we’re still on the Direct3D 11 generation of video cards holding on to Fermi for one more generation wouldn’t be hard to justify for the cash-strapped mainstream gamer.
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Galidou - Thursday, September 20, 2012 - link
Whenever I see CeriseCogburn commenting, Chizow is not, and vice versa....If you never heard about price fixing, sorry for you but it's a fact, THAT is a fact, people don't have to beleive in that, it's happening right now and always has been and beleive me it will continue, because almost every company in the world is greedy even if it means communicating with the competition to maximize profit....
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, November 29, 2012 - link
Gal, you silly gal, Chizow knows a lot more than I do, but I'll say this, you're an insane and incorrect amd fanboy of the worst kind.I hope david's butt remains a delicacy to you, even after the corpse is buried, which is, by the way, to happen, very soon.
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, November 29, 2012 - link
Galidou, you win NOTHING for being a lying sack, then whining when someone is so sick of your complete bs, they offend your idiot retarded estrogen doused amd licking being because they aren't a sick lying gasbag biased amd pig.Glad that religious Bible story has you kissing david amd's tokus furiously though, as that surely commands respect.
LOL
NOT !
Oh, were you insulted ?
Let's hope so, because of course, you tell so many lies, it's IMPOSSIBLE for you to not be insulted.
rarson - Tuesday, September 18, 2012 - link
AMD's pricing doesn't need to be defended because anyone with a grasp of basic economics can easily understand why they priced them the way they did. That's why most people are ignoring your inane and mind-bogglingly stupid comments."How do you feel now about those $550, $450, and $350 pricepoints you so vigorously defended when the 7970/7950/7870 launched?"
Absolutely fine, dumbass, because it's September now. Duh.
"So just as I asked then"
Nobody cares, dude. Go fanboy somewhere else.
chizow - Tuesday, September 18, 2012 - link
Yes anyone with a basic grasp of economics would never have defended the worst increase in price and performance in the last decade and then be OK with the biggest price drop in the least amount of time within the same generation. AMD now holds the notorious distinction for both and their fanboys (like you) get to suffer the consequences.How much did the GTX 580 cost 15 months after release? $500 still dumbass, duh, now go fanboy somewhere else? Parts like this don't lose their value unless they suck, or their pricing sucks, or both, but obviously you're too oblivious or stupid to realize this, or maybe you're just accustomed to it as an AMD fan.
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, November 29, 2012 - link
You're an idiot.AMD cost me plenty, and I will NEVER fall for your stupid amd lies, ever again.
Klimax - Saturday, September 15, 2012 - link
A thing: Dirt Showdown is AMD game using DC codepath optimised ONLY for Radeons severly penalising nVidia's cards. It is not valid for any comparsions.(At least not with that option enabled)
chizow - Thursday, September 13, 2012 - link
Just wondered if there was any news about price drops for higher-end SKUs. It becomes more obvious with every newly released SKU that the original asking prices from both AMD and Nvidia on 28nm parts were far too high. $350 for a 7870 looks like a complete debacle at this point given a $229 part outperforms it just a few months later.Also it looks like the Summer 2012 GPU pricing chart needs to be adjusted for the GTX 660 (it shows $239).
Thanks for the commentary on page 3 about Nvidia's Competition. Much like Intel, they still need to compete with themselves to entice owners of their previous products to upgrade. I'm glad someone else gets it, its pretty obvious Nvidia does as well. I guess they heard the complaints of all their enthusiasts when asking $500 flagship dollars for a part based on a midrange ASIC.
RussianSensation - Thursday, September 13, 2012 - link
A couple months?HD7850 - $249 March 3, 2012
HD7870 - $349 March 3, 2012
GTX660 - $229 September 13, 2012
It's been 7 months.
Someone who bought an HD7850 and OCed it enjoyed ~ GTX580 / HD7950 level of performance for 7 months now. Using the same exact logic you have just outlined, then we should recommend people to wait 7 more months for HD8000 series and skip GTX660 because for them the 660 would be an "early adopter" premium vs. HD8870. See how illogical your comment is?
GPUs often drop in price over time as the generation goes on.
Interesting how GTX280 for $649 and GTX260 $399 weren't a problem for you.
chizow - Thursday, September 13, 2012 - link
Except we've already covered this pricing debacle months ago, pretty sure you were onboard then, what happened since then?The 7870 was already vastly overpriced because it offered 6970/GTX 570 at.....6970 and GTX 570 prices. Parts that were already widely available for at least 20 months prior to the 7870's launch at the exact same prices. Anyone who already had that performance level would have no incentive to sidegrade to a 7870 at that pricepoint.
What is obvious now as it was then is that there was no movement in terms of price:performance that you would expect from a new generation, the metric didn't shift at all for 28nm until Kepler launched. Now that Kepler has finally trickled down to this performance level, its that much more clear. Bringing your 8870 argument into the fold, I wouldn't agree with that view either as I would expect the 8870 to offer more performance at a lower pricepoint, not the same performance at the same price as is the case with the 7870 at launch.
I don't know why you're trying to defend AMD's horrid 28nm pricing but the fact of the matter is, the current pricing structure is really what 28nm should have been from the outset, anyone who bought in March and didn't actually need a new GPU is undoubtedly feeling the burn of all the recent price drops, but hey, at least its not as bad as Facebook's IPO?
And no, GTX 260/280 weren't a problem for me because the difference is with those parts, the performance justified the premium relative to the last generation of cards (8800GT/GTX). This generation clearly does not adhere to those same expectations, which again, is a view I'm pretty sure you were onboard with months ago. What Nvidia didn't expect was for AMD to lowball them so much on a certain performance level, something AMD has clearly worked to remedy with each successive generation with their increases in asking prices for their 1st and 2nd tier single-GPU SKUs.