The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Review: GK106 Fills Out The Kepler Family
by Ryan Smith on September 13, 2012 9:00 AM ESTStarcraft II
Our next game is Starcraft II, Blizzard’s 2010 RTS megahit. Much like Portal 2 it’s a DX9 game designed to run on a wide range of hardware so performance is quite peppy with most high-end cards, but it can still challenge a GPU when it needs to.
With the release of patch 1.5, Blizzard turned both our Starcraft II testing methodology and our Starcraft II benchmark results on their heads. After straightening things out a curious pattern emerged: NVIDIA’s cards came out relatively unscathed, while most AMD GCN cards have taken a small performance hit compared to our earlier results. As a result Starcraft II now favors NVIDIA’s cards even more so now than it did before, making this an easy win for the GTX 660. At 1920 the GTX 660 beats the 7870 by 37%, and once more even the 7950 falls behind.
The driving factor here seems to be ROP performance, as showcased by the performance of the GTX 660 relative to that of the GTX 660 Ti. This is a textbook case of the GTX 660’s slightly higher ROP performance giving it an equally slight performance advantage over the GTX 660 Ti, and also explaining why performance hasn’t dropped to near-7870 levels like we’ve seen in some other games. With the next Starcraft II chapter already in beta testing, it will be interesting to see if these kinds of performance differences will remain into the future.
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CeriseCogburn - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
Hey Gilligan, stop ragging.Gastec - Thursday, November 15, 2012 - link
Nvidia cards are for rich people. ATI/AMD cards are for poor people. Just like rich people drive Mercedes and poor people drive american cars. Is that enough for you want more? I was poor and I had to buy a ATI card. Now I'm not poor anymore so I'm going to buy a Nvidia card in December. Quod erat demonstrandum. Now fuck off!Model192 - Friday, December 7, 2012 - link
I have a Corvette and I buy AMD. Guess I'm double retarded? Or does the Corvette not quite fit into your theory about being poor and buying AMD/ATI.nerrrd - Wednesday, March 13, 2013 - link
corvettes are american cars...stm1185 - Thursday, September 13, 2012 - link
Techpowerup includes more games where AMD has a slight edge, but does that edge make a difference in those games? I'd argue no because frame rate in a console port adventure game like Alan Wake is not a big deal.Also face it most of those 2012 games are mediocre. Who is spending 60 hours a week playing Sniper Elite or Max Payne? No one, but for SC2, BF3, Skyrim, they do, hell some guys have to by contract!
7870 is not a better card, it's about equal, or worse depending on what you play. For a competitive gamer, the GTX660 is the better card, because it's better for BF3, and it's better for SC2 (Amazingly so, best SC2 card!).
RussianSensation - Thursday, September 13, 2012 - link
Data does not back up your claimsBF3 - factory overclocked 660 trades blows with a factory overclocked 7870
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/09/13/asus_gef...
BF3 - barely any difference (but comparing a reference 660 it doesn't win either)
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GT...
Skyrim - 7870 wins
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/09/13/asus_gef...
Skyrim - 7870 wins
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GT...
Add mods to Skyrim and 7870 wins by 20-40%
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/grafikkarten/20...
Also, you are discounting performance in 12-15 games and just focusing on the games you think are most important. That's your opinion. Starcraft 2 for example is playable on a GTX560/HD6870 without any problems. Plus in a strategy game you only need 30-45 fps for it to feel smooth and modern cards get 70-100 fps! So really your point about SC2 is hardly relevant.
The reason we look at more games is because not everyone spends 200 hours a month playing BF3 only.
Overall, 660 is not any better (actually a slower card unless you consider factory overclocked versions)
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/grafikkarten/20...
stm1185 - Thursday, September 13, 2012 - link
So Anandtech is lying then? Those numbers I see right above this post are false?Margalus - Thursday, September 13, 2012 - link
sorry, but you lost all credibility by linking hardocp. That is the worst hardware site on the internet. They gave up all premises of being unbiased and fair years ago.ninjaquick - Thursday, September 13, 2012 - link
? They compare OC parts with OC parts, rather than average out the OC parts results and place them against stock parts.Different systems have different results, Anandtech didn't lie, AFAICT. nobody has fudged results (esp. not w1zzard)
formulav8 - Thursday, September 13, 2012 - link
No cred lost. Your opinion only. Hardocp simply uses different methods of comparison. Some like it, some don't.