The GeForce GTX 660 Ti Review, Feat. EVGA, Zotac, and Gigabyte
by Ryan Smith on August 16, 2012 9:00 AM ESTMeet The EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti Superclocked
Our first card of the day is EVGA’s entry, the EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti Superclocked. Among all of the GTX 670 cards we’ve looked at and all of the GTX 660 Ti cards we’re going to be looking at, this is the card that is the most like its older sibling. In fact with only a couple cosmetic differences it’s practically identical in construction.
| GeForce GTX 660 Ti Partner Card Specification Comparison | ||||||
| GeForce GTX 660 Ti(Ref) | EVGA GTX 660 Ti Superclocked | Zotac GTX 660 Ti AMP! | Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC | |||
| Base Clock | 915MHz | 980MHz | 1033MHz | 1033MHz | ||
| Boost Clock | 980MHz | 1059MHz | 1111MHz | 1111MHz | ||
| Memory Clock | 6008MHz | 6008MHz | 6608MHz | 6008MHz | ||
| Frame Buffer | 2GB | 2GB | 2GB | 2GB | ||
| TDP | 150W | 150W | 150W | ~170W | ||
| Width | Double Slot | Double Slot | Double Slot | Double Slot | ||
| Length | N/A | 9.5" | 7.5" | 10,5" | ||
| Warranty | N/A | 3 Year | 3 Year + Life | 3 Year | ||
| Price Point | $299 | $309 | $329 | $319 | ||
EVGA will be clocking the GTX 660 Ti SC at 980MHz for the base clock and 1059MHz for the boost clock, which represents a 65MHz (7%) and 79MHz (8%) overclock respectively. Meanwhile EVGA has left the memory clocked untouched at 6GHz, the reference memory clockspeed for all of NVIDIA’s GTX 600 parts thus far.
The GTX 660 Ti is otherwise identical to the GTX 670, for all of the benefits that entails. While NVIDIA isn’t shipping a proper reference card for the GTX 660 Ti, they did create a reference design, and this appears to be what it’s based on. Both the EVGA and Zotac cards are using identical PCBs derived from the GTX 670’s PCB, which is not unexpected given the power consumption of the GTX 660 Ti. The only difference we can find on this PCB is that instead of there being solder pads for 16 memory chips there are solder pads for 12, reflecting the fact that the GTX 660 Ti can have at most 12 memory chips attached.
With this PCB design the PCB measures only 6.75” long, with the bulk of the VRM components located at the front of the card rather than the rear. Hynix 2Gb 6GHz memory chips are placed both on the front of the PCB and the back, with 6 on the front and 2 on the rear. The rear chips are directly behind a pair of front chips, reflecting the fact that all 4 of these chips are connected to a single memory controller.
With the effective reuse of the GTX 670 PCB, EVGA is also reusing their GTX 670 cooler. This cooler is a blower, which due to the positioning of the GPU and various electronic components means that the blower fan is off of the PCB entirely by necessity. Instead the blower fan is located behind the card in a piece of enclosed housing. This housing pushes the total length of the card out to 9.5”. Housed inside of the enclosure is a block-style aluminum heatsink with a copper baseplate that is providing cooling for the GPU. Elsewhere, attached to the PCB we’ll see a moderately sized aluminum heatsink clamped down on top of the VRMs towards the front of the card. There is no cooling provided for the GDDR5 RAM.
Elsewhere, at the top of the card we’ll find the 2 PCIe power sockets and 2 SLI connectors. Meanwhile at the front of the card EVGA is using the same I/O port configuration and bracket that we saw with the GTX 670. This means they’re using the NVIDIA standard: 1 DL-DVI-D port, 1 DL-DVI-I port, 1 full size HDMI 1.4 port, and 1 full size DisplayPort 1.2. This also means that the card features EVGA’s high-flow bracket, a bracket with less shielding in order to maximize the amount of air that can be exhausted.
Rounding out the package is EVGA’s typical collection of accessories and knick-knacks. In the box you’ll find a pair of molex power adapters, a quick start guide, and some stickers. The real meat of EVGA’s offering is on their website, where EVGA card owners can download their wonderful video card overclocking utility (Precision X), and their stress test utility (OC Scanner X). The powered-by-RivaTuner Precision X and OC Scanner X still set the gold standard for video card utilities thanks to their functionality and ease of use. Though personally I’m not a fan of the new UI – circular UIs and sliders aren’t particularly easy to read – but it gets the job done.
Next, as with all EVGA cards, the EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti Superclocked comes with EVGA’s standard 3 year transferable warranty, with individual 2 or 7 year extensions available for purchase upon registration, which will also unlock access to EVGA’s step-up upgrade program. Finally, the EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti Superclocked will be hitting retail with an MSRP of $309, $10 over the MSRP for reference cards.
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TheJian - Monday, August 20, 2012 - link
660 can go to 1100/1200 as easily as the 7950 gets to 1150 (so another 10% faster)..Check the asus card I linked to before. You'll have a hard time catching the 660 no matter what, it costs you also as noted by anandtech, my comments on watts/cost/heat etc.Memory bandwidth isn't the issue. here and all of it overclocks fairly close. We don't run in 2560x1600. It's not the weakness. That is a misnomer perpetuated by Ryan beating it like a dead horse when only 2% of users use any res above 1920x1200. I just debunked that idea further by showing even monitors at newegg including 27 inchers don't use that res. IE, no, bandwidth isn't the problem. Bad review on ryan's part, and no conclusion is the problem. The CORE clock/boost is the thing when it's not an bandwidth issue, and it's already been shown to not be true.. LOL, yep, nvidia conspiracy, the minimums were used here to...ROFL. Good luck digging for things wrong with 660TI. Minimums are shown at hardocp, guru3d, anandtech and more. Strange thing you even brought this up with no proof.
The NV cards have only been upped 100mhz, which is about ~10%, not 20 like you say. 915/1114 isn't 20%. You CAN get there, but not in out of box exp. I'd guess nearly all of the memory will hit 6.6ghz. Common for 7970OC / gtx680 to hit 7+ghz.
Galidou - Monday, August 20, 2012 - link
I said 20% because most of their cards are way above reference clocks, I was just representing the reality, not the reference thingys. When you can buy factory overclocked cards at the same price, let's say 10$ premium, mentioning the reference clocks is almost... useless. Plus over the internet, 80% of the reviews had factory overclocked cards so the performance we see everywhere and is in everyone's head, is close to 20% overclock has been done.So in fact there's maybe 10-15% of the juice left for fellow overclockers. I'm estimating, it could be more in the case of better chips. While the 7950 as we know it, has been reviewed everywhere on it's reference clocks/fan and if you take an aftermarket cooler and get, let's be honest and say 40%, it's far ahead in terms of comparison from the reference reviews we have.
And again and for the last time, it all depends on the games.
Galidou - Monday, August 20, 2012 - link
When I look at things again and again. the memory bandwidth doesn't seem to be much of a problem. The only games where I can guess it could harm it is any new games that will come out with directx11 heavy graphics. Something that taxes the cards on every aspects, else than that, for now, the card doesn't seem to have any weaknesses at all.I never thought that for the moment it was a real weakness for it, the future will tell us but even there, 90% of the gamers plays at 1080p or less and 80% of that 90% pays less than 150$ for their video cards. For those paying more, it all depends on choosen side, games they play, overclocking or not and money they want to spend.
Remove overclocking of the way Nvidia wins almost everything by a good margin. Anyone playing 1080p won't be deceived by any 200$+ card if they are not so inclined playing everything on ultra with 8x MSAA.
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
You're going to have a CRAP experience and stuttering junk on your eyefinity in between crashes.Come back and apologize to me, and then thejian can hang his head and tell you he tried to warn you.
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
Here's the WARNING for you again, with the 660Ti STOMPING your dreamy 7950 into the turf in Skyrim at 2560 x 1080http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2012/08/16/nvidia...
RussianSensation - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
Hey Ryan,In Shogun 2 and Batman AC at 1080P almost none of the new cards are being stressed. I think you should increase the quality to Ultra for the new 2-3GB generation of cards even if the < 1.5GB VRAM cards suffer and bump AA to 8X in Batman. Otherwise all the cards have no problem passing these benchmarks. Same with SKYRIM, maybe think about adding heavy mods OR testing that game with SSAA or 8xAA at least. Even the 6970 is getting > 83 fps. Maybe you can start thinking of replacing some of these games. They aren't getting very demanding anymore for the new generation of cards.
Ryan Smith - Saturday, August 18, 2012 - link
Russian, it's unlikely that we'll ever bump AA up to 8x. I hate jaggies, but the only thing 8x AA does is to superficially slow things down; the quality improvement isn't even negligable. If 4x MSAA doesn't get rid of jaggies in a game, then the problem isn't MSAA.Consequently this is why we use SSAA on Portal 2. High-end cards are fast enough to use SSAA at a reasonable speed. Ultimately many of these games will get replaced in the next benchmark refresh, but if we need to throw up extra roadblocks in the future it will be in the form of TrSSAA/AAA or SSAA, just like we did with Portal 2.
Biorganic - Saturday, August 18, 2012 - link
I was speaking a bit on both. The article insinuates that the 660ti is on the same performance level as the 7950. The obvious caveat to your results is that it is ridiculously easy to overclock the 7950 by 35-45%, and GCN performance scales pretty well with clock increases. It should be noted in the article that the perf of 7950 OC'd is beyond what the 660ti can attain. Unless you guys can OC a 660ti sample by 30% or more.CeriseCogburn - Sunday, August 19, 2012 - link
Is this the exact same way we recommended the GTX460 reviews ? With some supermassive OC in the reviews, so we could really see what the great GTX 460 could do ?NO>>>>>>>
The EXACT OPPOSITE occurred here, by all of your type people.
Did we demand the 560Ti be OC'ed to show how it surpasses the amd series ? NOPE.
Did we go on and on about how massive the GTX580 gains were with OC even though it was already far, far ahead of all the amd cards with it's very low core clocks ? NOPE - here we heard power whines.
Did we just complain that the GTX680 is not even in the review while the 7970 is ?
Nope.
How about the GTX 470 or 480 ? Very low cores, where were all of you then demanding they be OC'ed because they gained massively.. ?
Huh, where were you ?
Galidou - Sunday, August 19, 2012 - link
Performance scales pretty well on both design but AMD just is a little better at overclocking because it seems like the base clock is terribly underclocked. It just feels like that but that must be for power constraints and noise on reference designs.