The GeForce GTX 660 Ti Review, Feat. EVGA, Zotac, and Gigabyte
by Ryan Smith on August 16, 2012 9:00 AM ESTMeet The Zotac GeForce GTX 660 Ti AMP! Edition
Our next GTX 660 Ti of the day is Zotac’s entry, the GeForce GTX 660 Ti AMP! Edition. As indicated by the AMP branding (and like the other cards in this review) it’s a factory overclocked card; in fact it has the highest factory overclock of all the cards we’re reviewing today, with both a core and memory overclock.
| 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 | ||
Zotac will be shipping the GeForce GTX 660 Ti AMP at 1033MHz for the base clock and 1111MHz for the boost clock. This represents a sizable 118MHz (13%) base overclock, and a 131MHz (13%) boost overclock. Meanwhile Zotac will be shipping their memory at 6.6GHz, a full 600MHz (10%) over the reference GTX 660 Ti. The latter overclock will stand to be very important, as we’ve already noted the GTX 660 Ti is starting off life as a memory bandwidth crippled card. Power consumption willing, the GTX 660 Ti AMP is in a good position to pick up at least 10% on performance relative to the reference GTX 660 Ti.
Like the EVGA card we just took a look at, Zotac’s GTX 660 Ti is based on NVIDIA’s reference board, so we’ll skip the details here. Rather than using a blower like EVGA however, Zotac is using an open air cooler – dubbed the dual silencer – that is well suited for a board of this length. The cooler uses a pair of 70mm fans, mounted over an aluminum heatsink that runs nearly the entire length of the card. Attaching the heatsink to the GPU itself is a trio of copper heatpipes, which transfer heat from the GPU to various points on the heatsink. Meanwhile the VRMs are cooled by a smaller, separate heatsink that fits under the primary heatsink; given the size and the location, it’s hard to say just how well this secondary heatsink is being cooled.
Altogether the card measures just 7.5” in length, an otherwise itty-bity card made just a bit longer thanks to some overhang from Zotac’s cooler. Zotac advertises their dual silencer as being 10C cooler and 10dB quieter than the competition, and while this may strictly be true when compared to some blowers, it’s not appreciably different than the dual-fan open air heatsinks that are extremely common on the market today. In fact among all of the cards we’re reviewing today this is unquestionably the most standard of them, as Zotac and several other NVIDIA partners will be shipping reference clocked cards built very similar to this. For this reason we’ll be using Zotac’s card as our reference card for the purpose of our testing.
Moving on, power and display connectivity is the same as with the GTX 670 and other cards using NVIDIA’s PCBs. This means 2 PCIe power sockets and 2 SLI connectors on the top, and 1 DL-DVI-D port, 1 DL-DVI-I port, 1 full size HDMI 1.4 port, and 1 full size DisplayPort 1.2 on the front.
Rounding out the package is the usual collection of molex power adapters and quickstart guides, along with a trial version of Trackmania Canyon. However the real star of the show as far as pack-in games goes will be Borderlands 2 through NVIDIA’s launch offer.
Wrapping things up, Zotac is attaching a $329 MSRP to the GeForce GTX 660 Ti AMP, which makes it a full $30 more expensive than reference-clocked cards and reflecting the greater factory overclock. This also makes it the most expensive card in today’s review by $10. Meanwhile for the warranty Zotac is offering a base 2 year warranty, which is extended to a rather generous full limited lifetime warranty upon registration of the card.
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RussianSensation - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
Oops forgot to link it:$317 HD7950 MSI TF3 -- perfect for skyrim with mods:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=22616...
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - link
BUT IT LOST to the 660Ti, and the 660Ti even beats the 7970 LOLhttp://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2012/08/16/nvidia...
Oh well, time for a new game plan...
1300+ on 660Ti cores, exceeding 7950's and 7950's - R O F L goodbye amd
Ryan Smith - Saturday, August 18, 2012 - link
If you're going to be playing with memory-intensive mods then our Skyrim results at 2560 are going to be the most relevant. The 7870 would be appreciably faster here, but note that this is basically the only case in our entire benchmark suite where that happens (even Crysis has the two virtually tied). I suspect you'd be happy with either card, but if you intend to keep the card for a while and to play games other than Skyrim, I'd be hesitant to recommend the 7870.TheJian - Monday, August 20, 2012 - link
Not quite sure I understand...660TI is dominant in 1920x1200 in skyrim. I already showed from the hardware survey at steampowered.com <2% use your resolution of 2560x1600. I already pointed out 68 24in monitors at newegg (that's all of them by the way) don't recommend above 1920x1200/1080 for recommended res (native), 41 of the 27in monitors run the same, only 11 27in monitors on newegg recommend a resolution even near your 2560x1600 (it's 1440 on those 11), the rest of the other 41 27in models are also 1920x1080...Who do you think runs at this 2650x1600 res? It's a res used by a small % of the 2% I've just mentioned. You have to buy a 30in before this is useful info. Is this guy running a 30in? Crysis, tied? You talking warhead from an old engine from 2008 or what? See my other posts, you need to rewrite your conclusion and stop acting like there are more than 2% in the world using 2560x1600. I already proved this wrong many times in here in the comments on this article! Got any evidence skyrim is better for this guy? His link where nothing is explained? I believe he's testing at REF speeds for the 660TI since nothing is mentioned about what he runs the tests at (after translating the whole thing through google) . He has multiple cards but only 1 660TI in the test once he gets to the alan wake page and gaming tests. Again though, 1920x1080 the card is great. But still I have no idea of the clockspeed of the ONE card in the 3 card charts. Only ArmA2,Metro2033 seems to be a victory for 7950 (again at what speed?). I can't find evidence it's not all based on reference. But if you go by your benchmarks, hardocp, guru3d etc...It's clear who wins at the res 98% of us use. Our can you point me to 2560x1600 data showing otherwise? 2560x1600 isn't used. I pointed out all the monitors at newegg...Steampowered survey...Where is evidence it's used?
Burticus - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
The 570 is included in the benchmarks which the 660TI just slaps down. Why no 580?I can pick up a used EVGA 580 for $250, so I am curious. I like the sound of the Gigabyte 660TI but it's $319... is it worth $70 more than a 580? Yes I know power consumption will be lower and it will be less noisy.
Roland00Address - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
Here are the resultshttp://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/647?vs=517
rarson - Friday, August 17, 2012 - link
Yeah, bench is sometimes even more useful than the benchmark charts in product reviews (especially when the review was written by Jarred).Galidou - Sunday, August 19, 2012 - link
When you look at power and temperature bars at the bottom, it's plain amazing! They surely got the sweet spot this time. Thinking the 660 ti performs a little better but such a difference in power usage, there's not much to say about it except it's plain extraordinary.Ryan Smith - Saturday, August 18, 2012 - link
The GTX 570 was included since at current prices the GTX 660 Ti is more or less replacing that card. I do not know of many people who would be considering a GTX 660 Ti as a GTX 580 replacement.beastyben1 - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
I see 11 different models that just became available - not a soft launch.The Galaxy's cooler looks quite interesting and has a pretty beefy heatsink.