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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PCTC2 - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
Pricing for GTX 660 Ti cards will start at $299, continuing NVIDA’s tidy hierarchyNVIDIA, not NVIDA.
PCTC2 - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
It's on page 2PCTC2 - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
I meant page 1. It's too early in the morning.haukionkannel - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
660ti is not bad, 7870 custom cooler version is very tough competitor. I allso would like to see factory overclocked version of AMD card in the same test, but all in all it seems to be close call.Nvidia definitely needs a cart to 200-300$. But it seems to be so that we have to wait untill 700 series for that?
RussianSensation - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
Not even. I don't think a 7870 is a competitor since it goes for $250-260 on Newegg. The real competitor is a $320-330 HD7950.MatthiasP - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
I don't get why Nvidia keeps ignoring the 200$ market. With economies in Europe and the US going down, i doubt that 300$ cards will be important for the mainstream market. And even there, the 7950 seems to be the better choice.Roland00Address - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
They are ignoring that market for they can't make money with it right now. Right now they are facing a shortage of 28nm wafers for TSMC can't produce enough chips right now. They usually make the most money with the $100 to $250 cards for they usually make money on selling high volume cards with low to medium profit.But due to the shortage of 28nm wafers they have decided to only target markets that are low volume and high selling price. Because of this there majority of 28nm wafers are going for the notebook chips they are producing (the 620m to 660m all have 28nm versions). They leftover spare chips they have are going to the gtx680, gtx670, and now gtx660ti which they make a lot of profit on.
Now there is a gt640 on the market right now, but it uses the same die as the 640m le to 660m, so any chips that can't make laptop grade due to not matching the 25w to 50w tdp will be reused in a desktop chip that can be up to 75w tdp where they will be sold at a final street cost of $100. $100 dollars for a 118mm^2 gpu is outrageous considering the 6670 has the same die size but is made on 40nm, outperforms it, uses less energy, and is cheaper.
You won't see a gt640 with gddr5, gt650, or a gtx660 (non ti) until nvidia gets more 28nm wafers. (You also won't see nvidia making 28nm tegras until they get more wafers even if the design for tegra4/wayne was finished right now.) Right now nvidia is a victim of its own success where it is selling every 28nm product it can make, so since it can't make any more 28nm products due to its suppliers and facing a shortage it might as well maximize its profits. $300 to $500 dollar cards maximize profits, Laptop Gpus maximize profits.
CeriseCogburn - Sunday, August 19, 2012 - link
" I don't get why Nvidia keeps ignoring the 200$ market. "560
560Ti
570
460 SLI
560 SE SLI
550Ti SLI
" I do get why amd fans pretend there are no nVidia cards "
TheJian - Monday, August 20, 2012 - link
Not ignoring it. They can't keep up with demand at $300. Your card is coming, but not until they can get more chips (more failed $300 ones?) so they can created a $200 card.Sorry already debunked your 7950 being the better choice. Ignore 2560x1600 and it's not even close. That being said, if you use a 30in monitor, maybe you can argue the 2560x1600, but it's a wash at that level as far as I can see. GTX 660 TI wins many times even in Anandtech's, etc..
thebeastie - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
I do almost all my gaming on my Sony HMZ-T1 in the standard 720P resolution, so would be great to see what FPS you get in slightly lower resolutions, especially since this is a card aimed at the lower end of the market.Would be great if you could start doing some 3D FPS benchmarks as well because there is a difference in performance again when you ad 3D rendering to any particular resolution.