GeForce GTX 660 Ti Review: Nvidia's Trickle-Down Keplernomics

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]davemaster84[/nom]I find this review a little silly , Why they put side by side the 670 and the 7970? That is why the gap seems like that, they should use the 680 which is the nvidia´s flagship. Otherwise it will always look like ATI has the clear advantage[/citation]

The 680 and the 670 have nearly identical performance. Using the 670 or 680 would not make much difference. Beyond that, it wouldn't change how the 660 TI compares to the 7870 and the 7950, it's two main competitors.

 

[heizenbrg]

man I'm reading too many reviews.. gotta choose something! Guys I got a single monitor playing at 1920x1080, won't upgrade pc in at least 3 yrs.. 670 all the way??

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]heizenbrg[/nom]man I'm reading too many reviews.. gotta choose something! Guys I got a single monitor playing at 1920x1080, won't upgrade pc in at least 3 yrs.. 670 all the way??[/citation]

670 or 7950 should be good. Which one is best would depend on the game and settings that you play at as well as your personal preference and what you think about overclocking.

 

[roki977]

I owned gtx 580 and 7870 was downgrade in many games what where important to me. Was very pissed on many review sites. Hope you are right with 660ti...

 

[FullBurstMode]

Not that I have any potential personal game in the outcome but people have mentioned overclocking a lot for these cards. Is there anywhere that has had a good look at various nVidia and AMD cards that have been overclocked?

 

[willyroc]

Worth my money!

 

[hetneo]

[citation][nom]ilysaml[/nom]So am i the only one seeing that GTX 660Ti is a fail?[/citation]
Fail? Is it fail because it outperforms GTX580 or maybe because it costs 30% less?

 

[army_ant7]

i don't understand why Nvidia cut computing performance so much since the software developers lately began using these optimizations more often in productivity software and also in games and it seems GPU computing, seems, has a bright future. I mean last generation was relatively better in general.

Even though some games have implemented GPGPU, I think most games still don't have such. And there's still next year for Nvidia to make a stronger GPGPU architecture.

Maybe they're also thinking that they could make sales now with the 600-series with all the advertisement and performance benchmarks with a lot of games with certain setting THEN make more sales with next year's 700-series if it's better made for GPGPU games, if there'll be a substantial boost in the number of games with such.

The thing is though, people like us who read articles like this and who are also aware of the fact that we want future-proofed investments, at least those among us with money AS an issue, would probably not buy into the 600-series, or at least what's below the GTX 670.

Another thing is, not everyone, and this might possibly include the vast majority, who wants to build a gaming PC or who just wants to buy a PC to play games on, reads about or takes note of these things we now know. (Sounding elite is not my intention. I hope you get what I'm getting at.) They may be quicker to take the bait of advertisements and stuff, and maybe Nvidia's (business) statistics show this or something.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]Hetneo[/nom]Fail? Is it fail because it outperforms GTX580 or maybe because it costs 30% less?[/citation]

The 7870 and the 7950 can be found around the same price (cheaper in the 7870's case) and they both overclock much better and the 7950 has superior minimum frame rates,as can even the 7870 when overclocking is considered. It's obviously not junk because it has good stock performance at a good price and power consumption, but it isn't great. The 660 TI also sucks at AA and tessellation as well as DirectC features, so there's quite the trade off with it versus the 7870 and especially the 7950.

 

[Guest]

I know this is a GTX 660 Ti review. However, the reviewer might want to stop making up names for AMD graphics cards and then repeatedly getting his knickers in a twist about said name. There is no such thing as a HD 7950 GHz Edition! It's simply the HD 7950. The specs (or rather, the BIOS) have been changed, the name remains the same.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]azrae1[/nom]I know this is a GTX 660 Ti review. However, the reviewer might want to stop making up names for AMD graphics cards and then repeatedly getting his knickers in a twist about said name. There is no such thing as a HD 7950 GHz Edition! It's simply the HD 7950. The specs (or rather, the BIOS) have been changed, the name remains the same.[/citation]

I've heard of it being called the 7950 Boost rather than just the 7950.

 

[technoholic]

i'd like to ask: will there be an article about all these cards challenging in overclocking? I got the impression that AMD's cards have more potential in that area but i'd also like to see NV and Amd cards challenge in light, moderate and heavy overclocking settings. Most people (like me) are afraid of damaging their cards by overclocking. Some people are more informed in this area and they use overclocking more generally. For example what would be the optimum overclocking rate in these cards? Which brand holds the "optimum overclocking potential" (performance/heating etc) for their card? say, can i use a 7950 with 900mhz core clock 7/24 with no heat issues? what about a gtx 660 ti?

 

[davemaster84]

[citation][nom]heizenbrg[/nom]man I'm reading too many reviews.. gotta choose something! Guys I got a single monitor playing at 1920x1080, won't upgrade pc in at least 3 yrs.. 670 all the way??[/citation]

7% Maybe doesn't look like much, but when related to numbers and comparisons it could make a difference, don't forget some people just buy whatever's on the highest bar in the graphic

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]technoholic[/nom]i'd like to ask: will there be an article about all these cards challenging in overclocking? I got the impression that AMD's cards have more potential in that area but i'd also like to see NV and Amd cards challenge in light, moderate and heavy overclocking settings. Most people (like me) are afraid of damaging their cards by overclocking. Some people are more informed in this area and they use overclocking more generally. For example what would be the optimum overclocking rate in these cards? Which brand holds the "optimum overclocking potential" (performance/heating etc) for their card? say, can i use a 7950 with 900mhz core clock 7/24 with no heat issues? what about a gtx 660 ti?[/citation]

You could run a 7950 at far over 1GHz GPU clock frequency no problem. It can go as far as a 7970 with the same PCB can. The 660 TI doesn't really care about its GPU clock because the GPU has a huge memory bandwidth bottle-neck. Overclocking the memory is the main thing to do with it (not that overclocking the GPU too won't help at least somewhat), but the memory can't be pushed too much farther than stock, so the 7950 can overclock far better than the 660 TI because it can have both its GPU and its memory pushed far above stock.

 

[revro]

the price difference is not so big, i would go for 670 and maybe some power edition just to make sure

 

[refillable]

Oh I see, thanks for the good explanation! .

Maybe, in the next reviews you can test more games?

 

[Guest]

So , that's OpenCL features VS PhysX (as usual) .
My ASUS gtx670 didn't disappoint me so far , but the 660Ti seems wrong .

 

[DamZe]

The price is too high it won't be the next 8800GT. For the mainstream market it needed to be around 250 bucks.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]DamZe[/nom]The price is too high it won't be the next 8800GT. For the mainstream market it needed to be around 250 bucks.[/citation]

There probably won't be a card like the 8800 GT any time soon, if ever, but I suggest watching the GK106 cards just in case. With some memory overclocking, they might go pretty far, although the 7850 might be able to stay ahead. That little card can be an overclocking beast.

However, the 8800 GT is such a difficult card to beat for what it was... It was a recommended buy for years until supply finally ran out.

 

[tomfreak]

rumor says GK106 is having 960 shader count 24ROP, it might be the card worth the value, but it still WONT be a 8800GT again since it isnt a Gk104 chip. 8800GT shares the same high end chip vs the 8800 Ultra that time.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]Tomfreak[/nom]rumor says GK106 is having 960 shader count 24ROP, it might be the card worth the value, but it still WONT be a 8800GT again since it isnt a Gk104 chip. 8800GT shares the same high end chip vs the 8800 Ultra that time.[/citation]

My point was that it would probably be the closest that we'll get to it. If we want to get more technical, then the GTX 670 is the closest to the 8800 GT that we get in the GTX 600 line, but it's price is almost double what it would need to be for that.

 

[Dax corrin]

I'm still not compelled enough to replace my GTX 460 OC 1GB.

 

[tomfreak]

[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]My point was that it would probably be the closest that we'll get to it. If we want to get more technical, then the GTX 670 is the closest to the 8800 GT that we get in the GTX 600 line, but it's price is almost double what it would need to be for that.[/citation]exactly it is going to be rare to see cards that sell significant less while performing 80-90% vs the high end brothers.

Ti4200, 8800GT, and I own these two awesome cards.

 

[BestJinjo]

@ Ironslice,

"Every review on the internet except Tomshardware's compares the 660 ti to a 7950 and says that it's 10-15% faster than the 7870. IDK what toms did but somehow they must have messed up their review."

It's more like every review under the sun took a stock 800 mhz HD7950 and compared them to factory pre-overclocked GTX660Tis. NV Marketing 101. NV even sent special cherry-picked 660Ti cards to reviewers. BitTech noted that their MSI Power Edition GTX660Ti was GPU Boosting to 1240mhz from the factory. I am pretty sure the average MSI PE 660Ti won't do that:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2012/08/16/nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-ti-2gb-review/2

It's good thing that European websites had the balls to point this out, while US media was largely told how to benchmark by NV's reviewer guide.

3D Center compiled 12 reviews and 800mhz 7950 beats 660Ti in every resolution, with 850mhz / 925 mhz GPU Boost 7950 Edition easily winning.
http://www.3dcenter.org/artikel/launch-analyse-nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-ti/launch-analyse-nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-ti-seite-2

Team Green can never admit defeat. They are falling to new lows this round:

1) They aren't taking into consideration that future games will use DirectCompute for lighting / global illumination model and incorporate contact hardening shadows. Already 3 games do it and Kepler tanks in them:

- Dirt Showdown
- Sniper Elite V2
- Sleeping Dogs

2) They aren't considering that you can do other things with a GPU outside of games. Tom's already showed you can accelerate certain Photoshop filters with GCN and WinZip 16.5 can be accelerated 2.5x faster than a $1000 3960X. Impressive since it's free performance.

3) The much touted overclocking capabilities of cards such as the 8800GT and GTX460 1GB made them famous. Yet Team Green still won't acknowledge that HD7950 is a slightly detuned factory underclocked Tahiti XT chip, while GTX660Ti is a 25% ROP/Memory bus neutered GK104. What that means is the 7950 is like an i5-3570K with massive overclocking potential and GTX660Ti is more like a Core i5-3470 that keeps up with it in some games but has nothing left beyond stock speeds.

Both Tom's Hardware and BitTech showed that a 1300-1350mhz 660Ti often can't even match a stock 670. This is because those 24 ROPs and lack of memory bandwidth are hurting the performance with MSAA. Too many reviewers are testing cards in FXAA as if all of us love blur. Sure, FXAA works well in certain games like Max Payne 3 but in other games MSAA is much welcome.

3) There is the question mark if the 660Ti is a real 2GB card. Apparently to enable the last 512 MB of memory, the card defaults to 48GB/sec memory bandwidth. Some websites have noted that this may be a problem down the line as more games start using more than 1.5GB of VRAM. HD7950 gives gamers 3GB. No worries there.

You can see already in Skyrim at Tom's that 660Ti can't handle higher resolution textures either.

Computerbase has investigated Skyrim with ENB mods and 660Ti performs even 24% slower than HD7950 800mhz does with 8AA and Texture Mods:
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/grafikkarten/2012/test-nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-ti/24/

This is for a $300 card that's suppose to carry a gamer for 2 years at least?

HD7950 is the real deal. While 90% of average gamers will get the 660Ti, the real enthusiasts will be rocking cards such as aforementioned MSI TwinFrozr III 7950 that has 30-40% overclocking headroom. At 1100-1200mhz, the 7950 will become a real enthusiast card, easily surpassing a GTX680 and even HD7970 Ghz edition. 660Ti has no chance at all of achieving this.

At the end for $20-30 more, after-market 7950s offer huge reserve for future games, textures mods, and MSAA. And if a gamer wants to save some $, well he can just get an HD7850 and OC it a bit. The only positive thing I can think of for 660Ti is free Borderlands 2. The rest is pure NV marketing and comparing factory pre-overclocked 660Tis with FXAA in many reviews against a stock reference 7950. LOL!

Tom's for once came out head and shoulders above most North American review sites by not buying into NV's reviewers guide and using Ultra quality settings that revealed all the weaknesses of this card in DirectCompute games (Dirt Showdown), texture intensive games (Skyrim) and shader intensive games (Metro 2033). It sure looks good in BF3 with FXAA though. That's what the 'masses' will be talking about.

 

[azraa]

@BestJinjo man, you brought tears to my eyes :'3
Im so glad there are still people who doesn't go all in because of media/marketing