Final words and conclusion

Final words and conclusion

EVGA submitted a card that is following the actual reference design pretty closely. The SC model however trumps the standard reference models due to their nice bump in performance thanks to that factory overclock.

But let's first discuss the GeForce GTX 660 Ti as reference product all by itself. NVIDIA has a product in their hands that might become the best selling product ever. Initially I did expect a new GPU for this product series, but they went ahead with the Kepler based GK104 that's being used in the GTX 670 and GTX 680 as well. it really proofs how sturdy and efficient that GPU is.

The release also confused me a little bit, as realistically the GeForce GTX 670 will become an obsolete product. The difference in performance are very close, especially the factory overclocker products (which all board partners send out for review). Bare in mind that a reference GeForce GTX 660 Ti is a good chunk slower then the GTX 670, all the factory OC based products are clocked roughly 100 MHz above the reference clock -- that's what brings it so close to that GTX 670. The 192-bit memory bus definitely has en affect, but being GDDR5 and running at roughly 6 Gbps really isn't as big of an Achilles heel as I expected. The fact that this mid-range product is equipped with 2GB of memory, does help as well as it is a great balance in-between frame buffer needs and 1920x1200 monitor resolutions. We have no doubt though that there also will be 3 GB version of this card.

If you do purchase the reference clocked based products, hey now worries, crank open the power limiter to it's maximum and clock it at 1 GHz on the core clock frequency. You will have forfeited a tiny little bit on power consumption but immediately the card will be at competitive GTX 670 performance levels.

What about the competition then ? Well if I purely look at reference clocked products then  priced at 300 USD the closest product from AMD is the Radeon HD 7870. At 50 bucks higher the next one in line is the R7950. We expect the factory overclocked GTX 660 Ti's to be at that price level. Realistically though the real competitor at reference clocks is that R7870, and that is a problem for AMD. We so expect price drops as a result of this release. Performance wise with an exception here and there the GeForce GTX 660 Ti wins with a healthy margin.

The GeForce GTX 660 Ti is a card that is downright perfect for those gaming at 1920x1080/1200. Your performance will be near perfect and completely in balance with the games of 2012. In Battlefield 3 you are at roughly 45 frames per second on average with 4x AntiAliasing, 16xAF at Ultra quality settings. That's in 1920x1200 by the way. If we take Anno 2070 at the same resolution with the same settings in the very best quality we average out at 70+ FPS. Crysis 2 with the High Quality texture pack in DX11 at Ultra settings .. roughly 50 FPS. These are the scores that matter.

Power consumption then, it's low if you place it into context with the game performance. Roughly 135 Watt is what we measure during gaming. The card is allowed to peak to 150 Watts.

It seems to be the trend with all the factory overclocked and custom cooled 660 Ti products we test, but the noise levels for this product are absolutely fine. The reference cooler does a decent job really, in a closed chassis you just won't be able to hear it. Even when you stress the card heavily during gaming it remains a silent product. So that the slot cooler certainly is good for something ;)

Directly related to the cooler is obviously temperatures. The card will idle at give or take 30 Degrees C and we measured a maximum of 75 Degrees C under full workload. That's a notch higher then the custom coolers we have seen with other brand cards, but 75 Degrees C is okay really.

Overclocking - Your maximum added (software based) voltage will be 100 Mv. The Power Limiter will get you a little extra out of the board, an extra +23% on the power design is possible. However at default the card was clocked slower then the competition so it all ends roughly at the same boost frequency really. Once the GPU reaches it's maximum power state or a certain heat level, it will start throttling down. regardless of it, we where able to add another 100 MHz on the core. That in combo with the power limiter at +123% and an added 100Mv will make the card boost stable towards 1163 MHz.  The memory can be overclocked  as well, add +402 MHz and you'll end up at 6840 MHz. Your card is now another 10% faster. The SC did not overclock  as well as the other brands with customized offerings.

EVGA has a solid offering with their SC model. The factory clock makes it perform in neighborhood of the GeForce GTX 670. The cooler does what it needs to do, it's silent and keeps the card at roughly 75 Degrees C under full game load. If you need a little extra, there is tweaking room left. With all tweaks applies the product will max out at roughly 1150~1250 MHz based on the boost frequency.

Mind you that for a limited time only you'll find a coupon inside the box for a free downloadable copy of Borderlands 2 (released September 21, 2012).

The MSRP for the EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SC edition is set at 273.00 (exc VAT). Here in the Netherlands that boils down to 325 EUR incl VAT. For that money you get a competitive product on which playing the latest games won't be a problem at all and in the 1920x1080/1200 monitor segment, it's a home run really. As such we can definitely recommend the SC model.

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