[nextpage title=”Introduction”]
The new GeForce GTX 660 Ti, which is being released today, is the latest GPU from NVIDIA, and EVGA is providing six different video card models based on this new GPU. Let’s see how the SuperClocked model fared on our tests.
In the table below, you can see the six models EVGA is releasing.
Model | Memory Configuration | MSRP |
EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti | 2 GB | USD 300 |
EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperClocked | 2 GB | USD 310 |
EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti FTW | 2 GB | USD 330 |
EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti+ | 3 GB | USD 330 |
EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperClocked+ | 3 GB | USD 340 |
EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti FTW+ | 3 GB | USD 360 |
At USD 300, the GeForce GTX 660 Ti is targeted to the user who is looking for a relatively affordable high-end video card. Its main competitor is the Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition.
The new GeForce GTX 660 Ti uses the PCI Express 3.0 interface, similarly to its main competitor, while the GeForce 560 Ti and the GeForce GTX 570, which we also included in our comparisons, use the PCI Express 2.0 interface. This new GPU has an automatic overclocking feature that increases the core clock from 915 MHz to 980 MHz when more performance is needed (980 MHz to 1,059 MHz on the EVGA’s SuperClocked model).
In the table below, we compare the main specifications for the video cards included in our review. The prices listed below were researched at Newegg.com and do not include rebates. The price of the GeForce GTX 660 Ti is the one advertised by NVIDIA, while the price for the EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperClocked is the one advertised by EVGA.
Video Card | Core Clock | Shader Clock | Memory Clock (Effective) | Memory Interface | Memory Transfer Rate | Memory | Shaders | DirectX | Price |
GeForce GTX 560 Ti | 822 MHz | 1,644 MHz | 4,008 MHz | 256-bit | 128.3 GB/s | 1 GB GDDR5 | 384 | 11 | USD 210 – 230 |
GeForce GTX 570 | 732 MHz | 1,464 MHz | 3.8 GHz | 320-bit | 152 GB/s | 1.28 GB GDDR5 | 480 | 11 | USD 270 – 330 |
GeForce GTX 660 Ti | 915 MHz | NA | 6,008 MHz | 192-bit | 144.2 GB/s | 2 GB GDDR5 | 1,344 | 11 | USD 300 |
EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperClocked | 980 MHz | NA | 6,008 MHz | 192-bit | 144.2 GB/s | 2 GB GDDR5 | 1,344 | 11 | USD 310 |
AMD Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition | 1 GHz | NA | 4.8 GHz | 256-bit | 153.6 GHz | 2 GB GDDR5 | 1,280 | 11.1 | USD 270 – 310 |
You can compare the specs of these video cards with other video cards by taking a look at our “AMD ATI Chips Comparison Table” and “NVIDIA Chips Comparison Table” tutorials.
Now let’s take a complete look at the EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperClocked.
[nextpage title=”The EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperClocked”]
Below we have an overall look at the EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperClocked. It requires two six-pin auxiliary power connectors.
Figure 1: EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperClocked video card
Figure 2: EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperClocked video card
The reviewed video card comes with two DVI-I connectors, one HDMI connector, and one DisplayPort connector.
The cooler uses a 60 mm radial fan placed beside an aluminum heatsink. The heatsink features a copper base. See Figures 4 and 5. The GeForce GTX 660 Ti has a TDP of 150 W.
Figure 5: The base of the heatsink
[nextpage title=”The EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperClocked (Cont’d)”]
In Figure 6, you can see the video card with its cooler removed. We were impressed by how short the printed circuit board is, at 6.8” (172 mm). The video card, however, is a little longer, at 9.5” (240 mm), because of the fan.
It uses a voltage regulator with four phases for the GPU and two phases for the memory chips. The voltage regulator circuit uses a digital design and is controlled by an NCP5392P chip. All coils use ferrite cores and all capacitors are solid.
Figure 6: EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperClocked video card
The reviewed video card uses eight Hynix H5GQ2H24AFR-R0C GDDR5 chips, each one storing 2 Gbit of data, comprising the 2 GB of memory available on this video card. Six of these chips are located on the component side of the printed circuit board, each connected to the GPU through a 32-bit lane, creating the 192-bit datapath that is available. The other two chips are located on the solder side of the printed circuit board and apparently share the datapaths used by two of the chips that are available on the component side of the board. There are spaces for soldering four additional memory chips, so the 3 GB version of this video card most likely uses the same printed circuit board but has all of the spaces populated.
The chips that come soldered on this video card can run up to 6 GHz. On this video card, they are ac
cessed at 6,008 MHz.
In Figure 9, you can see the accessories that come with this video card.
Before seeing the performance results, let’s recap the main features of this video card.
[nextpage title=”Main Specifications”]
The main specifications for the EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperClocked include:
- Graphics chip: GeForce GTX 660 Ti running at 980 MHz (up to 1,059 MHz in boost mode)
- Memory: 2 GB GDDR5 memory (192-bit interface) running at 6,008MHz QDR (Hynix H5GQ2H24AFR-R0C chips)
- Bus type: PCI Express 3.0 x16
- Video Connectors: Two DVI-I, one HDMI, and one DisplayPort
- Video Capture (VIVO): No
- Cables and adapters that come with this board: One DVI-to-VGA adapter and two power adapters
- Number of CDs/DVDs that come with this board: NA
- Games included: NA
- Programs included: NA
- More information: https://www.evga.com
- MSRP in the U.S.: USD 310.00
[nextpage title=”How We Tested”]
During our benchmarking sessions, we used the configuration listed below. Between our benchmarking sessions, the only variable was the video card being tested.
Hardware Configuration
- CPU: Core i7-3960X (3.3 GHz)
- Motherboard: ASRock X79 Fatal1ty Champion (1.40 BIOS)
- Memories: 16 GB DDR3-2133/PC3-1700, four G.Skill Ripjaws Z F3-17000CL9Q-16GBBZH memory modules
- Hard disk drive: Western Digital VelociRaptor WD3000GLFS (300 GB, SATA-300, 10,000 rpm, 16 MB cache)
- Video monitor: Samsung SyncMaster 305T (30” LCD, 2560×1600)
- Power Supply: Antec TruePower New 750 W
- CPU Cooler: Intel Liquid Cooling
Software Configuration
- Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
- Video resolution: 2560×1600 @ 60 Hz
Driver Versions
- AMD video driver version: Catalyst 12.6
- NVIDIA video driver version: 305.37
- Intel Inf driver version: 9.2.3.1022
Software Used
- 3DMark 11 Professional 1.0.3
- Aliens vs. Predator + Benchmark Tool
- Battlefield 3
- Deus Ex: Human Revolution
- DiRT3
- Far Cry 2 – Patch 1.03
- Media Espresso 6.5
- StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty – Patch 1.5
Error Margin
We adopted a 3% error margin. Thus, differences below 3% cannot be considered relevant. In other words, products with a performance difference below 3% should be considered as having similar performance.
[nextpage title=”StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty”]
StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is a very popular DirectX 9 game that was released in 2010. Though this game uses an old version of DirectX, the number of textures that can be represented on one screen can push most of the top-end graphics cards to their limits. StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty uses its own physics engine that is bound to the CPU and thus does not benefit from PhysX.
We tested this game at 1920×1200 and 2560×1600. The “Graphics Quality” was set to “Extreme” and the “Texture Quality” was set to “Ultra.” We then used FRAPS to collect the frame rate of a replay on the “Unit Testing” custom map. We used a battle between very large armies to stress the video cards.
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty | 1920×1200 | Difference |
EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperClocked | 241.4 | 3% |
GeForce GTX 660 Ti |
233.5 |
|
GeForce GTX 570 |
232.2 |
1% |
Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition |
216.4 |
8% |
GeForce GTX 560 Ti |
210.8 |
11% |
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty | 2560×1600 | Difference |
EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperClocked |
192.7 |
3% |
GeForce GTX 660 Ti |
186.7 |
|
GeForce GTX 570 |
184.2 |
1% |
Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition |
179.6 |
4% |
GeForce GTX 560 Ti |
174.6 |
7% |
[nextpage title=”Far Cry 2″]
Released in 2008, Far Cry 2 is based on a game engine called Dunia, which is DirectX 10. We used the benchmarking utility that comes with this game at 1920×1200 and 2560×1600, setting overall quality to “ultra high,” maximizing all image quality settings, adjusting anti-aliasing to “8x,” and running the “Ranch Long” demo three times. The results below are expressed in frames per second and are an arithmetic average of the three results collected.
FarCry 2 | 1920×1200 | Difference |
EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperClocked | 97.9 | 6% |
GeForce GTX 570 | 97.2 | 5% |
GeForce GTX 660 Ti | 92.2 | |
GeForce GTX 560 Ti | 81.4 | 13% |
Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition | 81.4 | 13% |
FarCry 2 | 2560×1600 | Difference |
GeForce GTX 570 | 67.4 | 11% |
EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperClocked | 64.3 | 6% |
GeForce GTX 660 Ti | 60.9 | |
Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition | 57.3 | 6% |
GeForce GTX 560 Ti | 54.3 | 12% |
[nextpage title=”Aliens vs. Predator”]
Aliens vs. Predator is a DirectX 11 game that makes full use of tessellation and advanced shadow rendering. We used the Aliens vs. Predator Benchmark Tool developed by Rebellion. This program reads its configuration from a text file. (Our configuration files can be found here.) We ran this program at 1920×1200 and 2560×1600, with texture set at “very high,” shadows set at “medium,” anisotropic filtering set at “8x,” and anti-aliasing set at “2x.”
Aliens vs. Predator | 1920×1200 | Difference |
EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperClocked | 51.4 | 3% |
GeForce GTX 660 Ti | 50.0 | |
Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition | 49.7 | 1% |
GeForce GTX 570 | 46.4 | 8% |
GeForce GTX 560 Ti | 42.7 | 17% |
Aliens vs. Predator | 2560×1600 | Difference |
EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperClocked |
34.1 |
6% |
GeForce GTX 660 Ti | 32.1 | |
Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition | 32.0 | 0% |
GeForce GTX 570 | 31.4 | 2% |
GeForce GTX 560 Ti |
29.4 |
9% |
[nextpage title=”DiRT3″]
DiRT3 is a DirectX 11 game. We measured performance using this game by running a race and then playing it back using FRAPS. We ran this game at 1920×1200 and 2560×1536 with image quality set to “ultra,” and with anti-aliasing set at “8xMSAA.”
DiRT3 | 1920×1200 | Difference |
EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperClocked |
74.8 |
3% |
GeForce GTX 660 Ti |
72.4 |
|
GeForce GTX 570 |
66.4 |
9% |
GeForce GTX 560 Ti |
61.2 |
18% |
Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition |
59.5 |
22% |
DiRT3 | 2560×1600 | Difference |
EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperClocked | 61.4 | 5% |
GeForce GTX 660 Ti | 58.6 | |
GeForce GTX 570 | 51.2 | 14% |
Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition | 39.7 | 47% |
GeForce GTX 560 Ti | 39.4 | 49% |
[nextpage title=”Deus Ex: Human Revolution”]
Deus Ex: Human Revolution is another DirectX 11 game. We used the in-game introduction to measure the number of frames per second, using FRAPS. We ran the introduction in two resolutions, 1920×1200 and 2560×1536, maximizing all image quality settings, configuring anti-aliasing as “MLAA” and anisotropic filtering at “16x.”
Deus Ex: Human Revolution | 1920×1200 | Difference |
EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperClocked |
193.7 |
3% |
GeForce GTX 660 Ti |
187.6 |
|
GeForce GTX 570 |
182.7 |
3% |
Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition |
158.7 |
18% |
GeForce GTX 560 Ti |
156.7 |
20% |
Deus Ex: Human Revolution | 2560×1600 | Difference |
EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperClocked | 136.4 | 4% |
GeForce GTX 660 Ti | 130.6 | |
GeForce GTX 570 | 124.8 | 5% |
Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition | 112.5 | 16% |
GeForce GTX 5 60 Ti |
110.6 | 18% |
[nextpage title=”Battlefield 3″]Battlefield 3 is the latest installment in the Battlefield franchise released in 2011. It is based on the Frostbite 2 engine, which is DirectX 11. In order to measure performance using this game, we walked our way through the first half of the “Operation Swordbreaker” mission, measuring the number of frames per second using FRAPS. We ran this game at 1920×1200 and 2560×1536, maximizing all image quality settings, configuring anti-aliasing as “4xMSAA” and anisotropic filtering at “16x.”
Battlefield 3 | 1920×1200 | Difference |
EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperClocked |
68.1 |
2% |
GeForce GTX 660 Ti |
66.7 |
|
GeForce GTX 570 |
61.6 |
8% |
Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition |
55.6 |
20% |
GeForce GTX 560 Ti |
54.2 |
23% |
Battlefield 3 | 2560×1600 | Difference |
EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperClocked | 45.6 | 5% |
GeForce GTX 660 Ti | 43.4 | |
GeForce GTX 570 | 41.4 | 5% |
GeForce GTX 560 Ti | 38.3 | 13% |
Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition | 38.2 | 14% |
[nextpage title=”3DMark 11 Professional”]
3DMark 11 Professional measures Shader 5.0 (i.e., DirectX 11) performance. We ran this program at 1920×1200 and 2560×1600, selecting the four graphics tests available and deselecting the other tests available. We used two image quality settings, “performance” and “extreme,” both at their default settings. The results being compared are the “GPU Score” achieved by each video card.
3DMark 11 – Performance | 1920×1200 | Difference |
EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperClocked |
4161 |
4% |
GeForce GTX 660 Ti |
3994 |
|
Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition |
3152 |
27% |
GeForce GTX 570 |
3021 |
32% |
GeForce GTX 560 Ti |
2762 |
45% |
3DMark 11 – Performance | 2560×1600 | Difference |
EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperClocked |
2403 |
1% |
GeForce GTX 660 Ti |
2375 |
|
Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition |
1817 |
31% |
GeForce GTX 570 |
1809 |
31% |
GeForce GTX 560 Ti |
1589 |
49% |
3DMark 11 – Extreme | 1920×1200 | Difference |
EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperClocked |
2473 |
7% |
GeForce GTX 660 Ti |
2308 |
|
Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition |
1851 |
25% |
GeForce GTX 570 |
1794 |
29% |
GeForce GTX 560 Ti |
1564 |
48% |
3DMark 11 – Extreme | 2560×1600 | Difference |
EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperClocked |
1492 |
5% |
GeForce GTX 660 Ti |
1427 |
|
GeForce GTX 570 |
1324 |
8% |
Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition |
1153 |
24% |
GeForce GTX 560 Ti |
1126 |
27% |
[nextpage title=”Media Espresso 6.5″]
Media Espresso is a video conversion program that uses the graphics processing unit of the video card to speed up the conversion process. We converted a 449 MB, 1920x1080i, 18,884 kbps, MPEG2 video file to a smaller 640×360, H.264, .MPG4 file for viewing on a portable device such as an iPhone or iPod Touch.
Media Espresso 6.5 | Seconds | Difference |
EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperClocked |
31 |
3% |
GeForce GTX 570 |
32 |
0% |
GeForce GTX 660 Ti |
32 |
|
Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition |
34 |
6% |
GeForce GTX 560 Ti |
36 |
13% |
[nextpage title=”Conclusions”]
In most games, the GeForce GTX 660 Ti was between 12% and 20% faster than its main competitor, the Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition. There were some games in which both achieved the same performance, and on one, the GeForce GTX 660 Ti was 47% faster. There was no scenario where the GeForce GTX 660 Ti was slower than its competitor.
The GeForce GTX 660 Ti was between 7% and 49% faster than the GeForce GTX 560 Ti, and up to 32% faster than the GeForce GTX 570 (except on FarCry 2 at 2560×1600, where the GeForce GTX 570 was 11% faster than the GeForce GTX 660 Ti), which is found at the same price range.
Therefore, the GeForce GTX 660 Ti is, today, the best option if you have USD 300 to spend on a video card.
The SuperClocked version from EVGA was up to 6% faster than the standard GeForce GTX 660 Ti. Although the performance difference seems small, the price difference between the two models is only 3.33%, making it a savvy investment if you want to spend an additional USD 10 to get slightly higher performance.
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