Conclusions and Final Thoughts
Performance
If we are looking at the performance of the GeForce GTX 660 Ti as a GPU, rather than the specific retail-ready cards we are looking at here, a good summary was found in our first GTX 660 Ti review:
If you are gaming at 1080p or below then the GeForce GTX 660 Ti makes a lot more sense – better performance AND a better price. The NVIDIA option is going for $50 less than the AMD card today and with the Borderlands 2 pack in that KIND OF brings the price down to $249. Kind of. And once we get these overclocked retail cards full tested we'll see if anything changes – a 1019 or 1033 MHz base clock could make a world of difference. (And note MSI and Galaxy are both telling me their overclocked models will sell for $309.)
In general, with clock improvements ranging from 65 MHz (EVGA) to 113 MHz (Zotac), all of these $309 graphics cards are worth the $10 price difference in my opinion. We saw performance gains basically in line with the clock speed increases across the board with the only real stand out in the set of four being the Zotac AMP! Edition card that included an out of the box overclock of the memory bus – from 6.0 GHz to 6.6 GHz. That increase in memory bandwidth resulted in another 5-8% performance gain at 1080p and 2560×1600 resolutions in games like Battlefield 3, Skyrim and Batman: Arkham City – but little in Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Could the other three cards have had their memory clock set at that level to see the same boost? More than likely yes, but that isn't what they shipped with.
Overclocking and Other Factors
While we already discussed the overclocking intricacies on the previous page, it is worth noting again that three of these graphics cards really had stand out cooler configurations: MSI, Galaxy and Zotac all used custom solutions that kept the GeForce GTX 660 Ti GPU cool and quiet – something that the EVGA Superclocked card just couldn't keep up with.
Pricing and Availability
As of this writing, all four of these cards are selling for $309 (though MSI has a rebate bringing the cost down to $299):
- EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SC 2GB – $309
- Galaxy GeForce GTX 660 Ti GC 2GB – $309
- MSI GeForce GTX 660 Ti Power Edition 2GB – $309
- Zotac GeForce GTX 660 Ti AMP! Edition 2GB – $309
While you really can't go wrong with ANY of these options, we obviously have our favorites today…
Final Thoughts
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti is a great GPU, and as such we found all four of these retails cards to be worthy of purchases. If you already bought one and it's on the way you really don't need to worry about any kind of returns. You'll be happy with the performance. That being said, the Zotac AMP! Edition gets my nod as the best of the bunch with its higher GPU clock speeds, and overclocked memory speeds resulting in an out-of-box experience that is a little better than the rest.
Both Galaxy and MSI GTX 660 Ti cards offer outstanding cooling with low noise levels, and should be overclockable to the same settings as the Zotac card if you are willing to do it manually. EVGA's $309 version just feels a bit lacking with the "stock" cooler, higher temps and low overclocked settings. Still, EVGA is known to have one of the best communities and support groups (and warranties) in the graphics card world, not to mention supporting the gaming world with Precision X.
Zotac GeForce GTX 660 Ti AMP! Edition
MSI GeForce GTX 660 Ti Power Edition, Galaxy GeForce GTX 660 Ti GC
Is there any reason to think
Is there any reason to think that the stock version of these cards couldn’t overclock to the level of the OC cards?
For example, the regular ZOTAC card looks to have the same cooler and configuration otherwise.
No, not really, they likely
No, not really, they likely could. Just a matter of what you want out of the box really. The one thing you should watch for is the cooler and power configuration.
Ryan could you tell us what
Ryan could you tell us what the idle temps were for these cards? Just to see comparison/jump to load temps.
Sure, I’ll try to get these
Sure, I'll try to get these for you.
Correct me if I’m wrong Ryan,
Correct me if I’m wrong Ryan, but don’t these benchmarks basically show that the 660 ti is somewhat bottle necked by the memory bandwidth?
Correct. And we thought as
Correct. And we thought as much with the drop to a 192-bit memory bus width.
Honestly knowing the memory
Honestly knowing the memory situation, I recommend the card with the highest quality memory that can be overclocked because that alone is the performance boost for this card….I swear I read a review of a 660ti with some special memory chips…I dunno
Haven’t seen any like that
Haven't seen any like that yet…
Oh yea and Kudos to Zotec
Oh yea and Kudos to Zotec with the shorter card! Good for smaller cases.
I ordered the Zotac card
I ordered the Zotac card early (19th) since I have an SFF system and the Zotac card would be the only one to fit it.
I havent recieved it yet, but thank you for reassuring me that it was a good choise.
I have seen some sites claiming that zotac has a GTX 660 Ti Extreme edition in the making. While some say this is only intended for the chinese market, do you have any info on this and perhaps more specifics, like the size, of that card?
Haven’t heard anything yet,
Haven't heard anything yet, sorry.
Great read Ryan.
It is
Great read Ryan.
It is interesting to see just how much Kepler is affected by memory bandwidth and memory type.
Though we are seeing the downsides to GK104 being spread out as a entire product range, since GK104 was “meant” to be mid-range from the start. While the GTX 680/690/670/660 TI are great cards, they still dont target the “sweet spot” in my opinion, which is in the $150 – $250 ranges (aka cards like GTX 460/560 TI/ect).
#Side note: Do you need any more good reviewers/podcasters ;), lol.
I was able to overcloxk a
I was able to overcloxk a stock 660 ti to within 10% of the speed and bandwidth of a GTX 670, which is realy great imho. The temps were below 75*C.
Yup I got my O.C. to
Yup I got my O.C. to 1038/1103/1815 w/a temp at 78*C max.
The card is a EVGA 660ti.
The card is a EVGA 660ti. Overclock the memory and you can overcome the bandwidth restriction. Then the $299 card becomes a real value especialy w/the Borderlands game included.
Agreed, the $50-60 value of
Agreed, the $50-60 value of the game is pretty enticing considering it is just a current and big name title.
It will be interesting to
It will be interesting to hear MSI’s reason for the 114% Power cap. Could it be intentional to keep the Power Edition 660 Ti from overclocking as high as the more expensive Lightening edition?
The gpu temperatures dont are
The gpu temperatures dont are rigthes
i have a msi 660 ti oc and my gpu temperatues all all times higths thand yours .
got my msi 660ti to 1145/1223
got my msi 660ti to 1145/1223 and the memory to 1727mhz resulting in just about 7000mhz with afterburner,3dmark11 standard run P 8735 with those settings P 9237.
pretty good,but the memory bandwith just sucks,metro 2033 on high settings and 4xMsaa and 16xaf i cant get more than 30fps-35fps often dropping below that in intense scenes.
do yourself a favour and spend extra for a gtx 670 as you can run even very high settings and still preform better than a 660ti,and i play only on a 1920×1080 screen.a recent test revealed that even a AMD 7750 performs better with msaa and af settings put to max due to the memory bandwith.
I just purchased 2 EVGA GTX
I just purchased 2 EVGA GTX 660 TI SC+ 3GB and they are only hitting 60C under load. I’m not sure if something was changed in the 3GB version or if I just have a good card.