ASUS GeForce GTX 660 Ti DirectCU II TOP review - Introduction

In the rather massive and sheer amount of GTX 660 and GTX 660 Ti reviews here at Guru3D there has been on card we had not tested, today as such we'll peek at the ASUS GTX 660 Ti DC2 TOP model.  

Segmented in the sub 350 EUR market this TOP model comes all customized with a DirectCu II cooler and being the factory overclocked TOP model. 

One of the most anticipated dedicated graphics card series for a long time now is the GeForce GTX 660 Ti series. There has been so much speculation and gossip about it. Today NVIDIA finally lifts the curtain on that product, and let me already say it loud ... it's a gem !

Pretty much everybody anticipated a new 'mid-rang' GPU, but we've stated it for a long time now, the GK104 Kepler GPU originally was intended to be the mid-range product series. However it came out too good, so NVIDIA decide to use the that GK104 Kepler GPU for the GeForce GTX 680, then the GeForce GTX 670 and now .. it's being used on the GeForce GTX 660 Ti as well. Oh and yes, the Ti extension has been reintroduced once again.

Being based on the GK104 Kepler GPU obviously NVIDIA had to put some breaks on it in order for the 660 series of product not to compete too much with their bigger brothers. As such they trimmed down the number of shader processors a little towards 1344 of them. Now keep in mind that the mighty GeForce GTX 680 has 1536 of them so that's what, 15% less shader processors. More interesting is the fact that it's precisely the same amount of shader processors as the GeForce GTX 670 has, so you can already 'feel' where the performance levels are heading.  There are two distinct difference though, the GeForce GTX 670 and 680 uses a 256-bit memory bus, and the GTX 660 Ti series will get a 192-bit memory bus tied towards 2 or 3 GB of memory. But with the memory running at 6008 MHz in combo with the memory bandwidth gDDR5 memory these days offers, really the difference will be noticeable but not that big. The second one is the ROP engine, now cut down to 24 units opposed to 32 on it's bigger brothers.

Not one AIC partner from NVIDIA will follow up with this at launch, but the reference product will be clocked at 915 MHz, it's allowed to boost towards 980 MHz (again similar to the GTX 670) and the TDP of the GeForce GTX 660 Ti is going to be set at 150 Watt, while in your average gaming experience the card really uses like 135 Watt.

But back to the ASUS GeForce GTX 660 Ti DC2 TOP model

It isn't hard to understand that  the factory overclocked GeForce 660 Ti SKUs will run as fast as and maybe even faster then a GeForce GTX 670 (reference clocked) and maybe .. just maybe even close in on a reference clocked GTX 680. The GeForce GTX 660 Ti series will be launched in the 300 USD range, 259 EUR ex VAT in Europe. And for that money it's going to shock and awe alright. Before we startup the review let me blast a quick myth our of the virtual skies, the rumor of a 256-bit version of this card has been denied by NVIDIA. And truthfully, if such a card existed .. it would be 1:1 a GeForce GTX 670.

The ever so popular clock frequencies then, the reference (baseline) products will be clocked at 915 MHz and can be boosted towards 980 MHz. Now there will be MANY of SKU's released by the board partners, the GeForce GTX 660 DirectCU II TOP edition is  factory overclocked pretty high towards 1058 Mhz on the core with a boost frequency of 1137'ish. The memory has been kept the same though at 6008 MHz (effective datarate). The card has been equipped with 2GB of graphics memory (on a 192-bit wise memory bus) and is pimped out and custom cooled. Let's head on over to the next page shall we ?