Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Ti Windforce OC review

Final words and conclusion

Gigabyte has an outstanding offering with the GeForce GTX 660 Ti  WindForce OC. It's factory overclocked, customized and custom cooled.

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 3GB 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.

The noise levels for this product are pretty non-existent as well. The Gigabyte WindForce cooler does a fantastic job, in a closed chassis you won't be able to hear it. 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 65 Degrees C under full workload. Overclocked it spurted towards roughly 70 Degrees C, but that's still very good.

Overclocking - NVIDIA put brakes on tweaking. 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 +15% on the power design is possible. Meaning 150W x 1.15%= 173 Watt. Once the GPU reaches that power state or a certain heat level, it will start throttling down. regardless of it, we where able to add another 75 MHz on the core. That in combo with the power limiter at +115% and an added 100Mv will make the card boost stable towards 1316 MHz. That certainly is impressive. The memory can be overclocked  as well, add +450 MHz and you'll end up at 6912 MHz. Your card already was 10% faster then reference and now is another 10% faster.

Gigabyte has a very strong offering with the GeForce GTX 660 Ti WindForce OC edition. The factory clock makes it perform pretty close to the GTX 670. The component usage falls with the ultra durable design which we like very much. The WindForce cooler does what it needs to do, it's downright silent and keeps the card below 70 Degrees C. And if you need a little extra, there is tweaking room left.

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 GeForce GTX 660 Ti WindForce OC edition can be found under SKU code GV-N66TOC-2GD, due to its completely custom design we expect it to be in the 300~349 USD price range. It's a card we can and will wholeheartedly recommend.

• Leave/read comments on this product
• Sign up to receive a notice when we publish a new article
• Or go back to Guru3D's front page

Guru3D.com » Articles » Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Ti Windforce OC review » Page 27