Best in Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 Ti Review

Nice one, but as I recenlty checked out on Steam statistics, average gamer buys a card from $99-199 range, if not playing on Intel HD. For all those that struggle with fallout from American Economic Crisis, nVidia prepared a beefy GT640. I've already put 660Ti on my Santa wish list, as soon as I get my job back, in the meantime, my whole rig is worth 300 bucks or less.

Well I'm glad I didn't wait for this and got a 670 since it doesn't look like it would have the muscle to keep Skyrim at 60fps @ 1920x1200 with an i7-2600 under the hood and a bunch of mods installed (though to be fair, the 670 dips under that in the forests around Riften). Curse you, John Carmack, for getting me addicted to 60fps gaming!

It keeps pace with the 7950/7970 ($350+) in some cases. Seems like $300 is a fair price point.

The 7950 is currently cheaper and faster than the 660 TI. If Nvidia doesn't drop the price a bit, it's a no-brainer decision to go for the 7950. And then there is still the Radeon 7850 which covers the 200$ market without current gen competition. I don't see Nvidia putting AMD in a hard place at all.

I guess you're reading a different review than I am, Guest. This 660 Ti beat the Radeon 7950 in nearly every benchmark. And in some cases by 15% or more.

Great review, but again I'll put in a plug for adding a noise portion to your video card reviews. Fan noise is a BIG deal to me and I'd like to know if I'm buying a jet engine or not. The rest of it is excellent though - thanks!

Why did a lack of power efficiency drop the score down to a 90? If this particular product is catered towards gamers, I bet they have a PSU that can take upwards of a 590. I thoroughly enjoyed the review for sure. I'm sure Radeon will respond with a "Super Overclock 7870" because Nvidia embarrassed them again.

Efficiency isn't about how much it'll stress your PSU, it's about how much it lowers/raises your electric bill. For people who are conscious of this, they'd be no worse off just getting a GTX 670 for more performance and little increase in energy consumption.

Tomshardware showed a difference in favor of HD 7950, different approaches I result in diferent results. GTX 660Ti was meant to be a HD 7870 killer, if it manages to scratch the HD 7950, well kudos to nVidia. I'm a HD 7950 owner myselft and the real strength within this card is it's overclock ability. Kepler architecture is overral better. Also there was an update in the HD 7950 BIOS, did you do it in this test?

I just want to see a review of the GTX 650 when it comes out.

Really? Newegg pricing for HD 7950 shows $320-330 minimum (less than third of total SKU's available) after MIR, GTX 660 Ti pricing is $300 for seven of the eleven SKU's

A case study in optimism.
From the release notes of GPU-Z 0.6.4: Added support for NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti, GTX 660, GTX 650...

This should ease your concerns

This is the only review I've read out of 10+ where GTX660 Ti beats HD 7970 GE in Dirt 3 and Skyrim at 2560x1600 4AA. Every review I've read shows 7970 GE beating a GTX680 in those games, nevermind the 660Ti. 660Ti looks like a good card overall but these numbers are strange for sure. The rest looks good.

You are right and I have fixed the results. It seemed I had an issue with my copy of DiRT 3 which caused some performance issues for the AMD cards, not sure if it was a problem with the patch. Anyway having a fresh install on the test system the results are accurate now, I also updated them with the 12.8 drivers.

As for Skyrim those results appear accurate, I have been unable to fault them. Perhaps the difference is down to the section of the game that we test?

Another typo I made in the conclusion was that I said the GeForce GTX 660 Ti was slower than the Radeon HD 7950 overall when in fact it was 3% faster at 1920x1200. However with the new overclocked BIOS that AMD just released this is bound to change and I will include the updated BIOS in our next round of testing.

Could you add Counter-Strike GO in the benchmarks please?

You don't read many reviews then.
Even after AMD embarrassingly re-released the 7970 as the 'GHz version' it didn't do any better then trade blows.
Radeon's are good bang for the buck cards with inferior architecture, temps, power consumption and drivers. Thier driver package also offers less features.

Want to save money? Buy a Radeon.
Want the best gaming experience on the planet? Buy a GTX.

And I cannot restate enough:

Best driver support? Nvidia.

There's another pro for ya.

There's something wrong with this review when you compare it to other site's.

hm that is interesting, tomshardware says its slower then the 7870 (slightly) but here and anandtech say its 10% faster. I dont even know.

The only way the 7870 might have a chance against the 660 Ti is at 2560x1600 but really who would by a mid-range card to play on a $1000+ monitor? In short whoever says the 7870 is faster must be smoking the good stuff.