GTX 660 SLI -Did I get the best bang for the buck for $305.00

WinnRig

Posts: 17   +0
HI All,
I bought two Asus Gtx 660 GTX660-DC2O-2GD5
both on Sleazebay. 1 was new with UPC removed for 185.00
and the other was a used card [2 months] in service and immaculate for $120.00. My total cost in the door was $305.00.

Both work flawlessly are very silent and I haven't been seeing any micro stuttering etc..

So I was curious. Do any of you think I could have done better spending the $305 on anything else. In other words do you know of a $305.00 solution today that equals my performance. Especially buying new.

I must emphasize, if the solution costs more than $305.00 then I'm not interested, that was my maximum budgeted expenditure.
 
$305 was your exact budget? And it just happened to be $305 total cost?

Sounds to me like you're trying to justify your purchase and aren't gonna take risks. I'm not gonna help you with that, and also I don't want to help buyers remorse set in if it turns out it wasn't a good dead.

Just enjoy your cards, if they work good for you. :)
 
$300.00 was my maximum budget and I went over by $5.00, no big deal.

I have no remorse, my video screams. But I'm very curious if I could have done better. I did a lot of researching and it just seemed that Two Gtx-660 in SLI was the best bang for the buck. Surpassing $500.00 and $600.00 solutions.
I've been waiting for the dreaded micro stutter, but haven't seen it yet.

Tonight I'm playing Metro 2033 which they say is a video card slayer.
 
If you're running 1920x1080 and talking about right now, yes it was a good choice. You'll have the best performance for the money.

But the better option IMO would be to get a 7970GHz, or R9 290 for up to $350 or so. It'd allow you to crossfire later on for 90%+ performance, and it'll have 3GB VRAM for the more demanding games.
 
If you were speaking used, I would say you can grab a used R9 290 for that or less right now so I would say its a bit of meh in the end.

The performance would be about on par in general maybe a bit above it in perfect scenarios but you might have been able to a little better.

Either way though, im sure you will be happy with those cards at 1080p. You should just be screaming along.
 
GhostRyder
Lowest I see the R9 290 at used is $250.00. According to the gaming sheets a single card is below a GTX-780. My two GTX-660 in SLI are faster then a Gtx 780.

Well it's going to be interesting because I just bought a BenQ Bl3200 Monitor 32" that will be running at 14P. As long as I get 40-45 min FPS on Crysis 3 I'll be a happy camper. I can probably live with mostly high settings at 35FPSTonight I'm setting it up and I'll find out.

So unless you mean two R9 290 running in Crossfire, which is a minimum $460.00 - $500.00. Still nothing at the $300.00 price point. that outperforms me.

For the $450-$500.00 you are right, in crosshair they are a screamer. But it's was above my budget.

Does AMD have the bugs worked out of Crossfire. So far my Two cards in SLI haven't been buggy at all.
 
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Stickman you are right, the one limitation on my cards is that I only have 2gb of ram so I'll probably hit a ceiling on some games. But I'm concentrating on the now. And the now is that no one has shown me a better solution at that $300.00 sweet spot. [Sweet Spot for Me]
 
You need to look harder I saw a pair of R9 290s go for $214 each the other day. Not uncommon either.
Best case gtx 660 gets around half an R9 290 but you already bought them so you should be happy.
 
I can't find any direct comparisons of Sli 660 verse a R9 290 but I did a compare on Gpu Boss
http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-R9-290-vs-GeForce-GTX-660

and it shows r9 290 is about 40% to 50% better.

When I benchmarked on Furmark
1 Card score of 2000
2 Cards score of 3,700

If those ratios hold then my Gtx 660 in Sli will blow away the R9 290 except where more then 2gb of memory is needed.

Tests.JPG
 
You need to look harder I saw a pair of R9 290s go for $214 each the other day. Not uncommon either.
Best case gtx 660 gets around half an R9 290 but you already bought them so you should be happy.
Let's agree to disagree, I believe you are right the R-290 used is a great deal to buy to use now and later get an outrageous upgrade.
But for today's performance, without upgradability in mind the GTX- 660 SLI is best performer at the $300.00 price point.
IF you can find another benchmark or comparison that disproves this, I'm all ears.
 
GhostRyder
Lowest I see the R9 290 at used is $250.00. According to the gaming sheets a single card is below a GTX-780. My two GTX-660 in SLI are faster then a Gtx 780.

Well it's going to be interesting because I just bought a BenQ Bl3200 Monitor 32" that will be running at 14P. As long as I get 40-45 min FPS on Crysis 3 I'll be a happy camper. I can probably live with mostly high settings at 35FPSTonight I'm setting it up and I'll find out.

So unless you mean two R9 290 running in Crossfire, which is a minimum $460.00 - $500.00. Still nothing at the $300.00 price point. that outperforms me.

For the $450-$500.00 you are right, in crosshair they are a screamer. But it's was above my budget.

Does AMD have the bugs worked out of Crossfire. So far my Two cards in SLI haven't been buggy at all.
Well as long as your happy then theres of course not a problem. However what I was meaning was that the R9 290 would be better (Or a GTX 780 something in that area) would have been better over all in general. The problem being of course that while 2 660's might be more powerful in some tests than like a GTX 780, that's under optimal situations (IE SLI with excellent scaling). Most AAA games of course have great scaling drivers for SLI and CFX but you still run the risk of things not being perfect.

A general consensus is that a single High GPU is normally better than a couple of low GPU's. Just leads to less problems and less floundering around for drivers.

As far as CFX drivers being buggy, well I run 3 290X and can safely say they work fine in every game I play.

Your purchase is fine and should offer fine performance.
 
But for today's performance, without upgradability in mind the GTX- 660 SLI is best performer at the $300.00 price point.
That's because the R9 290 can be had for almost $100 cheaper, but really since you're happy about your purchase don't change your mind.
 
Well to be fair if you don't think SLI is a problem, which some people do, it's better than anything you could get new for $300.
 
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