GALAXY GeForce GTX 660 Ti GC 3GB Video Card Review

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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Wow, the 660 ti 3Gb seems like a killer value.

Though one has to wonder if the GTX 660 3GB in SLI will beat the the GTX 670 2GB in SLI due to the larger memory bank?

Now onto find where it's in stock.
 
For the inevitable request to follow those that did not thoroughly read the evaluation, overclocking will be done in a follow-up with lots of performance comparisons. Stay tuned. This GPU, as you might imagine, is very overclocking friendly.
 
Skimmed through real quick just to see how it would compare to a 670. Ultimately, I'm pleased I went with a 670 for what I paid, but the Galaxy card still looks like a great value.

Now... time to go back and read everything nice and proper :D
 
Please include 3 vs 2GB version in the follow up, great review other then that :D
 
Hmmm...it is more expensive than a 570 and appears to be slower. Yeah....look! Bright! Shiny! Plastic! NEW!!
 
mrpc9886 said:
Hmmm...it is more expensive than a 570 and appears to be slower. Yeah....look! Bright! Shiny! Plastic! NEW!!
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its clearly faster than a gtx570 and basically on par with a gtx580. it will lose to the gtx580 in some cases though by a frame or two according to other reviews but its always ahead of the gtx570. its not really a card that makes sense to upgrade to though unless you have a gtx560 ti or really a non ti or slower. of course those cards cost way less when they were launched and many people paid well under 200 bucks so 300 bucks or more is quite a lot for that segment of customers.
 
Minor typo: "The GALAXY GTX 660 Ti GC is a much better value than the Radeo HD 7950 at $339"

Great review!

... but I'd like to know about 3GB vs. 2GB like a user above mentioned, as well as if there are any caveats to the mixed-memory configuration in the 2GB-over-192-bit. Please and thank you. =D
 
cannondale06 said:
its clearly faster than a gtx570 and basically on par with a gtx580. it will lose to the gtx580 in some cases though by a frame or two according to other reviews but its always ahead of the gtx570. its not really a card that makes sense to upgrade to though unless you have a gtx560 ti or really a non ti or slower. of course those cards cost way less when they were launched and many people paid well under 200 bucks so 300 bucks or more is quite a lot for that segment of customers.
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In that scenario, i.e. GTX 570 or GTX 580, I have a feeling 660 Ti will shine when it comes to tessellation performance in comparison to those cards. Kepler is just a lot better at things like tessellation compared to Fermi.
 
Brent mentioned that there wasn't any memory cooling on the Galaxy 660ti. Will I ever have a problem with heat because of that, say, if I was OC'ing the memory?

(BTW, I just canceled my Gigabyte pre-order and placed one for Galaxy because of you guys. Rawk.)
 
Ajiki-kun said:
(BTW, I just canceled my Gigabyte pre-order and placed one for Galaxy because of you guys. Rawk.)
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maybe cancel that one as well and get Asus DC II :cool:

You can set the power target to 132% as well! very good for oc.

Better build quality then Galaxy on top of that.
 
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The light up is pretty neat and something nice to see in a "lower end" card.
Very impressed with the build quality....Galaxy has put together quite a few very nice cards over the last few product cycles. Definitely going to put them at the top of my list when the time comes to upgrade my 6950.
 
Nice results. Great review, as always. Thanks for putting in the effort!
 
I was hoping for some single slot solution to challenge in the 250-300 range. I was disappointed in find out the card is the same size as a 670. I have a big, hot, and hungry 480 GTX I wouldn't mind switching out. I still have a back log of games (Batman AA, DA:O, Fallout 3) that my card shouldn't have a problem with either way. Though wondering if a 660 TI would perform better in Batman with PhysX than a 480 GTX..

That is as far as disappointments go. I am absolutely surprised that NVidia kept everything the same except for the memory bus. Almost feels like NVidia pulled a fast one on us for fun by little the 192-bit memory bus slip but keeping everything else under wraps.

Both cards reviewed are awesome; in addition to their performance the cards give the notion that someone is throwing those that can't afford 400-500 USD cards a big juicy bone.

Brent, your thoughts on the 660 TI versus a 480 GTX?
 
psyside said:
maybe cancel that one as well and get Asus DC II :cool:

You can set the TDP to 132% as well! very good for oc.
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Man, why would you (or I) want to go through that heartache again? We both remember the issues on the 670 DCII; we talked about it on a thread that complained about them. Same goes for the the 7970 version.

Even if it weren't to have them this time around, I'm not sure if ASUS has as awesome cooling as people make it out to have (definitely quiet, but low RPM makes for slightly higher temps than competition)
 
good review. Makes me somewhat regret my 670 purchase a while back. 660 ti performance is so close to the 670 at 2560x1600 and has more ram.. oh well
 
Ajiki-kun said:
Man, why would you (or I) want to go through that heartache again? We both remember the issues on the 670 DCII; we talked about it on a thread that complained about them. Same goes for the the 7970 version.

Even if it weren't to have them this time around, I'm not sure if ASUS has as awesome cooling as people make it out to have (definitely quiet, but low RPM makes for slightly higher temps than competition)
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Ok as you like, the issue your telling about was because the superior VRM made the cards boost way higher then they tought and they crashed, with the latest BIOS those "issues" are solved, but never mind lets keep on topic.

Maybe look out for MSI PE as well.
 
No, that's fair, and you're right. Those issues were more or less resolved; I'm just a bit wary of trusting them for the rest of this gen, is all I'm saying.

Honestly, the 3GB of memory (even on a castrated bus) clinched it for me. That price just begs SLI in the near future.
 
Nice review :)

But can someone run this by me again, first we have a GTX680 after that we get overclocked models of GTX670 which rival performance of a GTX680 now we have GTX 660ti that rivals performance of GTX 670.

Weird....
 
Great review. Nice to see the last generation(s) midrange cards in there for comparison. Lots of people sitting on those waiting for a replacement. Looks like GTX660Ti should be ~ equal to SLI 460's.

3GB card is very enticing, am eyeing the EVGA FTW model with backplate for one of my builds.
 
Pieter3dnow said:
Nice review :)

But can someone run this by me again, first we have a GTX680 after that we get overclocked models of GTX670 which rival performance of a GTX680 now we have GTX 660ti that rivals performance of GTX 670.

Weird....
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how is that weird? my oced 288sp 192bit gtx560 SE nearly matches a 336sp 256bit 336sp gtx560. oc that gtx560 and it will nearly match the gtx560 ti. perfectly normal that oced cards will catch or almost the next card in the lineup.
 
Nice review, and good incorporation of a sponsor.

I'll probably be incorporating this card in my forthcoming builds for people with average 1080 resolution and who don't need gpgpu performance (most of my builds). The 3GB on the 192 bus is a nice bonus.

Pieter3dnow said:
But can someone run this by me again, first we have a GTX680 after that we get overclocked models of GTX670 which rival performance of a GTX680 now we have GTX 660ti that rivals performance of GTX 670.

Weird....
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Not really, it's a great way to liquidate defective cores, and reduce demand for more problematic fully working cores while keeping healthy margins.

Kinda making the best of a bad manufacturing situation.
 
cannondale06 said:
how is that weird? my oced 288sp 192bit gtx560 SE nearly matches a 336sp 256bit 336sp gtx560. oc that gtx560 and it will nearly match the gtx560 ti. perfectly normal that oced cards will catch or almost the next card in the lineup.
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And if it didn't work that way, then the purpose of this site (overclocking for enthusiasts) would no longer exist, and the terrorists will have won. ;)
 
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/08/16/galaxy_geforce_gtx_660_ti_gc_3gb_video_card_review/1

"GALAXY is setting a price of $339 for this video card, so $40 over the reference GTX 660 Ti pricing"

This review has no problem pitting a factory overclocked GTX 660 Ti against a reference HD 7950. What would be more appropriate is a factory overclocked HD 7950 against this card. There are many factory overclocked cards like the Gigabyte HD 7950 OC (900 Mhz), and Sapphire HD 7950 950 Mhz edition for USD 350.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125414
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102991

Its clear to see hardocp has not much good to say about arguably the best price performance high end card in the market. But this isn't by any means a reflection of the current market reality. HD 7950 OC cards provide incredible value for the consumer's money.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/03/01/xfx_radeon_hd_7950_black_edition_video_card_review/8
 
Why did you guys use a non-factory overclocked 7950 in this review vs a factory overclocked 660ti?

Also why did not test any forms of AA, other then FXAA (cept for Skyrim).

Just curious on your reviews.....Usually I praise the reviews, this one kind of mind boggles me.
 
DASHlT said:
Why did you guys use a non-factory overclocked 7950 in this review vs a factory overclocked 660ti?

Also why did not test any forms of AA, other then FXAA (cept for Skyrim).

Just curious on your reviews.....Usually I praise the reviews, this one kind of mind boggles me.
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Rome was not built in a day.
 
Yeah I noticed also the review only pitted an oc 660 vs a stock 7950, but since a 7950 can almost be oc'd to 7970 stock levels we can deduce it's faster overall...
 
DASHlT said:
Why did you guys use a non-factory overclocked 7950 in this review vs a factory overclocked 660ti?
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They used a stock GTX 660 Ti for the comparisons against the GTX 560 Ti and GTX 460 1GB. You had to flip the page to get the numbers, but they were there.

They split them up to make it easier to read.
 
psyside said:
Ok as you like, the issue your telling about was because the superior VRM made the cards boost way higher then they tought and they crashed, with the latest BIOS those "issues" are solved, but never mind lets keep on topic.

Maybe look out for MSI PE as well.
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Nothing superior about them. We've been through this a milliton times. Please cut the BS marketing talk.
 
FinalAura said:
good review. Makes me somewhat regret my 670 purchase a while back. 660 ti performance is so close to the 670 at 2560x1600 and has more ram.. oh well
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But the 670 is still faster and even more so when overclocked so I don't understand the buyers remorse unless you paid too much for a 670 or it was out of your budget to begin with. The value of a 660Ti certainly isn't as good compared to the 670 as the 670 was to the 680. The 670 still appears to be the best overall value if you get a good deal on a non-reference model. The 660Ti is still a good card for the money for sure, nothing to to feel bd about as a 670 owner, or at least you shouldn't anyway.
 
DASHlT said:
Very good point, and Ill take that as be patient.

Thanks
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As for the AA side of things, we do test it on many of the games, but we report on what provides the best game play experience. As a general rule, FXAA does not have a material impact on performance (in a sense, it is "free" AA), while traditional AA has far more of an impact.

For Max Payne and Batman: Arkham City, FXAA looks better than AA and doesn't have a huge performance hit.

For BF3, there's a HUGE difference in image quality between 1920x1200 and 2560x1600 in my eyes, and I'd rather play at 2560 with no AA than 1920 with 4x AA.

For Witcher, AA is turned on in the configuration along with FXAA. I've found that Witcher is either playable at a resolution or not on a card, regardless of the AA setting.
 
Dammit, the Galaxy rep went offline! Can somebody tell me if the Galaxy warranty is transferable?
 
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