GALAXY GeForce GTX 660 Ti GC 3GB Video Card Review

ICDP said:
Thanks for posting those results convexion

I assume they are both SLI results? If so could you try in single card mode please. Apparently Sleeping Dogs is not scaling well in SLI and in fact as a gaming evolved game it is not good a good tool to compare Nvidia hardware. I suggest trying a more common and more stable game with a confirmed working SLI profile to get a more accurate comparison between your 660Ti SLI and GTX 680 SLI setup.

Even if you don't post the result here at least you will have a better idea for your own reference :)
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Actually I disagree, Sleeping Dogs seems to scale very well in comparison to some other stuff I've tried like Dirt Showdown and even Batman AC doesn't go to full utilization even with the frame limit cap removed. Maybe this isn't well known yet, but to get Sleeping Dogs scaling well you need to use NV Inspector and change the SLI compatibility flag to 0x084010F5, the flag NV is using by default is borked.
 
Pretty big difference in Heaven, 10 fps behind for the 660 ti.

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cannondale06 said:
6800 does not even come close to negating the 192 bit bus. it would take 8000 with 192 bit bus to match 6000 with 256 bit bus.
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The latency is important too. Something like 7000-7500 may match up on average.
 
convexion said:
Pretty big difference in Heaven, 10 fps behind for the 660 ti.

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That's a 25% difference between your GTX 660Ti and GTX 680 at best overclocks. For reference my GTX 680 at stock gets 38.9 FPS at the same settings. At 1300 my GTX 680 was getting 47.1 so it matches your results very well. So a GTX 660 Ti at 1300 core clock is around 4%-5% slower than a reference EVGA GTX 680 at stock speeds in Heaven. That is a bloody brilliant result, though 1300 core is not a guarantee and many review samples I have seen are getting much less than that. Even if it was 10% less than a GTX 680 I would call that a great result considering the massive 77% price difference.

I hate to bring it up yet again, but I feel it is relevant. I tested a HD 7950 that gave me 1150 on the core with a small voltage tweak. I know it could have gone higher but I didn't push it because it wasn't mine. At 1150 core it was around 7%-10% faster than my GTX 680 at stock in Heaven. 1150 on a HD 7950 is a slightly above average OC, Many are getting 1250 with voltage boosts.

So IMHO the HD 7950 should be around 15% faster on average than a GTX 660 Ti when overclocked. Sometimes you will get outliers on that range, so a great OC on a GTX 660Ti will come close to a poor OC on a 7950 but they will be the exception rather than the rule IMHO. In general, if a person must have a Nvidia card in their system then a GTX 660Ti is by no means a bad card and it will serve you well. If you have no aversion to AMD then a non-reference 7950 for a similar price is a better option.
 
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ICDP said:
That is a bloody brilliant result, though 1300 core is not a guarantee and many review samples I have seen are getting much less than that. Even if it was 10% less than a GTX 680 I would call that a great result considering the massive 77% price difference.
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Yeah, I'd say I hit the jackpot with this particular 660. It's so competitive in every game I've tried so far with the 680 at the settings I'd normally use at 2560x1440 (2x AA, every other setting max) that I'm leaning towards selling the 680s and already have a friend getting the other 660 ti.
 
convexion said:
Pretty big difference in Heaven, 10 fps behind for the 660 ti.

4d0d8ca8.png
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Oh is that time of year where idiots state 660ti=670=680. I get around 61 fps with those settings in heaven with a MSI lightning 680 (with sli disabled) , I think i posted it over at OCN.

I'm sure cannondale will come running to state there is no difference, ignoring the fact that only certain 680s have thermal throttle / overpower throttle disabled. Therefore you will never get as good of an
overclock on a crap reference 660/670 because of kepler throttle. Wait, you might get a good overclock for 10 minutes and then kepler throttle will kick in and gpu clock oscillation will
destroy your overclock and performance. MSI lightning 680 would pretty much decimate any of those results.
 
xoleras said:
I get around 61 fps with those settings in heaven with a MSI lightning 680 (with sli disabled) , I think i posted it over at OCN.
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Good for you, I'd like to see that benchmark. Maybe you could take the time to post it here so we don't all have to hunt for it on Overclock.
 
Since we are sharing benchmarks. Heres my soon to be replaced 5850 kicking ass and taking all sorts of names...

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HA! Beat that Convexion! Oh wait...

Lol, can't wait for mine to come.
 
Slyr7.62 said:
Being able to use Nvidia's drivers is a plus also. ;)
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Yea, more of a reason than the actual performance of the card than anything. The card always performed great. Even in BF3 I could run it at all high settings/FXAA and not drop below 40 FPS. But I've had way too many problems with AMD drivers with it. A smart consumer doesn't have a bad experience with a product or company and then go back to that company for potentially more bad experiences. Only reason really why I went with a 660 Ti rather than a 7950. Well, that and Physx.
 
Yes Velaz, I just so happened to start with a ATI 7500 All-in-Wonder back in the day for the movie abilities, but since then it's been all Nvidia. Personally, the drivers were perfectly fine for that 7500. I'm only on my 3rd or 4th Nv GPU since I skip every other generation. Seeing how AMD/ATI's drivers are make me hesitant to try a new amd GPU. There are bad apples in every bunch though. Got my GTX 260 for $160 when they were usually more like $220. That's the beauty of patience. Good deals. I'm aiming for a 560 Ti, but I might have to splurge on the 660 Ti when it drops to $250, hopefully. The 560 Ti can be had for around $200, 25% saving for those running 22" screens.
 
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well I felt confident enough to sell my Lightning 680 and replace it with a couple of 660ti's I will report back if I hate them or like them on Tuesday!

Also to the person claiming 59fps in heaven I dunno how you did that since at 1340/7000 my Lightning pulled at most 55fps.
 
xoleras said:
Oh is that time of year where idiots state 660ti=670=680. I get around 61 fps with those settings in heaven with a MSI lightning 680 (with sli disabled) , I think i posted it over at OCN.

I'm sure cannondale will come running to state there is no difference, ignoring the fact that only certain 680s have thermal throttle / overpower throttle disabled. Therefore you will never get as good of an
overclock on a crap reference 660/670 because of kepler throttle. Wait, you might get a good overclock for 10 minutes and then kepler throttle will kick in and gpu clock oscillation will
destroy your overclock and performance. MSI lightning 680 would pretty much decimate any of those results.
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I think you may be misreading the settings, I suggest you check the settings used and test again. I understand a $600 video card will have far better parts that of a stock GTX 680 but in no way is it 30% faster than a GTX 680 overclocked to 1300 core.
 
Velazkid said:
Do you know if there is any truth to the theory that because the way the 660Ti is configured, on 2 Gb models you can really only use 1.5 gigabytes of that 2, while the last 512 megabytes will only work at 48GB/sec? Therefore the 3 gig models can only use 2 while going past that much will cause the same effect? As seen in the Anandtech review:

"The best case scenario is always going to be that the entire 192bit bus is in use by interleaving a memory operation across all 3 controllers, giving the card 144GB/sec of memory bandwidth (192bit * 6GHz / 8). But that can only be done at up to 1.5GB of memory; the final 512MB of memory is attached to a single memory controller. This invokes the worst case scenario, where only 1 64-bit memory controller is in use and thereby reducing memory bandwidth to a much more modest 48GB/sec."

Pretty worrying if you ask me. Is Nvidia trying to dupe us? I don't know if you're even able to answer that, but I thought I'd ask.
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If there is a true real-world advantage of one configuration over another, I'd say it's very minimal. Speaking from my own personal experience, in situations where memory capacity was not a factor there was about a 1% performance advantage on the 3GB card, but it's hard to say if this was a result of the memory configuration, slightly better cooling, or just standard deviation in the results.
 
Ajiki-kun said:
Man, this card is starting to get on my nerves.

This damn rattling is practically nullifying the benefit of the quiet fans. And from what I can see, it happens on Galaxy's 670 as well, which uses the same PCB and cooler. So I don't even know if RMA'ing will solve the issue.

Further, my particular card does an okay 1199 core in Heaven, but I can't OC the memory one bit. Looks like I'm really meant to play within the handicap of this card.

And even at that max overclock, I have to listen the rattling which gets louder and more sporadic in rhythm thanks to the fan ramping up.

What's going on?
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You shouldn't notice the fans on this card at all, let alone find them a distraction. If you're getting a rattling noise with your card, I suggest we get it replaced for you. If you'd like my help with this, please feel free to send me a pm and I'll get it taken care of ASAP.
 
cannondale06 said:
you could have bought a single 7970 ghz for 250 bucks cheaper and gotten the same playable performance with more than 4x AA at 1920x1080. and if you are at 2560x1600 then you really wasted your money.
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I won't buy an ATI card again. I like Nvidia's driver support much better.

I play at 1920x1200 and don't think I wasted my money. Our hobby in general could be considered a waste of money.
 
Galaxy said:
If there is a true real-world advantage of one configuration over another, I'd say it's very minimal. Speaking from my own personal experience, in situations where memory capacity was not a factor there was about a 1% performance advantage on the 3GB card, but it's hard to say if this was a result of the memory configuration, slightly better cooling, or just standard deviation in the results.
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So you are saying that it is true? That last 512 megabytes of a 2Gb card can barely be used at all, only being able to run at 48gb/s? Maybe I'm just not understanding your answer.
 
Velazkid said:
So you are saying that it is true? That last 512 megabytes of a 2Gb card can barely be used at all, only being able to run at 48gb/s? Maybe I'm just not understanding your answer.
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No, I was speaking only from my own experience with the performance of the card in situations where memory capacity was a non-factor. The performance difference, and let me emphasize this is just in my own testing with a few cards and a small number of benchmark runs, was about 1% when running games in low memory usage scenarios such as 1080p with FXAA.

I can check back with R&D and see if they can provide some more detailed answers on the technical memory questions.
 
Velazkid said:
So you are saying that it is true? That last 512 megabytes of a 2Gb card can barely be used at all, only being able to run at 48gb/s? Maybe I'm just not understanding your answer.
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Dollars to donuts, nv designed it to degrade much more gracefully than that. Dropping to 1/3 bandwidth suddenly would be suicide. It's undoubtedly the same scheme they've used for years on other products, and it's never really been an issue. Though I think this is nv's fastest part to use the lopsided setup.
 
Galaxy said:
No, I was speaking only from my own experience with the performance of the card in situations where memory capacity was a non-factor. The performance difference, and let me emphasize this is just in my own testing with a few cards and a small number of benchmark runs, was about 1% when running games in low memory usage scenarios such as 1080p with FXAA.

I can check back with R&D and see if they can provide some more detailed answers on the technical memory questions.
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Okay thanks a lot for your swiftness and replies. I look forward to any more information you can share with us. Regardless, it seems the way Galaxy made their PCB's regarding memory layout and whatnot, is the way to go. Absolutely phenomenal results that I saw in the OC review [H]ard just put up. Can't wait to get mine tomorrow and put those 3 gigs to work!
 
Ajiki-kun said:
Man, this card is starting to get on my nerves.

This damn rattling is practically nullifying the benefit of the quiet fans. And from what I can see, it happens on Galaxy's 670 as well, which uses the same PCB and cooler. So I don't even know if RMA'ing will solve the issue.

Further, my particular card does an okay 1199 core in Heaven, but I can't OC the memory one bit. Looks like I'm really meant to play within the handicap of this card.

And even at that max overclock, I have to listen the rattling which gets louder and more sporadic in rhythm thanks to the fan ramping up.

What's going on?
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Well I'll be fucked.

As the adage goes, "A broken appliance demonstrated for the repairman will work perfectly."

I took the card back to NCIX, where they promptly tested it on their benches. But no rattling! They told me to go home! (not in so many words, and in broken English)

Turns out that the rattling magically disappears when the card is placed on its side, and it only happens when the card is installed into a normal case (or so I theorize).

This is one major pain in the arse.

Now I gotta go to some great lengths here to reproduce this for the returns people, or otherwise I'm stuck with this annoying card.
 
Ajiki-kun said:
Turns out that the rattling magically disappears when the card is placed on its side, and it only happens when the card is installed into a normal case (or so I theorize).
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Then it will be an improperly balanced fan. This should be very cheap to replace.
 
Ajiki-kun said:
Well I'll be fucked.

As the adage goes, "A broken appliance demonstrated for the repairman will work perfectly."

I took the card back to NCIX, where they promptly tested it on their benches. But no rattling! They told me to go home! (not in so many words, and in broken English)

Turns out that the rattling magically disappears when the card is placed on its side, and it only happens when the card is installed into a normal case (or so I theorize).

This is one major pain in the arse.

Now I gotta go to some great lengths here to reproduce this for the returns people, or otherwise I'm stuck with this annoying card.
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We won't leave you stuck with a card that's not working perfectly. If you're unable to swap it out easily in the store then we'll make sure you get a replacement from our side. If you decide you'd like to go this route, please just send me another pm and I'll help you out.
 
Galaxy, that is some fantastic "customer service". If only more companies had individuals reacting as you do.
 
PM (e-mail, rather) sent. Slyr7.62 is right, the Galaxy rep has done right by me here. Sorry for the bitchiness everyone.
 
Wow, Galaxy, I'm truly impressed. I was stuck between this card and a cheaper EVGA one, but the customer service and the overhaul on the XtremeTuner have sold it for me. I've ordered a pair of these cards from NewEgg but I had to stop by and pass along a thank you. It's a great change to see a rep walking amongst, the mob so to speak.

I'm also impressed to see the [H]ard staff commenting in the discussion.
 
Vositikota said:
Wow, Galaxy, I'm truly impressed. I was stuck between this card and a cheaper EVGA one, but the customer service and the overhaul on the XtremeTuner have sold it for me. I've ordered a pair of these cards from NewEgg but I had to stop by and pass along a thank you. It's a great change to see a rep walking amongst, the mob so to speak.

I'm also impressed to see the [H]ard staff commenting in the discussion.
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Pretty much par for the course here at HardOCP. :) If we are not listening and discussing with you guys then it would be hard to give you the content and answers you guys are looking for.
 
Galaxy said:
We won't leave you stuck with a card that's not working perfectly. If you're unable to swap it out easily in the store then we'll make sure you get a replacement from our side. If you decide you'd like to go this route, please just send me another pm and I'll help you out.
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I can also confirm that this specific 660Ti suffers from a fairly audible rattling noise. I wonder if Galaxy should do something about it or not. Only reason I don't send mine back is because I don't really want to go through the hassle for something that doesn't bother me too much. Even with my head phones off it's just a bit of uneven ambient noise. Scratching almost kind of noise, but definitely more like Rattling. I usually have headphones on though like I said so it's meh. Great card otherwise.
 
Velazkid said:
I wonder if Galaxy should do something about it or not.
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The number of cards suffering from could be low or high. It's tough to say.
Galaxy could do something about it, but as intermittent has this "problem" may be "they" might possibly not have much success for the effort involved. Taking RMA'd cards and replacing them, or actually "fixing" the cards before shipment. Time will tell how this goes. Perhaps the cards just need thicker metal or bracing of some sort. Much time and effort goes into pushing the product out in a timely manner, same goes for "fixing" them. :(
 
Is this card actually available in the UK? I can't seem to spot it at the usual stockists.
 
Oh cool. I've read some KFA2 reviews before but, didn't know they were basically a Galaxy card with a different name. :)
 
So, just wanted to update anyone still interested:

The replacement works like the dream I knew it was capable of being. It's ridiculous how quiet this card is, even when clocked to 1200.

Galaxy, you've made me a believer. Custom cards like this on top of a 3-year transferable warranty with exceptional customer service to boot (as displayed by the Galaxy rep in the past few pages) makes me very enthusiastic about buying Galaxy in the future.

Awesome card!
 
Newegg says this card has "LED effects". Can someone post a pic of what that looks like?
 
Ajiki-kun said:
So, just wanted to update anyone still interested:

The replacement works like the dream I knew it was capable of being. It's ridiculous how quiet this card is, even when clocked to 1200.

Galaxy, you've made me a believer. Custom cards like this on top of a 3-year transferable warranty with exceptional customer service to boot (as displayed by the Galaxy rep in the past few pages) makes me very enthusiastic about buying Galaxy in the future.

Awesome card!
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Quick turnaround on the replacement?
 
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