GTX 660Ti Reviews

[toyota]

the only gripe i have with the 79XX cards is stock and overclocked power consumption, it's too high for my taste, and that's why i'm aiming for a nice 7870 post price cuts or second hand next year.

if you still have that Core 2 duo then you should not even bother upgrading from your 5850.

 

[Pheran]

I'm sorry, I see those charts, but can you explain how AMD is not doing poorly regarding power consumption when the 7950 has a 225W TDP and the 660 Ti has a 150W TDP? I'm coming from an 8800 GTS 512 from 2008, and it has a 135W TDP. Frankly I'm not impressed with any increased performance when the card may use at max the equivalent of an entire Sandy Bridge CPU more worth of power than my old card.

I'm genuinely interested in your answer, because I'm having a tough time picking between a 660 Ti, a 670, or a 7950. Given the 7950 is already down to $320, I think sub-$300 prices is likely in the next couple months, but I'm not sure I want to pick it over the 150W 660 Ti or the 170W 670. Plus I'm not sure how much the computer performance or extra memory bandwidth matters. I want to keep this card for around 4 years so I do have to consider what may matter in the future.

Interesting post Antef, because I'm in exactly the same boat as you - coming from an old 8800 GTS 512 and trying to decide on 660 vs 670 vs AMD. I, too, am not impressed with AMD's power consumption and I'm not interested in putting something that produces tons of heat in my quiet case.

 

[Silverforce11]

I'm sorry, I see those charts, but can you explain how AMD is not doing poorly regarding power consumption when the 7950 has a 225W TDP and the 660 Ti has a 150W TDP?

AMD's TDP rating is worse case scenario, in artificial benches/power viruses etc.

In gaming, its average and peak load is a LOT lower than its official rated TDP, ie. the 7950 is ~150-160W in Crysis 2 gaming. Similar with the 78xx, their gaming load is ~100W.

NV's TDP is its load in gaming, and this gen, with the updated throttle and power monitor, its the max load it can attain.

 

[Silverforce11]

the only gripe i have with the 79XX cards is stock and overclocked power consumption, it's too high for my taste, and that's why i'm aiming for a nice 7870 post price cuts or second hand next year.

What's your taste? Because i HAD 2 5850s, and the 7950 is pulling comparable wattage to one 5850 during gaming.

5850 = 130W
7950 = 140W

The overclock power draw is highly dependant on the vcore you run it at. If its ~1.1vcore, its only a minor increase as its still ~stock volts. The real power hunger starts at >1.2vcore.

 

[Borealis7]

if you still have that Core 2 duo then you should not even bother upgrading from your 5850.

i'm slowly building a new rig...emphasis on slowly.

The real power hunger starts at >1.2vcore.

and the new AMD BIOS sets the 7950s to 1.25v so there you go

 

[Pheran]

Interesting post Antef, because I'm in exactly the same boat as you - coming from an old 8800 GTS 512 and trying to decide on 660 vs 670 vs AMD. I, too, am not impressed with AMD's power consumption and I'm not interested in putting something that produces tons of heat in my quiet case.

With the new price cut and bundle announcement, I'm starting to take a hard look at the 7870, though those cuts haven't made it to vendors yet. At $250 it is an interesting card and the power consumption is very reasonable.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I still say for a single card get a 7950 or 7970. For dual gpu setups, assuming a single card is not enough for you, it seems that nvidia has a better handle on drivers and less micro stutter (if that matters to you).

 

[Dark Shroud]

I still say for a single card get a 7950 or 7970. For dual gpu setups, assuming a single card is not enough for you, it seems that nvidia has a better handle on drivers and less micro stutter (if that matters to you).

660 TI's would be a complete waste of money in SLI. Also AMD has gotten better on the drivers in the last two months. HardOCP should be doing some new sets of benches soon.

 

[hyrule4927]

and the new AMD BIOS sets the 7950s to 1.25v so there you go

Doubt you'll be seeing that BIOS on custom cards though, considering most are already clocked around 900 MHz on stock volts.

 

[AnandThenMan]

I'm sorry, I see those charts, but can you explain how AMD is not doing poorly regarding power consumption when the 7950 has a 225W TDP and the 660 Ti has a 150W TDP?

Don't just look at power draw. If you only care about absolute power consumption, then buy the slowest, lowest power sipping card you can find. I realize that is not what you want, but just illustrating a point. Look at perf/watt, the 7950 and 660ti are basically tied. If you want to stay under a specific absolute number, then you have to select the card that satisfies this. The most efficient card on that chart is the 7750, but that may be too slow for your needs.

The best compromise if you want high performance and good power efficiency is probably the GTX680, but the 7970 is only a few % worse in perf/watt.

 

[Silverforce11]

and the new AMD BIOS sets the 7950s to 1.25v so there you go

Yah and you can have me on record stating that it was a stupid move, completely retarded to set such high vcore JUST for 950mhz. So far not a single review or forum owners have not managed to hit that on stock volts.. if they want ~1ghz, 1.15vcore would be more than enough. They went for overkill mode because a) too lazy to do more testing and b) rush job.

Stock seems to vary on 7950s from 0.987 to 1.087 (some custom boards are higher), at these vcore, power use in gaming: Less than 660ti.

ps. I think i posted a few months ago that AMD would be pulling something like a BIOS update for the 7950 since they clocked it so low, esp with the 7970 GE out.. but they went just stupid. 1.25vcore is something for >1.2ghz OCs.

 

[cmdrdredd]

660 TI's would be a complete waste of money in SLI. Also AMD has gotten better on the drivers in the last two months. HardOCP should be doing some new sets of benches soon.

I never mentioned the 660ti at all so I don't know why you even mentioned it. Plus, AMD's XFire is still inferior to SLI. Micro stutter is a bit worse, they support fewer titles, and the minimum framerates remain a bit better with SLI too.

also FWIW: I don't care one bit about what HardOCP has to say. They are a total joke in my eyes.

 

[Siberian]

660 TI's would be a complete waste of money in SLI. Also AMD has gotten better on the drivers in the last two months. HardOCP should be doing some new sets of benches soon.

They just posted a review of a overclocked 660 beating a 7950 by a large margin. got an. "editors choice".

 

[f1sherman]

yeah apparently 660 Ti can be overclocked

go figure

 

[AnandThenMan]

[H] has really lost it IMO. Not the first time though, I forget what Radeon card it was but they gave it a gold award that pretty much everyone was questioning.

 

[chimaxi83]

Let's just forget that the 7950 was stock, on what Hardocp called "the same drivers we used in the original evaluation for all video cards", i.e. release drivers. They didn't make mention of exactly what driver version they used for the AMD card.

 

[f1sherman]

[H] has really lost it IMO. Not the first time though, I forget what Radeon card it was but they gave it a gold award that pretty much everyone was questioning.

I remember me joking here with [H] credibility(AMD partnership etc), but when asked directly about it, I had to repeat like several times that I do not question their honesty for a sec.
And even then it remained:"Whatta tool, he actually doubts [H] motives"


It was that much of an outrage to even joke with [H] cred, and look at the forum stance now - anyone taking [H] seriously is all of a sudden NV tool, mentally limited etc...

 

[blastingcap]

[H] has really lost it IMO. Not the first time though, I forget what Radeon card it was but they gave it a gold award that pretty much everyone was questioning.

5830

 

[AnandThenMan]

5830 that's it. I don't agree with their gold award status at all, pretty much a lame duck card IMO. I just can't trust [H], they seem to latch onto a certain vendor and suddenly that vendor can do no wrong, until the next round where that could change.

edit - reading the discussion thread for that review is quite interesting.

 

[Attic]

Wow [H] has last there sanity with this card. They pitting the OC'd to the extreme 660Ti and running that against the lowest clocked reference model 7950? You'd have to go out of your way to not find an OC'd non reference model 7950 for less money than the Galaxy 3GB 660Ti they tested.

Given the price of the 660Ti they tested, 339.99, and the price of the 7950, $320 now?, the failed to mention the biggest factor,... that the 7950 would handily beat the OC'd 660Ti they hand if it were overclocked with max voltage considerations as well.

Yikes, -rep for [H] on this one. Not to mention the card they have is more than likely cherry picked as it goes quite beyond the OC's from other review sites.

Sometimes they really blow it (5830, 8600GT/GTS, 660Ti), this is one of those times.

 

[Siberian]

The 660 was supposed to compete against the 7870. It's cool to see it take on the more expensive 7950 and do well. Probably why so many sites are recommending it.

 

[Attic]

The 660 was supposed to compete against the 7870. It's cool to see it take on the more expensive 7950 and do well. Probably why so many sites are recommending it.

Agree.

Though the prowess of the 2500k and GTX460 were in large part due to their overclockign abilities. This is the same reputation the 7950 has due to its massive OC'ing potential and success. Placing the 7950 in its default 800mhz cage and then unleashing unrestrained cards against it smells fishy to me.

To get the 660Ti after the 7950 w/o so much as a mention of the oc'ing side that benefits the 7950 does not a lot of sense make.

 

[zaydq]

From experience, 7950s won't stop overclocking. You will hit a thermal limit well before you hit the chips's limitt. I should totally put my computer in a deep freezer and oc more so than where I'm at :

 

[cmdrdredd]

do I need to mention again that I don't care what Hardocp says? lol

 

[Piano Man]

Where is the 7950 OC vs 660ti OC review? Daddy wants to know!