***Official GeForce GTX660/GTX650 Review Thread***

[balane]

Yes, I would definitely not use the term "enthusiast" for someone who buys midrange.

This is absolutely not true. You're forgetting a few things here.

1.) Not every enthusiast can afford the high end hardware for whatever reason. Some have low paying jobs, some have families, mortgages, etc. Some just plain don't want to spend the money. You can still be enthusiastic about computers and not buy the highest end hardware.

2.) Secondary computers. Your back up. One for the kids. One in the garage or front room. One at your vacation property or office.

These are just a couple situations where somebody might want a good performing video card in the $200 range. To say that an enthusiast doesn't purchase middle price range hardware is both elitist and misinformed imo.

 

[Skurge]

I thought Techreport were tossing Dirt: Showdown out cause of AMD Bias?

 

[Meekers]

In many ways it is even more important at this price level. If you are an enthusiast working on a budget you are going to be even more determined to get every last ounce of performance out of your card.

 

[boxleitnerb]

Enthusiast in my opinion is the highest end market segment. And with that come the people that run SLI/CF, have 3 displays etc.

You have to make some distinction. Someone without a job in a 3rd world country could be a PC "enthusiast", reading on the internet (in an internet cafe), discussing on the forums, repairing old PCs etc.
Just wanting to be an enthusiast, just having the mindset for it doesn't make you one. I don't want to be condescending, it is fine to spend less for hardware of course. I just have a different opinion about the terminology.

 

[Rvenger]

Is it just me or does the GTX 650 have absolutely no place in its current price segment? Tom's shows it a worse performer than a 7750 which can be found for under $100. I paid $70 for mine.

 

[Termie]

This is absolutely not true. You're forgetting a few things here.

...

2.) Secondary computers. Your back up. One for the kids. One in the garage or front room. One at your vacation property or office.

These are just a couple situations where somebody might want a good performing video card in the $200 range. To say that an enthusiast doesn't purchase middle price range hardware is both elitist and misinformed imo.

^ This. There are plenty of enthusiasts shopping in this price range, who are just as knowledgable and willing to tweak their systems as those shopping in the $400-500 price range, and in many cases, it is in fact the same person building two different systems.

I thought Techreport were tossing Dirt: Showdown out cause of AMD Bias?

Techreport drops Dirt from their overall performance analysis: http://techreport.com/review/23527/nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-graphics-card/11

 

[Skurge]

Enthusiast in my opinion is the highest end market segment. And with that come the people that run SLI/CF, have 3 displays etc.

You have to make some distinction. Someone without a job in a 3rd world country could be a PC "enthusiast", reading on the internet (in an internet cafe), discussing on the forums, repairing old PCs etc.
Just wanting to be an enthusiast, just having the mindset for it doesn't make you one. I don't want to be condescending, it is fine to spend less for hardware of course. I just have a different opinion about the terminology.

Enthusiast - "A person who is highly interested in a particular activity or subject."

By your definition, most of the people on this forum are not enthusiast. Do you realise how much more the rest of the world pays for the same hardware?

GTX680 - U$700+
3770K - U$400+
OCZ Agility 3 256GB - U$300+
Dell U2711 - U$800+

7850 - U$350+

Those are the lowest prices on southern africa. I guess by your definition anyone outside of the US or UK is not ant enthusiasts case 99% of people can't afford the latest and greatest.

 

[The_Golden_Man]

Enthusiasts does not have to own the most expensive computer equipment in order to be an enthusiast.

 

[Skurge]

Enthusiasts does not have to own the most expensive computer equipment in order to be an enthusiast.

He may be confusing it with elitist.

 

[rolodomo]

I'm really interested in the 660 for a hackintosh build. I have reason to believe that, due to Kepler's unified architecture across model numbers, the 660 will be natively supported by Mountain Lion just as the 660 TI was. If I could just snag one for $160 or so, I would bite. I hope the 660 is available at that price in a couple of months.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

I wanted a CUDA card this time around, and the 660ti was over-priced.

This card isn't.

The compute performance on this probably isn't any good. Also, Adobe's CS6 suite supports OpenCL. And, again, if you're gonna overclock, the 7850 will win out.

The best pairing right now is an Intel CPU with AMD graphics card.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Enthusiasts does not have to own the most expensive computer equipment in order to be an enthusiast.

This is true. He is just confused because in the computer world there are two different terms for enthusiast. There are hardware enthusiasts, which is what most of us are, and there is the Enthusiast tier of parts, which basically classifies parts by price and performance. There is the Enthusiast tier, then Performance, then Mainstream, and at the bottom is Value. It has nothing to do with being a hardware enthusiast.

 

[Termie]

Is it just me or does the GTX 650 have absolutely no place in its current price segment? Tom's shows it a worse performer than a 7750 which can be found for under $100. I paid $70 for mine.

I originally stated this when I posted the Tom's link, but then edited it so astute readers like yourself could come to their own conclusion about this.

 

[tviceman]

*The best pairing right now is an Intel CPU with AMD graphics card.

*see notes below

*So long as the user overclocks and gets a good overclocking GPU, doesn't mind the added increase in heat and power draw from overclocking, doesn't play Batman: AC, BF3, Borderlands 2, Starcraft II, or half the other games on the market.

 

[balane]

Enthusiast in my opinion is the highest end market segment. And with that come the people that run SLI/CF, have 3 displays etc.

You have to make some distinction. Someone without a job in a 3rd world country could be a PC "enthusiast", reading on the internet (in an internet cafe), discussing on the forums, repairing old PCs etc.
Just wanting to be an enthusiast, just having the mindset for it doesn't make you one. I don't want to be condescending, it is fine to spend less for hardware of course. I just have a different opinion about the terminology.

Just to be sure I have this all straight.

Say my primary gaming computer is a liquid cooled SLI GTX 680 system that's overclocked into the stratosphere.

And say I have a secondary computer 75 feet away in my garage that I use for various purposes including some light gaming. Say it's a nice system with an IB i5, 8GB, 120GB SSD and a HD 7870. Everything is overclocked handily but it was built with a budget in mind.

When I'm in the office playing on the high end computer I AM an enthusiast but in the time it takes me to walk 75 feet to the garage computer I cease to become an enthusiast?

Is that how it works? I'm not arguing with you, just trying to understand what an enthusiast truly is.

 

[jacktesterson]

From what I've seen, These cards are not at all good value.

I was expecting the 650 to be on par with a 7770..... slower than a 7750, crippled more, and costs the same as a 7770?

Good thinking.

 

[jacktesterson]

The 660 actually has me considering returning my 7850. I very probably won't, but it's still something for me to think about.

I sure in hell wouldn't.

 

[Crap Daddy]

I was expecting the 650 to be on par with a 7770.....

I wasn't.

This is when you start to see the problems of not having the GK110 ready for this generation. GK106 should have been the competition for Cape Verde (7770, 7750) and GK104 for Pitcairn (7870,7850) while BigK should have been for Tahiti. Not being able to deliver in time NV had to use GK104 for three cards ranging from high-end to the 660Ti in order to be able to compete with the 7870 since it's obvious that GK106 is not up to the task of besting a fully enabled Pitcairn. Another problem for NV is the aggressive price cuts made by AMD which brought their cards in another competition bracket namely launching the 660Ti at a closer price to the 7950 than the 7870 and this 660 at a closer price to 7870 than to 7850.

 

[boxleitnerb]

Enthusiast - "A person who is highly interested in a particular activity or subject."

By your definition, most of the people on this forum are not enthusiast. Do you realise how much more the rest of the world pays for the same hardware?

GTX680 - U$700+
3770K - U$400+
OCZ Agility 3 256GB - U$300+
Dell U2711 - U$800+

7850 - U$350+

Those are the lowest prices on southern africa. I guess by your definition anyone outside of the US or UK is not ant enthusiasts case 99% of people can't afford the latest and greatest.

Google "enthusiast segment", you will find that quite a few people agree it is a valid term to describe the people that buy the best of the best in the PC (gaming) world.

As for your prices, of course the differ from country to country. That doesn't change the fact, that the 660 isn't the best of the best. It is not an enthusiast part, but a mainstream or at best performance part.

While I generally would agree that enthusiast can mean something else, in the PC gaming business, it has always meant the highest performing segment. And people buying in that segment are enthusiasts. At least in my opinion.

 

[notty22]

I sure in hell wouldn't.

That 660 is crippled big time.

What do you consider crippled. it's a fully working die. It has the same back end as the gtx 660ti. 24 ROP's, that run at higher clocks than the gtx660ti. 192mb interface with 1500mhz GDDR5- 6000mhz effective ram.
It's a complimentary gpu to the 660ti in many ways.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7770-7750-benchmark,3135.html
GK106 is composed of five SMX clusters, each with 192 CUDA cores totaling 960. Sixteen texture units per SMX give us a total of 80 across the GPU. And three ROP clusters able to process eight full-color pixels yield 24 per clock cycle. A trio of 64-bit memory controllers aggregate into a 192-bit memory interface.
Nvidia claims that its GK106 is a fully-utilized GPU, and that there aren't any disabled resources we might see flipped on later. We find this odd, given that one SMB cluster standing on its own to the side.


Given identical memory specifications, the GeForce GTX 660 Ti and 660 offer the same 144.2 GB/s of memory bandwidth. Most of the 660's other specs are less aggressive, though: CUDA cores, texture units, and ROPs are cut by roughly 30% in comparison. Nvidia helps overcome some of the impact of fewer resources by juicing the core and average GPU Boost frequencies, though.

 

[boxleitnerb]

Just to be sure I have this all straight.

Say my primary gaming computer is a liquid cooled SLI GTX 680 system that's overclocked into the stratosphere.

And say I have a secondary computer 75 feet away in my garage that I use for various purposes including some light gaming. Say it's a nice system with an IB i5, 8GB, 120GB SSD and a HD 7870. Everything is overclocked handily but it was built with a budget in mind.

When I'm in the office playing on the high end computer I AM an enthusiast but in the time it takes me to walk 75 feet to the garage computer I cease to become an enthusiast?

Is that how it works? I'm not arguing with you, just trying to understand what an enthusiast truly is.

Yes, then you are one
The other use for the term enthusiast is not wrong at all, it's just I find it is rarely used and less present in today's reviews, marketing slides, articles and such. Therefore I didn't really consider it that relevant.

Anyway, all I wanted to say originally is that both companies make good cards right now that (when you don't have specific needs) are pretty much on par.

 

[f1sherman]

Almost perfect parity between the companies on fps/$, with GTX 660 delivering more consistent and smoother frame rendering was noted by none other then:

TechReport: http://techreport.com/review/23527/nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-graphics-card

The other unmistakable outcome is that the GeForce cards tend to be a little bit stronger in the latency-focused 99th percentile frame time results.
The FPS scatter plot paints a picture of almost perfect parity, with a nearly straight line slicing through the various Radeons and GeForces of the current generation as we step up the price-performance ladder.
That's probably no surprise, since pricing on these things tends to be carefully calibrated by the GPU and video card makers.

However, they're using the wrong benchmarks.
If you're focused on smooth gameplay and not just nice frame rate averages, Nvidia's Kepler-based GPUs currently have the upper hand

AMD is really hammering NVIDIA right now.

Because we all know that hammering is what happens when there's perf/$ parity between the AMD/NV.
Only thing you got wrong being - who is hammering, and who is getting hammered :thumbsdown:

 

[RussianSensation]

7 months later, just matches the price/performance of HD7870, barely beats an OCed $249 7850 from March.

Most noteable, an unlocked HD6950 delivered this level of performance more than 1.5 years ago for $230-250 on Newegg. Looks like neither NV nor AMD delivered any reasonable performance upgrade for HD6950/GTX570 owners this round until HD7950 price drops + OCing are accounted for. Pretty underwhelming generation for <$300 GPU owners overall.

With HD7950 dropping in prices ($280 on Newegg), I would personally pass on both the 7870 and 660 and take 25-40% 7950 GPU overclocking for another $50-60. If I wanted to save some $, I'd grab a $190 HD7850 or look for a $200-210 deal on 7870/660, such as this one.

Overall, it's hard to be excited when the competitor took 6-7 months to roll-out its line-up and then just matching AMD's price/performance is bare minimum of what's expected given such a delay. More competition is good but let's hope NV doesn't delay the mid-range and low-end desktop segment in 2013 the same way they did this generation, leaving gamers buying outdated 40nm Fermi chips for 6+ months.

However, they're using the wrong benchmarks.
If you're focused on smooth gameplay and not just nice frame rate averages, Nvidia's Kepler-based GPUs currently have the upper hand[/I]

Because we all know that hammering is what happens when there's perf/$ parity between the AMD/NV.
Only thing you got wrong being - who is hammering, and who is getting hammered :thumbsdown:

The performance between a factory preoverclocked 660 and a factory preoverclocked 7870 is about the same in actual gameplay.

Factory preoverclocked 660 vs. Factory preoverclocked 7870:
"Overall the new ASUS GeForce GTX 660 DirectCU II seems to compete well with a price comparative factory overclocked Radeon HD 7870. While the gameplay experience is mostly the same between the two video cards, for the most part the overclocked Radeon HD 7870 seems to take the performance lead. If you look back at every game, the overclocked Radeon HD 7870 is on top in terms of raw performance, though the in-game quality settings attained are the same."
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/09/13/asus_geforce_gtx_660_directcu_ii_video_card_review/13

Interestingly enough, if you extend the list of games from 5-6 (HardOCP / TechReport) to 15-18, 660 reference is slower than 7870 reference. See how that works when you play other games and not just 5-6 of the same games that are tested over and over on websites.

15 games - 1080P HD7870 is 7% faster on average
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/grafikkarten/2012/test-nvidia-geforce-gtx-660/5/

18 games - 1080P HD7870 is 9% faster on average
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_660_Direct_Cu_II/27.html

15 games - 1080P HD7970 is not any slower on average than a 660
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/geforce-gtx-660_10.html#sect0

Pretty amazing that you are claiming 660 is actually faster....

Looks to me like a factory preoverclocked 660 and a factory preoverclocked 7870 would be roughly equal if anything. Doesn't look like NV is winning unless you use a reference 7870 against a factory preoverclocked 7870. Expand the list to include more games, and 660 is not any better at all unless all you play is Lost Planet 2, Shogun 2, BF3 and WOW.

 

[The_Golden_Man]

7 months later, just matches the price/performance of HD7870, barely beats an OCed $249 7850 from March.

Most noteable, an unlocked HD6950 delivered this level of performance more than 1.5 years ago for $230-250 on Newegg. Looks like neither NV nor AMD delivered any reasonable performance upgrade for HD6950/GTX570 owners this round until HD7950 price drops + OCing are accounted for. Pretty underwhelming generation for <$300 GPU owners overall.

With HD7950 dropping in prices ($280 on Newegg), I would personally pass on both the 7870 and 660 and take 25-40% 7950 GPU overclocking for another $50-60. If I wanted to save some $, I'd grab a $190 HD7850 or look for a $200-210 deal on 7870/660, such as this one.

Overall, it's hard to be excited when the competitor took 6-7 months to roll-out its line-up and then just matching AMD's price/performance is bare minimum of what's expected given such a delay. More competition is good but let's hope NV doesn't delay the mid-range and low-end desktop segment in 2013 the same way they did this generation, leaving gamers buying outdated 40nm Fermi chips for 6+ months.

The biggest difference for Nvidia Kepler VS earlier generation is power usage. This makes for an easier silent system with high performance VS GTX 470/480/570/580.

 

[sontin]

Overall, it's hard to be excited when the competitor took 6-7 months to roll-out its line-up and then just matching AMD's price/performance is bare minimum of what's expected given such a delay. More competition is good but let's hope NV doesn't delay the mid-range and low-end desktop segment in 2013 the same way they did this generation, leaving gamers buying outdated 40nm Fermi chips for 6+ months.

What's the problem? Seem like that gamer didn't rushed out to buy overpriced products. BTW the GTX660 costs $229 and is slighly slower than a 7870 for $349 6 months ago. You should more worry about people who bought a 7870 8 weeks ago. They lost 30% of the value and that not include all the free games like Sleeping Dogs - nice to see that AMD just matches "the price/performance" point of the GTX660 after 6 months. :awe: