Nvidia GeForce GTX 660: Specifications

The Nvidia graphics accelerator of the previous generation of the mid-level with good technical specifications and affordable cost is the GTX 660. The characteristics of this solution, as well as its capabilities will be further detailed and discussed in the future.

Niche product

The entry-level solutions in the 600 series of graphics accelerators from NVidia included boards with the index of 650. They provided a minimum level of performance, which made it quite comfortable to play in most applications in 2012.

A step higher was the solution based on the GeForce GTX 660. Characteristics of the technical plan of this product indicated that in this case more modules were used, the clock frequencies and the memory bandwidth were increased. All this allowed in most gaming applications to get a significant increase in both performance and performance. Even higher positioned solutions based on the GTX660 Ti. In this case, the specifications were even better, and the performance was higher. Direct competitor from AMD camp for this accelerator was Radeon HD7850.

Equipment

Modest bundle against the more productive devices from the GeForce GTX 660. Features Once again it is confirmed: the graphic adapter of the middle level can not have exclusive accessories in the basic configuration. This list includes:

• Graphic accelerator with installed active cooling system;
• A disk with drivers;
• user guide;
• Guarantee ticket.

In more advanced devices, this list can be extended by special adapters for assembling PCs with several graphics adapters and switching wires for additional power supply to the video card. If necessary, all this will have to be bought separately for an additional fee. In the case of building a computer system with a single graphics accelerator, the above list will be more than enough.

Technical parameters of the video device

The code name for the graphic chip is GK 106 Kepler. The processor itself is produced according to the norms of 28 nm of the technological process. More than 2.5 million transistors are part of the silicon crystal GTX 660. Technical characteristics of its frequency potential indicate the values of 960 MHz (basic mode) and 1033 MHz (TurboClock mode with improved performance). The number of shader units in this case is 960, and the texture mapping units TMU on one pipeline account for 80. In turn, the blocks for performing rasterization operations (their abbreviated ROP designation) is 24. At the hardware level, this card supports DirectX version 11.1, and the maximum The version of the supported PCI Express 16X-3.0.

Memory subsystem

Only with the memory chips of the standard GDDR5 can work NVidia GTX 660. The characteristics of this solution indicate their operating frequency of 6008 MHz. Some manufacturers initially sell overclocked versions of accelerators with an initially increased frequency. The RAM bus has a bit depth of 192 bits, and its theoretical bandwidth is 144 GB / s.

The maximum amount of RAM in this case is 2 GB. It is also possible in practice to meet solutions with 1 GB of RAM, but in this case the performance of the graphics subsystem is very, very much reduced.

Overclocking and performance enhancements

Some manufacturers, for example, PALIT, equipped their solutions based on this chip with an improved cooling system. This design solution allowed to increase the initial clock speeds of the graphics processor and RAM. For the first one, these values were set at 1006 MHz instead of 960 MHz for the most economical mode and 1072 MHz instead of 1033 MHz for the most difficult tasks. That is, in this case, this accelerator works in the mode of "factory" acceleration.

In turn, the RAM in such a device operates at a frequency of 6,108 MHz. For the basic mode, this figure is 6008 MHz. All the above values in practice make it possible to obtain a 5-7% increase in speed. Such overclocking with the help of special application software is available on almost every product with such a semiconductor chip.

Competing products

The GTX 560 was replaced by the GTX 660. The characteristics indicate their apparent continuity. Higher in performance in this generation of graphics adapters is GTX 660Ti, and lower - GTX 650Ti Boost. On the AMD side, the most accurate, as mentioned earlier, is to compare this product with the HD 7850.

Testing

The most interesting test results can be seen in "Battlefield 3". This toy is optimized for NVidia graphics cards, including the GTX 660. Its characteristics are very different from the representative of the previous generation - the GTX 560. But here the support for DirectX 11.1 allows in this case to get a serious increase in performance. For the hero of this review in FullHD mode, the average number of frames per second is 47, and in the previous solution this number is only 37. In turn, the nearest competitor from AMD in the person of HD 7850 can boast only an average of 41 frames per second. This situation is preserved in most gaming applications, which are optimized for the NVidia accelerator.

This list includes "Crisis 2" and "Hard Reset". If the game prefers solutions from AMD, the situation changes radically. For example, DIRT: Showdown allows you to get 58 frames per second on the HD 7850, and the GTX 660 in this case can only give out 43. Therefore, initially it is necessary to determine the list of toys that will be launched on the PC, see their optimization for the video card of a particular manufacturer and Only then buy the selected product: HD 7850 or NVidia GTX 660. The characteristics and cost they have almost the same, and these products are almost the same class. But optimization allows in some cases to get a significant increase in performance.

Accelerator cost and owner's opinion

200-270 dollars - it was in this range was the price of the GeForce GTX 660. The technical characteristics of this solution for some manufacturers were improved with the help of "factory" overclocking. As a result, their performance was higher, and the price - more. In the rest it is an excellent mid-level accelerator for its time. He allowed to run most of the toys in 2012. Now there were more demanding gaming applications, which

The card can go with problems. It is from this position and characterize the owners of this accelerator.

Results

An excellent combination of price and performance - these are the strengths of the GTX 660. The characteristics of this video card for 2012 allowed the owner of such a PC without any problems to run any program. And even now, this picture has been preserved in most cases. An exception in this respect are only the most demanding toys. In this case, you need to degrade the quality of the output image and only after that get an acceptable Game Play.