Gigabyte gtx 660 ti price: GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 660 Ti Video Card GV-N66TOC-2GD

Meet The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Ti OC

by Ryan Smithon August 16, 2012 9:00 AM EST

  • Posted in
  • GPUs
  • Gigabyte
  • EVGA
  • ZOTAC
  • GeForce
  • Kepler
  • NVIDIA

313 Comments
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313 Comments

The GeForce GTX 660 Ti ReviewThat Darn Memory BusMeet The EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperclockedMeet The Zotac GeForce GTX 660 Ti AMP! EditionMeet The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Ti OCThe First TXAA Game & The TestCrysis: WarheadMetro: 2033DiRT 3Total War: Shogun 2Batman: Arkham CityPortal 2Battlefield 3The Elder Scrolls V: SkyrimCivilization VCompute PerformanceSyntheticsPower, Temperature, & NoiseOC: Power, Temperature, & NoiseOC: Gaming PerformanceFinal Words


Meet The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Ti OC


Our final GTX 660 Ti of the day is Gigabyte’s entry, the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Ti OC. Unlike the other cards in our review today this is not a semi-custom card but rather a fully-custom card, which brings with it some interesting performance ramifications.













GeForce GTX 660 Ti Partner Card Specification Comparison

 

GeForce GTX 660 Ti(Ref)

EVGA GTX 660 Ti Superclocked

Zotac GTX 660 Ti AMP!

Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC

Base Clock

915MHz

980MHz

1033MHz

1033MHz

Boost Clock

980MHz

1059MHz

1111MHz

1111MHz

Memory Clock

6008MHz

6008MHz

6608MHz

6008MHz

Frame Buffer

2GB

2GB

2GB

2GB

TDP

150W

150W

150W

~170W

Width

Double Slot

Double Slot

Double Slot

Double Slot

Length

N/A

9. 5″

7.5″

10,5″

Warranty

N/A

3 Year

3 Year + Life

3 Year

Price Point

$299

$309

$329

$319


The big difference between a semi-custom and fully-custom card is of course the PCB; fully-custom cards pair a custom cooler with a custom PCB instead of a reference PCB. Partners can go in a few different directions with custom PCBs, using them to reduce the BoM, reduce the size of the card, or even to increase the capabilities of a product. For their GTX 660 Ti OC, Gigabyte has gone in the latter direction, using a custom PCB to improve the card.


On the surface the specs of the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Ti OC are relatively close to our other cards, primarily the Zotac. Like Zotac Gigabyte is pushing the base clock to 1033MHz and the boost clock to 1111MHz, representing a sizable 118MHz (13%) base overclock and a 131MHz (13%) boost overclock respectively. Unlike the Zotac however there is no memory overclocking taking place, with Gigabyte shipping the card at the standard 6GHz.


What sets Gigabyte apart here in the specs is that they’ve equipped their custom PCB with better VRM circuitry, which means NVIDIA is allowing them to increase their power target from the GTX 660 Ti standard of 134W to an estimated 141W. This may not sound like much (especially since we’re working with an estimate on the Gigabyte board), but as we’ve seen time and time again GK104 is power-limited in most scenarios. A good GPU can boost to higher bins than there is power available to allow it, which means increasing the power target in a roundabout way increases performance. We’ll see how this works in detail in our benchmarks, but for now it’s good enough to say that even with the same GPU overclock as Zotac the Gigabyte card is usually clocking higher.


Moving on, Gigabyte’s custom PCB measures 8.4” long, and in terms of design it doesn’t bear a great resemblance to either the reference GTX 680 PCB nor the reference GTX 670 PCB; as near as we can tell it’s completely custom. In terms of design it’s nothing fancy – though like the reference GTX 670 the VRMs are located in the front – and as we’ve said before the real significance is the higher power target it allows. Otherwise the memory layout is the same as the reference GTX 660 Ti with 6 chips on the front and 2 on the back. Due to its length we’d normally insist on there being some kind of stiffener for an open air card, but since Gigabyte has put the GPU back far enough, the heatsink mounting alone provides enough rigidity to the card.


Sitting on top of Gigabyte’s PCB is a dual fan version of Gigabyte’s new Windforce cooler. The Windforce 2X cooler on their GTX 660 Ti is a bit of an abnormal dual fan cooler, with a relatively sparse aluminum heatsink attached to unusually large 100mm fans. This makes the card quite large and more fan than heatsink in the process, which is not something we’ve seen before.


The heatsink itself is divided up into three segments over the length of the card, with a pair of copper heatpipes connecting them. The bulk of the heatsink is over the GPU, while a smaller portion is at the rear and an even smaller portion is at the front, which is also attached to the VRMs. The frame holding the 100mm fans is then attached at the top, anchored at either end of the heatsink. Altogether this cooling contraption is both longer and taller than the PCB itself, making the final length of the card nearly 10” long.


Finishing up the card we find the usual collection of ports and connections. This means 2 PCIe power sockets and 2 SLI connectors on the top, and 1 DL-DVI-D port, 1 DL-DVI-I port, 1 full size HDMI 1. 4 port, and 1 full size DisplayPort 1.2 on the front. Meanwhile toolless case users will be happy to see that the heatsink is well clear of the bracket, so toolless clips are more or less guaranteed to work here.


Rounding out the package is the usual collection of power adapters and a quick start guide. While it’s not included in the box or listed on the box, the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Ti OC works with Gigabyte’s OC Guru II overclocking software, which is available on Gigabyte’s website. Gigabyte has had OC Guru for a number of years now, and with this being the first time we’ve seen OC Guru II we can say it’s greatly improved from the functional and aesthetic mess that defined the previous versions.

Gallery: Gigabyte OC Guru II


While it won’t be winning any gold medals, in our testing OC Guru II gets the job done. Gigabyte offers all of the usual tweaking controls (including the necessary power target control), along with card monitoring/graphing and an OSD. It’s only real sin is that Gigabyte hasn’t implemented sliders on their controls, meaning that you’ll need to press and hold down buttons in order to dial in a setting. This is less than ideal, especially when you’re trying to crank up the 6000MHz memory clock by an appreciable amount.


Wrapping things up, the Gigebyte GeForce GTX 660 Ti OC comes with Gigabyte’s standard 3 year warranty. Gigabyte will be releasing it at an MSRP of $319, $20 over the price of a reference-clocked GTX 660 Ti and $10 less than the most expensive card in our roundup today.

Meet The Zotac GeForce GTX 660 Ti AMP! Edition
The First TXAA Game & The Test
The GeForce GTX 660 Ti ReviewThat Darn Memory BusMeet The EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperclockedMeet The Zotac GeForce GTX 660 Ti AMP! EditionMeet The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Ti OCThe First TXAA Game & The TestCrysis: WarheadMetro: 2033DiRT 3Total War: Shogun 2Batman: Arkham CityPortal 2Battlefield 3The Elder Scrolls V: SkyrimCivilization VCompute PerformanceSyntheticsPower, Temperature, & NoiseOC: Power, Temperature, & NoiseOC: Gaming PerformanceFinal Words

PRINT THIS ARTICLE

The GeForce GTX 660 Ti Review, Feat.

EVGA, Zotac, and Gigabyte

by Ryan Smithon August 16, 2012 9:00 AM EST

  • Posted in
  • GPUs
  • Gigabyte
  • EVGA
  • ZOTAC
  • GeForce
  • Kepler
  • NVIDIA

313 Comments
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313 Comments

The GeForce GTX 660 Ti ReviewThat Darn Memory BusMeet The EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperclockedMeet The Zotac GeForce GTX 660 Ti AMP! EditionMeet The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Ti OCThe First TXAA Game & The TestCrysis: WarheadMetro: 2033DiRT 3Total War: Shogun 2Batman: Arkham CityPortal 2Battlefield 3The Elder Scrolls V: SkyrimCivilization VCompute PerformanceSyntheticsPower, Temperature, & NoiseOC: Power, Temperature, & NoiseOC: Gaming PerformanceFinal Words


It’s hard not to notice that NVIDIA has a bit of a problem right now. In the months since the launch of their first Kepler product, the GeForce GTX 680, the company has introduced several other Kepler products into the desktop 600 series. With the exception of the GeForce GT 640 – their only budget part – all of those 600 series parts have been targeted at the high end, where they became popular, well received products that significantly tilted the market in NVIDIA’s favor.


The problem with this is almost paradoxical: these products are too popular. Between the GK104-heavy desktop GeForce lineup, the GK104 based Tesla K10, and the GK107-heavy mobile GeForce lineup, NVIDIA is selling every 28nm chip they can make. For a business prone to boom and bust cycles this is not a bad problem to have, but it means NVIDIA has been unable to expand their market presence as quickly as customers would like. For the desktop in particular this means NVIDIA has a very large, very noticeable hole in their product lineup between $100 and $400, which composes the mainstream and performance market segments. These market segments aren’t quite the high margin markets NVIDIA is currently servicing, but they are important to fill because they’re where product volumes increase and where most of their regular customers reside.


Long-term NVIDIA needs more production capacity and a wider selection of GPUs to fill this hole, but in the meantime they can at least begin to fill it with what they have to work with. This brings us to today’s product launch: the GeForce GTX 660 Ti. With nothing between GK104 and GK107 at the moment, NVIDIA is pushing out one more desktop product based on GK104 in order to bring Kepler to the performance market. Serving as an outlet for further binned GK104 GPUs, the GTX 660 Ti will be launching today as NVIDIA’s $300 performance part.

















 

GTX 680

GTX 670

GTX 660 Ti

GTX 570

Stream Processors

1536

1344

1344

480

Texture Units

128

112

112

60

ROPs

32

32

24

40

Core Clock

1006MHz

915MHz

915MHz

732MHz

Shader Clock

N/A

N/A

N/A

1464MHz

Boost Clock

1058MHz

980MHz

980MHz

N/A

Memory Clock

6. 008GHz GDDR5

6.008GHz GDDR5

6.008GHz GDDR5

3.8GHz GDDR5

Memory Bus Width

256-bit

256-bit

192-bit

320-bit

VRAM

2GB

2GB

2GB

1.25GB

FP64

1/24 FP32

1/24 FP32

1/24 FP32

1/8 FP32

TDP

195W

170W

150W

219W

Transistor Count

3. 5B

3.5B

3.5B

3B

Manufacturing Process

TSMC 28nm

TSMC 28nm

TSMC 28nm

TSMC 40nm

Launch Price

$499

$399

$299

$349


In the Fermi generation, NVIDIA filled the performance market with GF104 and GF114, the backbone of the very successful GTX 460 and GTX 560 series of video cards. Given Fermi’s 4 chip product stack – specifically the existence of the GF100/GF110 powerhouse – this is a move that made perfect sense. However it’s not a move that works quite as well for NVIDIA’s (so far) 2 chip product stack. In a move very reminiscent of the GeForce GTX 200 series, with GK104 already serving the GTX 690, GTX 680, and GTX 670, it is also being called upon to fill out the GTX 660 Ti.


All things considered the GTX 660 Ti is extremely similar to the GTX 670.  The base clock is the same, the boost clock is the same, the memory clock is the same, and even the number of shaders is the same. In fact there’s only a single significant difference between the GTX 670 and GTX 660 Ti: the GTX 660 Ti surrenders one of GK104’s four ROP/L2/Memory clusters, reducing it from a 32 ROP, 512KB L2, 4 memory channel part to a 24 ROP, 384KB L2, 3 memory channel part. With NVIDIA already binning chips for assignment to GTX 680 and GTX 670, this allows NVIDIA to further bin those GTX 670 parts without much additional effort. Though given the relatively small size of a ROP/L2/Memory cluster, it’s a bit surprising they have all that many chips that don’t meet GTX 670 standards.


In any case, as a result of these design choices the GTX 660 Ti is a fairly straightforward part. The 915MHz base clock and 980MHz boost clock of the chip along with the 7 SMXes means that GTX 660 Ti has the same theoretical compute, geometry, and texturing performance as GTX 670. The real difference between the two is on the render operation and memory bandwidth side of things, where the loss of the ROP/L2/Memory cluster means that GTX 660 Ti surrenders a full 25% of its render performance and its memory bandwidth. Interestingly NVIDIA has kept their memory clocks at 6GHz – in previous generations they would lower them to enable the use of cheaper memory – which is significant for performance since it keeps the memory bandwidth loss at just 25%.


How this loss of render operation performance and memory bandwidth will play out is going to depend heavily on the task at hand. We’ve already seen GK104 struggle with a lack of memory bandwidth in games like Crysis, so coming from GTX 670 this is only going to exacerbate that problem; a full 25% drop in performance is not out of the question here. However in games that are shader heavy (but not necessarily memory bandwidth heavy) like Portal 2, this means that GTX 660 Ti can hang very close to its more powerful sibling. There’s also the question of how NVIDIA’s nebulous asymmetrical memory bank design will impact performance, since 2GB of RAM doesn’t fit cleanly into 3 memory banks. All of these are issues where we’ll have to turn to benchmarking to better understand.


The impact on power consumption on the other hand is relatively straightforward. With clocks identical to the GTX 670, power consumption has only been reduced marginally due to the disabling of the ROP cluster. NVIDIA’s official TDP is 150W, with a power target of 134W. This compares to a TDP of 170W and a power target of 141W for the GTW 670. Given the mechanisms at work for NVIDIA’s GPU boost technology, it’s the power target that is a far better reflection of what to expect relative to the GTX 670. On paper this means that GK104 could probably be stuffed into a sub-150W card with some further functional units being disabled, but in practice desktop GK104 GPUs are probably a bit too power hungry for that.


Moving on, this launch will be what NVIDIA calls a “virtual” launch, which is to say that there aren’t any reference cards being shipped to partners to sell or to press to sample. Instead all of NVIDIA’s partners will be launching with semi-custom and fully-custom cards right away. This means we’re going to see a wide variety of cards right off the bat, however it also means that there will be less consistency between partners since no two cards are going to be quite alike. For that reason we’ll be looking at a slightly wider selection of partner designs today, with cards from EVGA, Zotac, and Gigabyte occupying our charts.

Gallery: GeForce GTX 660 Ti Launch Gallery


As for the launch supply, with NVIDIA having licked their GK104 supply problems a couple of months ago the supply of GTX 660 Ti cards looks like it should be plentiful. Some cards are going to be more popular than others and for that reason we expect we’ll see some cards sell out, but at the end of the day there shouldn’t be any problem grabbing a GTX 660 Ti on today’s launch day.


Pricing for GTX 660 Ti cards will start at $299, continuing NVIDIA’s tidy hierarchy of a GeForce 600 at every $100 price point. With the launch of the GTX 660 Ti NVIDIA will finally be able to start clearing out the GTX 570, a not-unwelcome thing as the GTX 660 Ti brings with it the Kepler family features (NVENC, TXAA, GPU boost, and D3D 11.1) along with nearly twice as much RAM and much lower power consumption. However this also means that despite the name, the GTX 660 Ti is a de facto replacement for the GTX 570 rather than the GTX 560 Ti. The sub-$250 market the GTX 560 Ti launched will continue to be served by Fermi parts for the time being. NVIDIA will no doubt see quite a bit of success even at $300, but it probably won’t be quite the hot item that the GTX 560 Ti was.


Meanwhile for a limited period of time NVIDIA will be sweeting the deal by throwing in a copy of Borderlands 2 with all GTX 600 series cards as a GTX 660 Ti launch promotion. Borderlands 2 is the sequel to Gearbox’s 2009 FPS/RPG hybrid, and is a TWIMTBP game that will have PhysX support along with planned support for TXAA. Like their prior promotions this is being done through retailers in North America, so you will need to check and ensure your retailer is throwing in Borderlands 2 vouchers with any GTX 600 card you purchase.


On the marketing front, as a performance part NVIDIA is looking to not only sell the GTX 660 Ti as an upgrade to 400/500 series owners, but to also entice existing GTX 200 series owners to upgrade. The GTX 660 Ti will be quite a bit faster than any GTX 200 series part (and cooler/quieter than all of them), with the question being of whether it’s going to be enough to spur those owners to upgrade. NVIDIA did see a lot of success last year with the GTX 560 driving the retirement of the 8800GT/9800GT, so we’ll see how that goes.


Anyhow, as with the launch of the GTX 670 cards virtually every partner is also launching one or more factory overclocked model, so the entire lineup of launch cards will be between $299 and $339 or so. This price range will put NVIDIA and its partners smack-dab between AMD’s existing 7000 series cards, which have already been shuffling in price some due to the GTX 670 and the impending launch of the GTX 660 Ti. Reference-clocked cards will sit right between the $279 Radeon HD 7870 and $329 Radeon HD 7950, which means that factory overclocked cards will be going head-to-head with the 7950.


On that note, with the launch of the GTX 660 Ti we can finally shed some further light on this week’s unexpected announcement of a new Radeon HD 7950 revision from AMD. As you’ll see in our benchmarks the existing 7950 maintains an uncomfortably slight lead over the GTX 660 Ti, which has spurred on AMD to bump up the 7950’s clockspeeds at the cost of power consumption in order to avoid having it end up as a sub-$300 product. The new 7950B is still scheduled to show up at the end of this week, with AMD’s already-battered product launch credibility hanging in the balance.


For this review we’re going to include both the 7950 and 7950B in our results. We’re not at all happy with how AMD is handling this – it’s the kind of slimy thing that has already gotten NVIDIA in trouble in the past – and while we don’t want to reward such actions it would be remiss of us not to include it since it is a new reference part. And if AMD’s credibility is worth anything it will be on the shelves tomorrow anyhow.











Summer 2012 GPU Pricing Comparison

AMD

Price

NVIDIA

Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition

$469/$499

GeForce GTX 680

Radeon HD 7970

$419/$399

GeForce GTX 670

Radeon HD 7950

$329

 

 

$299

GeForce GTX 660 Ti

Radeon HD 7870

$279

 

 

$279

GeForce GTX 570

Radeon HD 7850

$239

 


 

That Darn Memory Bus
The GeForce GTX 660 Ti ReviewThat Darn Memory BusMeet The EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti SuperclockedMeet The Zotac GeForce GTX 660 Ti AMP! EditionMeet The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Ti OCThe First TXAA Game & The TestCrysis: WarheadMetro: 2033DiRT 3Total War: Shogun 2Batman: Arkham CityPortal 2Battlefield 3The Elder Scrolls V: SkyrimCivilization VCompute PerformanceSyntheticsPower, Temperature, & NoiseOC: Power, Temperature, & NoiseOC: Gaming PerformanceFinal Words

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GeForce GTX 660 Ti with factory acceleration GECID.com. Page 1

::>Video cards
>2012
> GIGABYTE GV-N66TOC-2GD

21-08-2012

Page 1
Page 2
One page

As we already know, on August 16, NVIDIA introduced the new GeForce GTX 660 Ti graphics processor. Of course, as in cases with other video cards, the market will be presented with many different versions of cards based on it from NVIDIA partners. Today, our test lab got a version from GIGABYTE with two gigabytes of GDDR5 memory on board.

As we already found out in the review of ZOTAC GeForce GTX 660 Ti AMP!, , the video cards of the GeForce GTX 660 Ti series are based on a 28 nm NVIDIA GK104 chip (Kepler architecture) changed compared to the flagship GeForce GTX 680. The main changes that the chip has undergone are one disabled multi-threaded processor (SMX) and, accordingly, a reduced number of computing cores (CUDA) from 1536 to 1344 pieces. The number of texture modules and ROP units has also undergone changes, their number has decreased from 128 to 112 and from 32 to 24, respectively. Speaking of memory, the reference card, like all its versions presented to date, uses two gigabytes of the GDDR5 standard , which interact through 192-bit bus. For the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti , the company’s recommended graphics core and memory frequencies are 915 MHz (980 MHz with GPU Boost technology) and 6008 MHz, respectively. Decreased and declared TDP, which is now only 150 watts.

It should be noted that the recommended cost of solutions based on NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti will be about 350 US dollars (depending on the country and model), and, judging by the statements of NVIDIA representatives, the main competitors to products based on it will be video cards based on based on AMD Radeon HD 7870 GPU.

Detailed characteristics of the novelty in comparison with current competitors and predecessors can be assessed in the table below:

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670

AMD Radeon HD 7970

AMD

Radeon HD 7950

AMD Radeon HD 7870

Process

28

28

28

28

28

Codename

GK 104

GK 104

Tahiti XT

Tahiti XT

Pitcairn XT

Number of stream processors

1344

1344

2048

1792

1280

Texture blocks

112

112

128

128

80

ROPs

24

32

32

32

32

GPU frequency, MHz

915

915

925

800

1000

Shader frequency, MHz

915

915

925

800

Video memory frequency, MHz

1502

1502

1375

1250

1200

Memory size, MB

2048

2048

3072

2048

2048

Video memory interface, bit

192

256

384

384

256

Power Connectors

2 x 6-pin

2 x 6-pin

1 x 6-pin, 1 x 8-pin

2 x 6-pin

2 x 6-pin

Let’s jump right into the GIGABYTE GV-N66TOC-2GD graphics card with 2GB GDDR5 memory. During testing, we will try to find out how the version from GIGABYTE differs from the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 660 Ti AMP we reviewed earlier! and reference sample.

Model

GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 660 Ti

(GV-N66TOC-2GD)

Graphics core

NVIDIA GK104 (Kepler)

Number of universal shader processors

1344

Supported APIs

DirectX 11 (Shader Model 5.0), OpenGL 4.2

Proprietary technology support

NVIDIA GPU Boost, NVIDIA TXAA technology, NVIDIA FXAA technology, NVIDIA Adaptive Vertical Sync, NVIDIA Surround technology, NVIDIA PhysX technology, NVIDIA 3D Vision, 3-way NVIDIA SLI, NVIDIA CUDA, PCI Express 3. 0

Graphics core frequency, MHz

1033 (1111 MHz with GPU Boost)

Shader frequency, MHz

1033

Memory frequency (effective), MHz

1502 (6008)

Memory size, MB

2048

Memory type

GDDR5

Memory bus width, bits

192

Tire type

PCI Express 3.0 x16

Maximum resolution

Digital — up to 2560×1600

Analog — up to 2048×1536

Image output interfaces

DVI-D

DVI-I

HDMI

DisplayPort

Support for HDCP and HD video decoding

Yes

Minimum power supply requirement, W

450

Dimensions, mm

266 x 137

Drivers

Latest drivers can be downloaded from the GPU manufacturer’s website.

Manufacturer website

http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4319#sp

. Based on the data in the specification table and their comparison with the «reference» characteristics, we see that in addition to the original cooling system and the redesigned board, the GIGABYTE GV-N66TOC-2GD video card is shipped factory overclocked. So, the graphics core instead of the recommended 915 MHz operates at a frequency of 1033 MHz, and taking into account the operation of GPU Boost technology, the GPU frequency can reach 1111 MHz instead of 980 MHz. At the same time, the effective frequency of GDDR5 video memory remained unchanged and corresponds to the recommended 6008 MHz.

Packing and contents

The GIGABYTE GV-N66TOC-2GD will be delivered to the buyer in a compact cardboard box, which is decorated with color printing. On the front side, in addition to the name, there is a mention of the amount and type of video memory used. Also on the box it is noted that this video card is delivered factory overclocked (OC Version). In the upper corner of the package there is a logo, the presence of which means that the WINDFORCE proprietary cooling system with Triangle Cool technology is installed on this card. Under the name Triangle Cool lies the following changes in the cooling system: the plates from which the radiator is assembled are interconnected by aluminum partitions in the shape of a triangle, which expands towards the bottom of the radiator. Thanks to this shape, the air flows formed by two 100 mm fans, after passing through the radiator fins and, accordingly, cooling it, diverge in different directions from the board itself, and do not heat the PCB.

The reverse side shows how the Triangle Cool technology works, summarizes the main characteristics of the GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 660 Ti, and also notes that this board is made in accordance with the proprietary concept of Ultra Durable VGA. This concept implies the use of only high-quality components in the production of graphics adapters, namely: Japanese solid-state capacitors, ferrite core chokes, low-resistance metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors, as well as textolite with double the thickness of copper conductor layers. Compatibility with Windows 7 is marked in the upper right corner of the package.

Both sides of the package, in addition to the name of the board, do not carry any useful information.

The user can find the system requirements and the list of supported technologies on the GIGABYTE official website, however, for greater convenience, we will list them here. Based on the manufacturer’s recommendations, the power supply must be at least 450W and be capable of delivering up to 24A on the 12V line.

List of supported technologies:

  • NVIDIA GPU Boost;

  • NVIDIA TXAA technology;

  • NVIDIA FXAA technology;

  • NVIDIA Adaptive Vertical Sync;

  • NVIDIA Surround technology;

  • Support for simultaneous connection of four displays;

  • Microsoft DirectX 11;

  • NVIDIA PhysX technology;

  • NVIDIA 3D Vision;

  • 3-way NVIDIA SLI;

  • NVIDIA CUDA;

  • PCI Express 3. 0;

  • OpenGL 4.2.

The delivery kit for the GIGABYTE GV-N66TOC-2GD video card is rather modest and includes only a brief user manual and two adapters from two 4-pin peripheral power connectors to one 6-pin video card power connector.

Compared to the «reference» sample, the set of ports for displaying images on the GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 660 Ti video card has not changed:

  • 1x DVI-D;

  • 1x DVI-I;

  • 1x HDMI

  • 1x DisplayPort.

For most operating scenarios, the video output configuration of the video accelerator in question will be enough, however, if you want to connect an analog monitor, you will need to purchase a DVI-VGA adapter separately, which, unfortunately, is not included in the delivery set. It is worth noting that, unlike the flagship NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680, fewer resolutions are supported, namely:

  • Digital — up to 2560×1600;

  • Analog — up to 2048×1536.

Appearance and cooling system

Unlike the previously reviewed ZOTAC GeForce GTX 660 Ti AMP!, the printed circuit board of the GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 660 Ti video card is made on a blue textolite. The format of the board and its dimensions have also been changed, and do not correspond to the «reference» solution.

For a clearer comparison, here is an image of a «reference» card on an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti graphics processor. As can be seen from the direct comparison, the GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 660 Ti is larger. Its length is 26.6 cm.

Accordingly, before buying, we recommend that you find out what size video cards can fit in your system unit.

The power stabilization system of the video card, like in older solutions, is made according to the 3 + 2 phase scheme (for GPU and memory chips, respectively) using the NCP5392P PWM controller from ON Semiconductor, which is installed on the back of the board.

In addition to the PCI-Express 3.0 connector, the video accelerator in question is additionally powered through two 6-pin connectors on the right side of the video card, which are installed horizontally.

In connection with the declared support of NVIDIA SLI technology in 3-way format, the board has two connectors for the corresponding bridges, which allow you to combine several video cards based on the GeForce GTX 660 Ti graphics processor for joint calculation of graphic effects.

In addition to the previously mentioned PWM controller, there are also two memory chips on the back of the board. The placement of part of the memory chips on the reverse side of the printed circuit board looks rather strange, because due to the larger size than its «reference» version, problems with the placement of components should not have arisen in principle.

As mentioned earlier, the GIGABYTE GV-N66TOC-2GD is based on the NVIDIA GK104 (Kepler) graphics chip manufactured using the 28 nm process technology. As we already know, it contains 1344 universal shader pipelines (or CUDA cores in NVIDIA terminology), 112 texture units and 24 rasterization units. The frequencies of the graphics core, as we have already mentioned, have been increased relative to NVIDIA’s recommendations and amount to 1033 MHz. Thanks to the support of the GPU Boost technology in the product under consideration, in turbo mode the frequency of the graphics core can reach 1111 MHz. Data exchange between the graphics core and memory is carried out through 192-bit bus. The rest of the characteristics are shown in the screenshot above.

The memory of the GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 660 Ti video card, the total amount of which is 2 GB, is recruited using 8 x 256 MB chips manufactured by Hynix. The chips are marked H5GQ2h34AFR and, according to the documentation, their nominal frequency is 6 GHz. Since the memory chips are similar to those used in the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 660 Ti AMP!, with the only difference being that they have not been overclocked at the factory, we have a good chance of significantly speeding up the memory during manual overclocking to get additional performance boost.

As we mentioned earlier, the cooling system has been completely redesigned from the «reference» sample. The screenshot from the presentation shows the principle of operation of the system with the exclusive Triangle Cool technology, in its version 3x. Its difference from the 2x version installed on the GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 660 Ti is the use of two fans and two heat pipes, while the 3x version uses three fans and three pipes, respectively.

We have already seen a similar cooling system in GIGABYTE products, and, as we remember, it did an excellent job of cooling the card based on AMD Radeon HD 7870.

The cooling system occupies two expansion slots and looks rather austere due to its size and the use of black color in its design. Based on the technical specifications, such a system should cope with the cooling of the NVIDIA GK104 graphics chip without any problems, even taking into account the obviously higher factory overclocking than the «reference» TDP model.

The cooler consists of three aluminum radiators, each part uses a different number of nickel-plated aluminum plates. The central part is made up of 28 plates, between which there are connections in the form of a triangle, the other two are made up of 16 and 26 plates, respectively. To cool the radiator, two fans with an impeller diameter of 100 mm are used, which are attached to the casing.

All three parts of the heat sink are connected by two copper heat pipes. The cooling system contacts the GPU die through a small layer of thermal paste applied to the copper base.

To increase the efficiency of the cooler, the contact of the heat pipes, both with the copper base plate and with the heatsink, is improved by solder.

Another good thing is that GIGABYTE engineers did not disregard the cooling of other elements of the board. The power elements of the power supply system and memory chips are also covered with a cooling system, which they contact with a special thermal interface.

Let’s start testing the cooling system of the GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 660 Ti video card. To do this, we will run our standard test suite using the MSI Kombustor utility.

With automatic fan speed control, in the maximum load mode, the graphics core heated up to 74 degrees, and the cooler, judging by the monitoring readings, worked at 61% of its capacity. Separately, it is worth noting that the cooling system of the GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 660 Ti creates an almost imperceptible noise level compared to the rest of the system unit components, even at above-average speeds, due to the large size (100 mm) of the fans used, and, accordingly, their low rotational speed.

In the maximum fan speed mode, the GPU temperature drops to 68 degrees, while the cooling system remains quiet and almost indistinguishable from the rest of the components. As a result, we can say that the complete cooling system of the GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 660 Ti video card does an excellent job of cooling the GK104 graphics chip under high loads.