Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC Windforce Review

1. Introduction2. Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC Windforce3. Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC Windforce (Super High Res Gallery)4. Testing Methodology5. Synthetic: Unigine Heaven Benchmark6. Synthetic: 3DMark Vantage7. Synthetic: 3DMark 118. Image Quality: HQV Benchmark 2.09. Gaming: F1 2011 (1080p)10. Gaming: Alien V Predator (1080p)11. Gaming: Tom Clancy HAWX 2 (1080p)12. Gaming: Resident Evil 5 (1080p)13. Gaming: Far Cry 2 (1200p)14. Gaming: Total War Shogun 2 (1080p)15. Gaming: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (1600p)16. Gaming: Battlefield 3 (1080p)17. Technical: Thermal Dynamics18. Technical: Acoustics Performance19. Technical: Power Consumption20. Technical: Overclocking21. Closing Thoughts22. View All Pages

Nvidia recently released the GTX660 Ti – a high performance solution aimed at the hard core gaming enthusiast user with a budget under £300. Today we are looking at the new Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC Windforce which is a custom cooled solution supplied at ‘out of the box' overclocked settings.

Gigabyte aren't cutting any corners with the GTX660 Ti OC Windforce. The ‘OC' (overclocked) version of the card receives a substantial core clock increase and the company are shipping the card with a custom dual fan copper heatpipe cooling solution.

Product	Nvidia GTX670	Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC Windforce	Nvidia GTX680	AMD HD7970
Transistors	3540m	3540m	3540m	4310m
Core Clock	915 mhz+	1033 mhz+	1006mhz+	925mhz
Memory clock	1,502mhz	1,502mhz	1502mhz	1375mhz
Shaders	1344	1344	1536	2048
ROPs	32	24	32	32
Memory	2GB	2GB	2GB	3GB
Memory bus width	256 bit	192 bit	256 bit	384 bit

The Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC Windforce is clocked at 1,033mhz core, with a turbo boost speed of 1,111mhz. The 2GB of GDDR5 memory runs at 1,500mhz (6Gbps effective), and is connected via a 192 bit memory interface.

The latest Gigabyte artwork really appeals to me. The dramatic impact of the neon ‘outlined eye' is fantastic. Along side the artwork is an image of the card, featuring the cooling solution and text detailing the product name and 2,048MB memory count (2GB).

Gigabyte only include two power converter cables and a quick start guide. Not much of a bundle, sadly.

The dual fans are placed behind a strong plastic shroud. Underneath we can see the copper heatpipes which attach directly to the heatsink base. The Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC is built on a blue PCB and the cooler overhangs a little on the far side. Gigabyte have placed security stickers on each fan to verify it is a genuine product – these reflect various light under flash conditions.

The Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC features two SLI connectors, for 2, 3 and 4 way configurations.

The card takes power from two PCI E connectors.

There are two dual link DVI ports, a full sized HDMI port and a full sized DisplayPort. All of these can be used simultaneously with the latest hardware. Something AMD have offered for a very long time now.

The Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC cooling solution is comprised around a copper base offset from the center. Two thick copper heatpipes run into two separate racks of aluminum fins on either side of the base. This cooler is actually very well designed as it incorporates a separate heatsink for the VRM section on the card.

The Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC Windforce is based around the GK104 processor, manufactured on the 28nm process. This particular ‘OC’ model has received a core clock increase to 1,033mhz, with an effective Core Boost Clock to 1111MHz. It ships with 2GB of GDDR5 memory connected via a 192 bit interface.

On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source. You can right click and ‘save as’ to your computer to view later.

To test today we are using our long standing Core i7 970 system, which is overclocked. We have a variety of hardware benchmarked on this system this year which will make for an interesting market comparison.

Main Test System:

Processor: Core i7 970 @ 4.6ghz
Graphics: Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC Windforce
Cooling: Coolit Vantage
Motherboard: MSI X58A-GD65
Chassis: Thermaltake Level 10
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200
Memory: 6GB ADATA @ 2133mhz 9-10-9-32
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V+ 512GB Gen 2 SSD (Storage) / Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB (OS boot)
Monitor: Dell U3011.

Comparison Cards:
KFA2 GTX680 LTD OC
Asus GTX680
Asus GTX670 Direct CU II TOP
Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition
HD7970 GHZ Edition
HD7970
Sapphire HD7950 Vapor-X Edition (@950mhz core clock)
HD7950
Sapphire HD7870 Overclock Edition
HD7870
HD7850
HD6990 (880 core)
HD6970
HD6950
HD6870
Sapphire HD7770 Vapor X Overclock Edition
XFX HD7770 Black Edition S CFx
HD7770 CFx
HD7770
Sapphire HD7750 Ultimate Edition
HD6790
HD6770
HD6670
GTX590 SLi
GTX590
GTX580 SLi
GTX580
GTX570

Software:

Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
Fraps Professional
Steam Client
FurMark

Games:

Alien V Predator
Tom Clancy HAWX 2
Resident Evil 5
Far Cry 2
F1 2011
Total War: Shogun 2
Battlefield 3
Elder Scrolls V: SkyRim

All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform generally under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests games across five closely matched runs and then average out the results to get an accurate median figure. If we use scripted benchmarks, they are mentioned on the relevant page.

Some game descriptions are edited from Wikipedia.

Unigine provides an interesting way to test hardware. It can be easily adapted to various projects due to its elaborated software design and flexible toolset. A lot of their customers claim that they have never seen such extremely-effective code, which is so easy to understand.

Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk.

Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable:

• Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render
• Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux
• Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems
• Multicore CPU support
• Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles)
• Powerful C++ API
• Comprehensive performance profiling system
• Flexible XML-based data structures

We use the following settings: 1920×1080 resolution. Anti Aliasing off. Anisotrophy 4, Tessellation normal. Shaders High. Stereo 3D disabled. API: Direct X 11.

Performance from the Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC Windforce is excellent, averaging over 78 frames per second. The card slots in around 3 frames per second behind the HD7970.

Futuremark released 3DMark Vantage, on April 28, 2008. It is a benchmark based upon DirectX 10, and therefore will only run under Windows Vista (Service Pack 1 is stated as a requirement) and Windows 7. This is the first edition where the feature-restricted, free of charge version could not be used any number of times. 1280×1024 resolution was used with performance settings.

In the older Direct X 10 benchmark, the Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC Windforce slots in around 1,000 points behind the AMD HD7970, scoring 30,361 points. A very healthy score indeed.

3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading.

After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.

If you want to learn more about this benchmark, or to buy it yourself, head over to this page.

Fantastic results from this Direct X 11 benchmark. The Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC Windforce scores 9,053 points which is only 200 points behind the Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition.

HQV Benchmark 2.0 is an updated version of the original tool and it consists of various video clips and test patterns which are designed to evalute motion correction, de-interlacing, decoding, noise reduction, detail enhancement and film cadence detection.

There are two versions of the program, standard definition on DVD and high definition on Bluray. As our audience will be concentrating on HD content so will we.

This has a total of 39 video tests which is increased from 23 in the original and the scoring is also up from a total of 130 to 210. As hardware and software gets more complicated, the software has been tuned to make sure we can thoroughly maximise our analysis.

Read our initial analysis over here.

	Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC Windforce
Dial	4
Dial with static pattern	5
Gray Bars	5
Violin	5
Stadium 2:2	5
Stadium 3:2	5
Horizontal Text Scroll	3
Vertical Text Scroll	5
Transition to 3:2 Lock	5
Transition to 2:2 Lock	0
2:2:2:4 24 FPS DVCAM Video	5
2:3:3:2 24 FPS DVCam Video	5
3:2:3:2:2 24 FOS Vari-Speed	5
5:5 FPS Animation	5
6:4 12 FPS Animation	5
8:7 8 FPS Animation	5
Interlace Chroma Problem (ICP)	5
Chroma Upsampling Error (CUE)	5
Random Noise: Sailboat	5
Random Noise: Flower	5
Random Noise: Sunrise	5
Random Noise: Harbour Night	5
Scrolling Text	5
Roller Coaster	5
Ferris Wheel	5
Bridge Traffic	5
Text Pattern/ Scrolling Text	5
Roller Coaster	5
Ferris Wheel	5
Bridge Traffic	5
Luminance Frequency Bands	5
Chrominance Frequency Bands	5
Vanishing Text	5
Resolution Enhancement	15
Theme Park	5
Driftwood	5
Ferris Wheel	5
Skin Tones	5
Total	192

The hardware scores 192 points out of a possible 210 which is excellent.

F1 2011 is the newest Direct X 11 racing game from industry pioneers CodeMasters. The 2011 Formula One season is the 62nd FIA Formula One season. The original calendar consisted of twenty rounds, including the inaugural running of the Indian Grand Prix before the cancellation of the Bahrain Grand Prix. Pirelli returns to the sport as tyre supplier for all teams, taking over from Bridgestone. Red Bull Racing are the reigning Constructor’s Champions. Red Bull Racing’s Sebastian Vettel is the defending Drivers’ Champion, one of five World Champions appearing on the grid.

A good result for this benchmark, slotting in at an average of 71 frames per second.

Aliens V Predator has proved to be a big seller since the release and Sega have taken the franchise into new territory after taking it from Sierra. AVP is a Direct X 11 supported title and delivers not only advanced shadow rendering but high quality tessellation for the cards on test today.

To test the cards we used a 1080p resolution with DX11, Texture Quality Very High, MSAA Samples 1, 16 af, ambient occulsion on, shadow complexity high, motion blur on. We use this with most of our graphics card testing so results are comparable throughout reviews.

A demanding Direct X 11 game and one that demands a lot of power from the partnering hardware. In our system the Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC Windforce averages 84 frames per second, which is almost identical to the Sapphire HD7950 Vapor X Edition.

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. 2 is an arcade-style flight action game developed by Ubisoft Romania and published by Ubisoft. After the events of the first game, the H.A.W.X squadron is sent to Middle East, where a high level of violence is being registered, and the appearance of various insurgents leaders in various hotspots. The team also has to investigate the mysterious disappearance of Russian nuclear weapons. The player will be controlling three groups: one American (Hunter), one British (Munro) and one Russian (Sokov), each with its own pilots and supporting characters. There will also be references to other characters in the Tom Clancy universe.

We are testing in full DX11 mode with all settings to maximum.

Very strong results from the Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC Windforce, averaging 126 frames per second, a single frame behind the AMD HD7970 GHZ Edition.

Resident Evil 5, known in Japan as Biohazard 5, is a survival horror third-person shooter video game developed and published by Capcom. The game is the seventh installment in the Resident Evil survival horror series, and was released on March 5, 2009 in Japan and on March 13, 2009 in North America and Europe for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. A Windows version of the game was released on September 15, 2009 in North America, September 17 in Japan and September 18 in Europe. Resident Evil 5 revolves around Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar as they investigate a terrorist threat in Kijuju, a fictional town in Africa.

Within its first three weeks of release, the game sold over 2 million units worldwide and became the best-selling game of the franchise in the United Kingdom. As of December, 2009, Resident Evil 5 has sold 5.3 million copies worldwide since launch, becoming the best selling Resident Evil game ever made.

Fantastic results, averaging 154 frames per second at these settings.

Far Cry 2 (commonly abbreviated as “FC2 or “fc2″) is an open-ended first-person shooter developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It was released on October 21, 2008 in North America and on October 23, 2008 in Europe and Australia. It was made available on Steam on October 22, 2008. Crytek, the developers of the original game, were not involved in the development of Far Cry 2.

Ubisoft has marketed Far Cry 2 as the true sequel to Far Cry, though the sequel has very few noticeable similarities to the original game. Instead, it features completely new characters and setting, as well as a new style of gameplay that allows the player greater freedom to explore different African landscapes such as deserts, jungles, and savannas. The game takes place in a modern-day East African nation in a state of anarchy and civil war. The player takes control of a mercenary on a lengthy journey to locate and assassinate “The Jackal,” a notorious arms dealer.

Far Cry 2 is still a popular game and the open world environment can be taxing on even the latest hardware available today.

Settings: 1920×1200, D3D10, Disable Artificial Intelligence(No), Full Screen, Anti-Aliasing(8x), VSync(No), Overall Quality(Ultra High), Vegetation(Very High), Shading(Ultra High), Terrain(Ultra High), Geometry(Ultra High), Post FX(High), Texture(Ultra High), Shadow(Ultra High), Ambient(High), Hdr(Yes), Bloom(Yes), Fire(Very High), Physics(Very High), RealTrees(Very High).

The Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC Windforce manages to outperform the last generation GTX580, by around 5 frames per second. Fantastic results.

Shogun 2 is set in 16th-century feudal Japan, in the aftermath of the Ōnin War. The country is fractured into rival clans led by local warlords, each fighting for control. The player takes on the role of one of these warlords, with the goal of dominating other factions and claiming his rule over Japan. The standard edition of the game will feature a total of eight factions (plus a ninth faction for the tutorial), each with a unique starting position and different political and military strengths.

This game is based around a demanding Direct X 11 which requires a lot of power. It also generally runs better on AMD hardware although the Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC Windforce delivers very impressive results, averaging around 66 frames per second at these settings.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is an action role-playing open world video game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. Skyrim‘s main story revolves around the player character’s efforts to defeat Alduin, a Dragon god who is prophesized to destroy the world. Set two hundred years after Oblivion, the game takes place in the fictional province of Skyrim, upon the continent of Tamriel, and the planet of Nirn. The open world gameplay of the Elder Scrolls series returns in Skyrim; the player can explore the land at will and ignore or postpone the main quest indefinitely. Skyrim has received universal acclaim from critics, selling more than 3.5 million copies within the first 48 hours of release.

This engine tends to run better on AMD hardware, but the results are still extremely positive, averaging 60 frames per second at these demanding settings. Perfectly playable throughout on the native resolution of our 30 inch monitor.

According to EA, Battlefield 3 garnered 3 million pre-orders by the day of its release. It is unknown at present whether these figures are worldwide or just for the US. The pre-order total makes it “the biggest first-person shooter launch in EA history”, according to the publisher. The engine is beautiful on the PC and very demanding of the partnering hardware.

No problems powering this engine at 1080p with the high image quality settings. Around the same performance as the AMD HD7970.

The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 24c – a comfortable environment for the majority of people reading this.

Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes. Load measurements were acquired by playing Crysis Warhead for 30 minutes and measuring the peak temperature. We also have included Furmark results, recording maximum temperatures throughout a 30 minute stress test. All fan settings were left on automatic.

The cooling solution on the Gigabyte GTX660 Ti OC performs well, maintaining a <70c variable when gaming. This rises to 76c when loaded with the synthetic Furmark stress test.

We have changed our method of measuring noise levels. We have built a system inside a Lian Li chassis with no case fans and have used a fanless cooler on our CPU. The motherboard is also passively cooled. This gives us a build with almost completely passive cooling and it means we can measure noise of just the graphics card inside the system when we run looped 3dMark tests.

Ambient noise in the room is around 20-25dBa. We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the closed chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation.

Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on only the video card. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.

KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum

This cooler is extremely quiet, inaudible when idle and hardly noticeable when gaming. The fans spin at 1,200rpm when idle. When gaming, they spin to 1,600 rpm – this raises the noise levels to just below 33 dBa. When loaded with the synthetic stress test Furmark, they spin at 1,800 rpm, which is audible, but likely to be drown out inside an enthusiast gaming chassis.

All in all, fantastic acoustic performance.

To test power consumption today we are using a Keithley Integra unit and we measure power consumption from the VGA card inputs, not the system wide drain. We measure results while gaming in Crysis Warhead and record the results.

Considering the immense performance, the GTX660 Ti is an extremely efficient design, consuming around 150 watts when gaming.

To overclock today we are using the latest version of MSI Afterburner.

We managed to get almost another 10% from the core, with a final 1,127mhz frequency. The memory could be overclocked to 1,599mhz, around a 6.5% increase.

The Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC Windforce is an extremely capable video card which can power through the latest Direct X 11 games without breaking a sweat. Nvidia released the reference clocked GTX660 Ti to target AMD's HD7950, but Gigabyte's overclocked version is capable of playing at the same level as AMD's HD7970. This is a heck of an achievement considering the price point difference.

While Nvidia customers will have to wait until later this week for a new generation sub £200 gaming solution, the GTX660 Ti has rocked the performance charts, claiming top spot in the £250-£300 sector. It may have taken Nvidia some time to offer a challenge, but the GTX660 Ti has certainly been worth the wait.

As we mentioned in the previous GTX660 Ti review, the Direct X 11 performance in 3DMark 11 is particularly noteworthy. A score over 9,000 points is commendable and slightly higher than AMD's HD7970 GHZ Edition. Gigabyte's overclocked settings help push performance to a new level.

Nvidia have also managed to deliver great power efficiency results, while controlling heat dissipation. This is supported by the excellent Gigabyte twin fan Windforce cooling solution which offers enhancements over the reference solution. Under gaming load, core temperatures rise to 69c, this is not quite as impressive as the Asus GTX 660 Ti CU II TOP, but still well within safety parameters.

Gigabyte have focused on maintaining a non aggressive fan profile, which ensures that noise emissions are never a concern. The fans generally spin around 1,600 rpm under load, which is fantastic and suitable for those wanting to build a low noise, performance system.

While every card will vary, our sample had plenty of headroom available on the core. We managed to overclock the core from 1,033mhz to 1,137 mhz, almost a 10 percent clock increase.

The price point of the Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC Windforce is aggressive, ARIA in the UK stock the card for £255.54 inc vat, which is lower than many other of the performance GTX 660 Ti's cards currently available.

Pros:

• excellent overclocked performance.
• further headroom on the core via software tools.
• quiet.
• good value for a performance solution.

Cons:

• Those waiting for a sub £200 nvidia performance solution need to wait a few days longer.
• weak bundle.

Kitguru says: At this price, this card should be on the final shortlist for a 1080p+ gaming system.

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