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Gigabyte Geforce Gtx 660 2gb Video Card

Terminal month, Nvidia shook up the enthusiast GPU market by launching its nigh affordable Kepler offering yet. At $299, the GK104-based GeForce GTX 660 Ti was $100 (~30%) cheaper than our previous favorite enthusiast-level graphics bill of fare, the GTX 670, while beingness just 13% slower.

Likewise, the GTX 660 Ti was eleven% faster and more power efficient than the competing Radeon HD 7870 when testing at 1920x1200 on most games, despite matching it on toll.

Predictably, AMD neutralized that threat past slashing prices. The Hd 7870's price dropped to $249, while the HD 7850 barbarous from $239 to $209 and the HD 7950 dipped from $349 to $319. This counterbalanced things out, with products from both major GPU makers finding their rightful identify in the market. As is often the case, Nvidia dominated the premium segment, while AMD had stronger footing in the mainstream.

Always eager to keep AMD on its toes, Nvidia continues its push into the mid-range market with a Kepler-based card that is expected to retail for almost $230 -- right in-between AMD'southward Radeon HD 7850 and 7870. The GTX 660 is based on the new 28nm GK106 architecture and although this part differs from the GK104 in Nvidia's Ti card, the GK106 notwithstanding has all the key innovations introduced by the GTX 680.

Compared to the GTX 660 Ti, the non-Ti GPU has a lighter cadre configuration that will undoubtedly have an upshot on performance -- the consequence being a lower toll, of course. Kepler has notwithstanding to disappoint us, so we are optimistic that the GTX 660 will provide an attractive alternative to AMD's sub-$250 lineup. Naturally, nosotros'll have to get our easily dirty before drawing any conclusions.

Gigabyte GTX 660 in Detail

As was the case with the GTX 660 Ti, there isn't an official Nvidia reference lath for the GTX 660, leaving it up to manufacturing partners to create their own products. This means PCBs and lengths tin vary significantly betwixt cards.

We received Gigabyte's take on the GTX 660 (GV-N660OC-2GD). The lath'due south PCB measures 7.28" (xviii.5cm) long, which is quite compact on its own, simply the cooler pushes that to 9.44" (24.0cm), the same length as the Hd 7870 reference design. At this length, Gigabyte's GTX 660 should fit in most ATX cases equally information technology'southward much shorter than higher-end cards such equally the HD 7950.

The GTX 660'southward GPU has 960 CUDA cores (384 less than the GTX 660 Ti), v SMX units and 2 SMX units. The TAU count has been reduced to eighty from the Ti's 112, while the ROPs remain the same at 24.

The retentivity subsystem remains the same as the GTX 660 Ti, with three 64-bit controllers for a 192-bit-wide bus. Combine that with 2048MB of GDDR5 retentiveness clocked at 1502MHz (6008MHz DDR), and you finish upwards with a bandwidth of 144.2GB/south, which isn't bad, though it is 33% less than the GTX 670, and that'south where the functioning divergence lies.

Nvidia'due south specification for the base clock frequency is 980MHz, while the average heave clock speed is 1033MHz. Gigabyte has increased this to 1033MHz and 1098MHz, while the retention operates at the standard 6008MHz.

What really makes Gigabyte's iteration unique is its WindForce 2X cooler, which employs dual 75mm ultra placidity PWM fans continued to a custom shroud. Under these fans is a massive heatsink consisting of 3 chief parts connected by 8mm copper heatpipes.

At the heart of this setup is the biggest cake, which has a unique RAM heatsink to cool the GDDR5 modules and "Triangle Absurd" technology that uses a series of fins and triangular clip modules to meliorate direct airflow over the heatsink.

Gigabyte says its Triangle Absurd technology can reduce temperatures by upwardly to 10% over traditional designs, so we're neat to see but how cool this carte runs.

To feed the menu plenty juice, Nvidia's specification calls for a single 6-pin PCI Limited power connector -- identical to the Hard disk 7850. Nvidia also says those wishing to employ a single GTX 660 graphics card should have a 450 watt ability supply or greater.

Naturally, the GTX 660 supports SLI (2-way SLI), so it has a single connector. The only other ports are on the I/O console where yous'll find a pair of dual-link DVI-I connectors, a single HDMI 1.4a port, and a DisplayPort i.2 socket.