Galaxy’s GTX 660 arrives!
Performance summary charts & graphs
Here are the summary charts of 24 modern PC games and 3 synthetic tests. The highest settings are generally chosen and it is DX11 when there is a choice; DX10 is picked above DX9, and the settings are generally ultra or maxed unless specified on the chart. Specific settings are listed on the Main Performance chart. The benches are run at 1920×1200 and 1680×1050 with separate charts devoted to dividing games up into easy to read charts by their DX pathway and by resolution.
Main Overall Summary chart
In the first three columns of the main performance summary chart, the Galaxy GTX 660 GC is tested at Nvidia reference clocks (Column 1) and also factory overclocked (2) and further overclocked (3) next to a single stock GTX 660 Ti (4) for comparison; next (column 5) is a single GTX 670, next to a GTX 460 FTW edition (in column 6). In the last two columns, the HD 7850 is featured, first at stock clocks (column 7) and then at the highest factory overclock available in the last column.
(Far Cry 2 does not run properly on Catalyst 12-8 so the HD 7850 was tested using Catalyst 12-4*; in Max Payne 3, the GTX 460 FTW and the GTX 570 are unable to run 1920×1200* resolution with only 1GB of vRAM.).
Above is the master chart and although it has not been made into a graph as there is too much information to put onto a single graph, there are many other charts and sub-graphs that are based on it that follow.
All results, except for Vantage and 3DMark11, show average framerates and higher is always better. In-game settings are fully maxed out and they are identically high or ultra across all platforms. As usual, we begin with the synthetics.
Futuremark & Heaven synthetic tests
3DMark11 is Futuremark’s latest DX11-only benchmark and Vantage is DX10. Unfortunately, scores are completely meaningless when they are presented in this way but they do offer supporting data to accompany our game benches. Here is the chart with Vantage and 3D Mark11:
The Galaxy GTX 660 GC beats the GTX 570 – especially in 3DMark11 – and the HD 7850 and pulls way ahead of the other older FTW GTX 460; and when it is overclocked, it scales well. However, these are synthetic benches and not games.
Heaven 3.0 is a very demanding benchmark and here it is expressed in a chart.
Again, synthetic tests are interesting but they are not necessarily indicative of real world gaming performance. In all three cases, the overclocked Galaxy GTX 680 GC “wins” over everything else except the GTX 660 Ti by a fair margin. Next up, let’s look at DX9 games.
DX9 Games
We test the popular Source Engine represented by Left 4 Dead 2 and also a demanding DX9 game, Serious Sam 3, BFE with both at completely maxed out settings. We recently added Alan Wake: American Nightmare with completely maxed out settings including 4xAA plus FXAA High. First up is 1680×1050.
Next up is 1920×1200.
Both Left 4 Dead 2 and Serious Sam 3 BFE are faster on the GTX 660 Ti than any of the other cards. The Galaxy GTX 660 GC improves strongly over the GTX 570 and especially over the overclocked GTX 460 FTW. The further overclocked Galaxy GTX 660 is significantly faster than even the fastest factory overclocked HD 7850. Let’s check out DX10 games
DX10 Games
We test five DX10 games – Resident Evil 5, Just Cause 3, Far Cry 2, Crysis and World in Conflict: Soviet Assault. Here is 1680×1050 resolution on a single chart.
Now at 1920×1200
Out of these five DX10 games, the GTX 660 Ti wins but the Galaxy GTX 660 especially overclocked, comes close. In all cases, the new GTX is faster than the overclocked HD 7850.
DX11 Games
Most of our testing emphasizes DX11 games and we bench 16. Since the charts would get too long, we break them up into charts of 8 games each.
First up are the older DX11 games at 1680×1050
And now at 1920×1200
Now the newer DX11 games at 168×1050:
Finally the newer DX11 games at 1920×1200
In every single case, the Galaxy GTX 660 downclocked to reference speeds beats the competing HD 7850 even when it is overclocked to the highest factory overclock available! In only 4 games out of the 24 we tested does the HD 7850 even come close. This is a blow-out win for the GTX 660.
We also see the GTX 660 handily beating the GTX 460 FTW even though the EVGA card is highly overclocked over a reference GTX 460. And the GTX 660 is also stronger than the GTX 570, the second fastest GTX of the Fermi generation after the GTX 580. Also, in all cases, the GTX 660 Ti is faster than the GTX 660 although overclocked in a few games, it comes relatively close and it is a good value for $229- $70 less than the more expensive Ti
Let’s head for our conclusion.
