The EVGA GTX 660 Superclocked edition arrives

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i7-3770K reference 3.50 GHz/Turbo to 3.7GHz, overclocked to 4.8 GHz; HyperThreading is on, supplied by Intel.
• EVGA Z77 FTW motherboard (latest Beta BIOS, USB/PCIe 3.0 specification; CrossFire/SLI 16x+16x), supplied by EVGA
• 8 GB OCZ DDR3 PC 1866 Kingston RAM (2×2 GB, tri-channel at 1866 MHz; supplied by Kingston)
• EVGA GTX 660 Superclocked edition 2GB (1045/6008MHz and also further overclocked)
• Galaxy GTX 660 GC, 2 GB (Galaxy base clocks of 980/3004MHz and also overclocked, +70MHz/+190MHz and underclocked to reference speeds), supplied by Galaxy
• EVGA GTX 660 Ti, 2 GB reference clocks, supplied by EVGA.
• HIS IceQX Radeon HD 7850, 2 GB with custom cooling at stock clocks (860/4800MHz) and overclocked (1000/5000MHz)
• Onboard Realtek Audio
• 2 x 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200-12 HDDs; one for AMD and one for Nvidia
• Thermaltake ToughPowerXT 775W power supply unit supplied by Thermaltake
• Thermaltake Overseer RX-I Full Tower case, supplied by Thermaltake
• Thermaltake Water2.0 Pro CPU watercooler, supplied by Thermaltake
• Philips DVD SATA writer
• HP LP3065 2560×1600 thirty inch LCD.

Test Configuration – Software

• Nvidia GeForce 306.02 Beta drivers for all GTXes. High Quality
• AMD 12.8 WHQL Catalyst drivers; latest CAPs. High Quality – optimizations off; use application settings
• Windows 7 64-bit; very latest updates
• Latest DirectX
• All games are patched to their latest versions.
• VSync is off in the control panel.
• AA enabled as noted in games; all in-game settings are specified with 16xAF always applied; 16xAF forced in control panel for Crysis.
• All results show average, minimum and maximum frame rates except as noted.
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
• Windows 7 64, all DX10 titles were run under DX10 render paths; DX11 titles under DX11 render paths.

The Benchmarks

Synthetic

• Vantage
• 3DMark 11
• Heaven 3.0

• Left 4 Dead 2
• Serious Sam 3 BFE
• Alan Wake: Ameican Nightmare

• Crysis
• Far Cry 2
• Just Cause 2
• World-in-Conflict Soviet Assault
• Resident Evil 5

• BattleForge
• Alien vs. Predator
• STALKER, Call of Pripyat
• Metro 2033
• F1 2010
• H.A.W.X. 2
• Lost Planet 2
• Shogun II
• Civilization V
• Crysis 2
• Dirt 3
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution
• Batman: Arkham City
• Battlefield 3
• Max Payne 3
• the Secret World

Before we get to the EVGA GTX 660 Superclock’s performance charts, let’s look at overclocking, power draw, noise, and temperatures.

Overclocking, Power Draw, Noise and Temperatures

Overclocking the EVGA GTX 660 is just as easy as overclocking the GTX 660 Ti, 670, 680 and 690 using PrecisionX. What is surprising is that we were able to overclock far past our Galaxy maximum overclock of their GTX 660 at 1046/6340MHz to 1115/7208MHz!!  We were able to add an additional +70MHz over the EVGA base clock for a total offset of +135MHz over the base clocks that Nvidia set for the reference GTX 660. On top of that, we were able to get +300MHz on the memory.  In fact, we were able to go higher on the memory but stopped when we were no longer getting performance increases.

We did not adjust the EVGA GTX 660 SC’s voltage. Temperatures were never an issue and the fan profile remained at stock which meant that the GTX 660 is also extraordinarily quiet at maximum load – the fan profile rarely went over 30% and the temperatures remained well under 60C under the most stressful conditions and highest load in any game that we tested which happened to be Battlefield 3. The EVGA GTX 660 SC and the Galaxy GTX 660 GC as well as the HIS IceQX HD 7850 are all very quiet cards and it is a toss up as to which one is quieter.

Let’s head to the performance charts to see how the EVGA GTX 660 SOC compares with the Galaxy 660 GC at stock, Galaxy-clocked and overclocked, as well as against the stock (860/4800MHz) and overclocked (1000/5000MHz) AMD HD 7850. As an added bonus, we are going to overclock the EVGA GTX 660 SC as far as it can go without raising the voltage or adjusting the fan profile to see if we can narrow the performance gap with an EVGA GTX 660 Ti at reference speeds.