{"id":32679,"date":"2012-12-02T15:01:45","date_gmt":"2012-12-02T15:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=32679"},"modified":"2013-01-04T18:38:25","modified_gmt":"2013-01-04T18:38:25","slug":"gtx-660-sli-vs-gtx-680-vs-hd-7970-ghz-value-performance-evaluation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/gtx-660-sli-vs-gtx-680-vs-hd-7970-ghz-value-performance-evaluation\/","title":{"rendered":"GTX 660 SLI vs. GTX 680 vs. HD 7970 GHz – Value & Performance Evaluation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0This evaluation is about value, since two GTX 660s cost about\u00a0the same $440 that\u00a0a GTX 680 or a HD 7970 GHz Edition costs. \u00a0So the natural question is, what about performance?\u00a0 Can the midrange 192-bit GTX 660 SLI surpass\u00a0the high-end\u00a0256-bit GTX 680, or a 384-bit HD 7970\u00a0in performance at high resolution and high\u00a0detail settings –\u00a0and what about microstutter playing PC games?\"\"A pair of GTX 660s will cost you about $440 at NewEgg<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 This\u00a0is about the same price you will pay for a GHz Edition of the HD 7970<\/a> or for a GTX 680<\/a>.\u00a0 The evaluation that we are presenting here today compares the performance of the very fastest single\u00a0AMD and Nvidia video cards versus the decidedly midrange GTX 660 in SLI.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This evaluation is\u00a0a continuation\u00a0of an\u00a0ABT\u00a0series that\u00a0begins where our “SLI vs. CrossFire, Part 1 – mid-range multi-GPU scaling & value<\/a>,”<\/em> left off.\u00a0 In fact, that\u00a0series continued with High-end Multi-GPU Scaling<\/a>, <\/em>but we are going to return to\u00a0comparing a\u00a0pair of\u00a0mid-range video cards – the GTX 660 in SLI, versus the GTX 680 and versus the HD 7970 GHz edition.\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

One thing to note is that all of our video cards were run at their stock speeds whereas we overclocked our Core i7-3770K CPU to 4.5GHz to make sure that there is no CPU bottleneck.\u00a0 We are actually expanding on our midrange SLI versus a single powerful card\u00a0<\/em>series with three synthetic benches and 25 relatively new games – including\u00a0seventeen DX11 games, five DX10 games, and\u00a0three DX9 games.\u00a0 We are using the two fastest single-GPU graphics cards from each vendor – the GTX 680 and the HD 7970 at GHz edition clocks.<\/p>\n

We are continuing to test at two of the most demanding wide-screen resolutions, 1920×1200 and 2560×1600. We generally use 2x\/4xAA or 8xAA plus 16xAF and with maximum (ultra) DX11\/10.1\/10\/9c details whenever it is available. For all of our testing in this review, we are benching with Catalyst 12.11 and GeForce 310.33 drivers; each one a very solid and stable\u00a0beta driver set.<\/p>\n

What about “micro-stutter”?\u00a0 In the past, we have noted it on CrossFire and SLI setups.\u00a0 We shall see what happens when the\u00a0highest performance single-GPU video cards meet a midrange\u00a0multi-GPU video card in\u00a0SLI\u00a0in the Autumn of 2012.<\/p>\n

Please continue on to the next page for the complete hardware and software setup of our testing platform.<\/p>\n

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Test Configuration & Driver Release Notes<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Test Configuration<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Test Configuration – Hardware <\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n