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Benchmarks are the meat of any graphics card review. We put the EVGA Geforce GTX 660 through its paces, and stacked it up against one of Nvidia's most powerful cards, the GTX 680, last year's EVGA GTX 560 SC and the comparably priced Radeon HD 7850 to provide some sense of scale.
Benchmarks
All benchmarks were run on the highest settings at 1920x1200, (except when otherwise noted) with 4X MSAA enabled. Our test bed consisted of an Intel Core i7-3960X at stock speeds on an Asus P9X79 Deluxe board with 16GB of DDR3/1600 RAM, a 256GB Samsung 830 series SSD drive and a 1050W Thermaltake power supply.
DirectX 11 tessellation performance: Frames per second: higher is better
Unigine Heaven 2.5
EVGA GTX 680: 49
EVGA Geforce GTX 660: 35
XFX Radeon HD 7850: 31
DirectX 11 gaming performance: Frames per second: Higher is better
Far Cry 2
EVGA GTX 680: 154
EVGA Geforce GTX 660: 117
XFX Radeon HD 7850: 103
EVGA GTX 560 SC: 91
Metro 2033
EVGA GTX 680: 28
EVGA Geforce GTX 660: 24
XFX Radeon HD 7850: 23
EVGA GTX 560 SC: 17
Batman Arkham City
EVGA GTX 680: 94
EVGA Geforce GTX 660: 76
EVGA GTX 560 SC: 40
XFX Radeon HD 7850: 60
Total War: Shogun 2
Run at 1920x1080 with graphics on High
EVGA GTX 680: 63
EVGA Geforce GTX 660: 48
EVGA GTX 560 SC: 34
XFX Radeon HD 7850: 47
We Liked
Pretty much everything. At $229, EVGA's Geforce GTX 660 is a great a value. It's considerably cheaper than Nvidia's next most powerful card, the GTX 660Ti, and edges out the comparably priced Radeon HD 7850. While it isn't built for the monster resolutions that card supports, it provides a reliable 1080p performance. Competitive multiplayer gamers will definitely want to ease off some of the more intense detail levels and anti-aliasing in favor of higher frame rates, but this should be expected with a mid-level card.
We didn't like
Not that much. If you can afford it, we'd still recommend the GTX 660Ti, especially if there's a massive monitor in your future. That card pumps out resolutions the regular GTX 660 can't handle reliably. Also, it's not a giant leap forward from the GTX 580 or a GTX 560, but if you're still using a 400-series cards like the GTX 460 or a 9800 GT, the 660 will be a great upgrade.
Verdict
The Geforce GTX 660 is a great value. If you're not looking to play on a jumbotron at 2560x1600, it will be enough to power your gaming sessions on the latest PC titles. With DVI-I and DVI-D inputs as well as DisplayPort and HDMI, it's more than ready for your home gaming setup. Dual SLI-support is nice as well, as support 3D, if you've got the matching display and glasses to support the extra dimension.
