While all the attention is paid to the extreme high end when it comes to graphics cards -- and which is the
fastest card ever
-- not as many gamers are willing to pay $500 or more for those boards.
So it may not be as exciting when the new high-end technologies trickle
down to the mid range -- that is, unless you're in the market for one
of those cards.
A case in point is the new Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 Ti, which is built
using the same GK104 GPU (a.k.a Kepler) that powers the blazing -- and
pricey --
GeForce GTX 680,
but will cost around $299 instead of $499. Obviously, you won't get the
same performance, but if you're upgrading from an older card, the
benefits will be readily apparent. You will get 1,344 CUDA cores, 2GB of
video memory, a 192-bit memory bus, and a base clock speed of 915MHz.
Those specs are for any reference card, though customized and
overclocked cards from Nvidia's manufacturing partners are available.
So how does the GTX 660 Ti's performance compare to the AMD Radeon HD
7870 and Radeon HD 7950, two competing cards that bookend the new
Nvidia board in pricing? As is more the case these days, results are
mixed from test to test and reviewer to reviewer (see
Anandtech,
HotHardware, and
Tom's Hardware)
-- there's no slam-dunk pick among these mid-range cards. AMD has made
things even trickier by announcing that it would be providing a BIOS
update to the Radeon HD 7950 that will provide its Boost software
overclocking tool, no doubt trying to cushion the blow from the GTX 660
Ti launch.
Gaming PC makers have been quick to announce support for the new
Nvidia card, with everyone from CyberPower to Maingear to Velocity Micro
now including the GTX 660 Ti as an option for their gaming desktops.
Are you in the market for the new card, or would you prefer one of AMD's
mid-range offerings?
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