Gigabyte GTX 660 OC Video Card Review
Author: Dennis Garcia
Published: Thursday, September 13, 2012
Conclusion
During our testing the Gigabyte GTX 660 ran extremely well and surprised us with some really good results at even the massive 2560x1600 screen resolution. NVidia has positioned this card to be a best in class performer and provide good 1080p gaming performance. As we have seen from our testing the GTX 660 does perform well at 1080p with only a few instances of average framerates falling below the target 60fps. Keep in mind that we also cranked the settings up so relaxing those is a simple fix for more FPS.
Overclocking is a big part of the enthusiast community but not always something of importance in a mainstream product. During our tests we were able to clock the card up to 1073Mhz which was a net gain of 50Mhz. Not exactly a record breaker but considering the ample factory overclock and target market for this GPU we aren't exactly hurting for any extra performance.
Despite our issues overclocking the Gigabyte GTX 660 card the custom Windforce cooler did a great job at keeping temperatures down where they should be with a minimal noise footprint. In fact during our tests we noticed that even with the fans cranked up the GPU temperature remained the same under load. It's not very often that you find a GPU cooler that is actually oversized for your application but in this case it is.
Of course for those who want a real performance boost the solution you need is SLI. Mid-range GPUs are notorious for their 100% performance gains and all it will cost you is the price of a second GPU.
Overclocking is a big part of the enthusiast community but not always something of importance in a mainstream product. During our tests we were able to clock the card up to 1073Mhz which was a net gain of 50Mhz. Not exactly a record breaker but considering the ample factory overclock and target market for this GPU we aren't exactly hurting for any extra performance.
Despite our issues overclocking the Gigabyte GTX 660 card the custom Windforce cooler did a great job at keeping temperatures down where they should be with a minimal noise footprint. In fact during our tests we noticed that even with the fans cranked up the GPU temperature remained the same under load. It's not very often that you find a GPU cooler that is actually oversized for your application but in this case it is.
Of course for those who want a real performance boost the solution you need is SLI. Mid-range GPUs are notorious for their 100% performance gains and all it will cost you is the price of a second GPU.
OC Guru II
We talk a lot about using Afterburner to overclock and monitor our video cards. While the application works great it should be known that Gigabyte has a similar application called OC Guru II. The interface is different but has a chicklet for every item needed for a suscessful overclock.
It even comes with a monitoring screen for "up to the second" stats and 5 user profile slots for custom performance configurations.
Good Things
Windforce Cooler
Quiet Cooling
Compact PCB Design
Factory Overclocked
Quiet Cooling
Compact PCB Design
Factory Overclocked
Bad Things
Card didn't like overclocking beyond the factory 1033Mhz
