NVIDIA announces $299 GeForce GTX 660 Ti, lets Kepler walk among the people
It's taken NVIDIA a mighty long time to squeeze its Kepler GPU into something more affordable than the GTX 670, but it's finally happened -- the mid-range GTX 660 Ti is out and available to purchase for $299 on boards from EVGA, Gigabyte, ASUS and the usual suspects. Some buyers may complain that's $50 more than the 560 Ti, while others will no doubt be reeling off their CVV codes already. For its part, NVIDIA claims the 660 Ti is the "best card per watt ever made" and that it beats even AMD's higher-priced Radeon HD 7950 at 1920 x 1080. Check out the slide deck below for official stats, as well as for examples of what the card can do with its support for DirectX 11 tessellation, PhysX (particularly on Borderlands 2, which you may well find bundled free) and NVIDIA's TXAA anti-aliasing.
We'll wait for independent benchmarks in our review round-up before making any judgment, but in the meantime it's fair to say that this 150-watt card comes fully featured. For a start, it has just as many 28nm CUDA cores as the GTX 670, the same base and GPU Boost clock speeds, the same 2GB of GDDR5 and indeed the same connectivity. The only sacrifice is memory bandwidth: all that computational performance is limited by a 192-bit memory bus, compared to the 256-bit width of the 670. Judging from those specs, we'd expect it to be almost 670-like in performance, and that's going to be pretty impressive.%Gallery-162585%
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The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti GPU: The New Weapon of Choice for Gamers
GPU Powered by World's Fastest, Most Efficient Graphics Architecture
Now Available to Gamers Starting at $299 / £249; Includes Free Copy of Upcoming Borderlands 2
SANTA CLARA, Calif.-Aug. 16, 2012-The NVIDIA® Kepler™ architecture, which has revolutionised how PC games are played since its introduction in March, powers the launch of the new NVIDIA GeForce® GTX 660 Ti GPU, which is available today starting at only $299 / £249.
Delivering truly game-changing performance for the most demanding PC games played at the gamer's preferred resolution of 1080p, the GTX 660 Ti is a dramatic upgrade for anyone playing on previous-generation graphics technology. The GTX 660 Ti is 41 percent faster on average than the GTX 560 Ti from 2011, and 58 percent faster on average than the GTX 470 from 2010.[i]
In addition to providing impressive performance, the GTX 660 Ti is filled with features, such as full support for DirectX 11 tessellation, TXAA, and PhysX® technologies and the ability to drive a 3+1 display configuration from a single card.
Factor in the Kepler architecture's great efficiency and low thermal design power and the GTX 660 Ti assures gamers of having the most stable, quiet and power-efficient gaming experience possible in its price class. The GTX 660 Ti even keeps pace in performance with competing products that cost $50 more, but consumes up to 25% less power[ii], a testament to the efficiency of the streaming multiprocessor built inside each Kepler chip.
These power savings come into sharp relief when two GTX 660 Ti cards are paired together in SLI mode, delivering performance that outpaces the competition by up to 21%.
For a limited time, gamers who purchase a GTX 660 Ti GPU from a participating retailer or e-tailer will receive a voucher for a free copy of Gearbox Software's Borderlands 2, which is launching next month. Borderlands 2 is on track to be one of this year's most popular PC titles and includes support for PhysX technology for a totally immersive gaming experience.
The GTX 660 Ti is built using NVIDIA's 28-nanometer Kepler architecture, as are the GTX 680, GTX 670 and dual-GPU GTX 690, all of which were introduced earlier this year.
Availability
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti GPU is available now from the world's leading add-in card suppliers, including ASL, ASUS, Colorful, ECS, EVGA, Gainward, Galaxy, Gigabyte, Innovision 3D, Jetway, Leadtek, MSI, Palit, Point of View, PNY, Sparkle and Zotac.
More information about the GeForce GTX 660 Ti is available from www.GeForce.com. For more NVIDIA news, company and product information, videos, images and other information, please visit the NVIDIA newsroom. The NVIDIA Flickr page http://www.flickr.com/photos/nvidia hosts GTX 660 Ti product photos.
Quotes
"Power efficient and quiet with a new level of performance. Spend less on a high watt PSU and put the savings towards the best bang for buck GPU on the market. The GeForce GTX 660 Ti is going to be in demand!", said Elan Raja III, Director at Scan Computers
