EVGA GeForce GTX 660 SuperClocked Review

Featuring EVGA's 3-Year Global Warranty, Extendable to 10-Years

Manufacturer: EVGA Corporation
Product Name: GeForce GTX 660
Model Number: 2GB SC SuperClocked
Part Number: 02G-P4-2662-KR
UPC: 843368021757
Suggested Retail Price: $229.99 (Newegg)

Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by EVGA.

Of the many platforms available for gamers to enjoy video games, there's no question that the highest quality graphics come from PC. While game developers might not consider PC gaming as lucrative as entertainment consoles, companies like NVIDIA use desktop graphics to set the benchmark for smaller more compact designs that make it into notebooks, tablets, and smartphone devices. NVIDIA's Kepler GPU architecture is an example of this, delivering unprecedented performance while operating cooler and consuming far less power than previous flagship discrete graphics cards. GeForce GTX 660 hits the performance-to-value sweet spot.

When PC gamers upgrade their computer's video card, they want to get as much value as possible from their investment. They also want to be covered in case of failure, and get back into the fight as quickly as possible. NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 660 graphics card delivers impressive performance to the mainstream, pushed into hyper speed by EVGA's factory SuperClocked treatment. A 3-year warranty can be extended to 10-years, surpassing every other brand in the industry. In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests the EVGA GeForce GTX 660 2GB SC (model 02G-P4-2662-KR) against a collection of DirectX 11 discrete graphics solutions.

Built on NVIDIA's GK106 graphics processor, the GeForce GTX 660 offers all the same high-end features found on the top-end GTX video cards but with a much more affordable price tag. In addition to a new and improved Kepler GPU architecture with NVIDIA GPU Boost technology, the GeForce GTX 660 video card delivers further refinement to the user experience. Smoother FXAA and adaptive vSync technology results in less chop, stutter, and tearing in on-screen motion. Adaptive vSync adjusts the monitor's refresh rate whenever the FPS rate becomes too low to properly sustain vertical sync, thereby reducing stutter and tearing artifacts. NVIDIA TXAA helps deliver a film-style anti-aliasing technique with a mix of hardware post-processing, custom CG file style AA resolve, and an optional temporal component for better image quality.

EVGA further extends GeForce GTX 660 functionality with a stable factory overclocked 28nm Kepler GPU. Equipped with 960 CUDA cores, NVIDIA's reference GeForce GTX 660 has a GPU clocked to 980MHz core/1033 boost which EVGA raises to 1046MHz core/1111 boost with 'SuperClocked' treatment. The card's GDDR5 memory is clocked to 1502MHz (6008MHz realized) is identical to NVIDIA's top-end flagship model: GeForce GTX 680. A 192-bit memory bandwidth matches that of the GTX 660 Titanium model that recently debuted, and produces 144.19 GB/s.

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