NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti Preview: ASUS DirectCU II TOP and Gainward Phantom

Introducing the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti

Hitting A New High At A Lower Price Point

In actuality, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti graphics card samples came earlier this week, but because of the existing non-disclosure agreement (NDA), we chose to be silent. But now that the NDA has been lifted, nothing can stop us from sharing with you a preview of NVIDIA’s latest offering under the Kepler-based GeForce 600 series.

The GeForce GTX 660 Ti is part of the high-end category of the GeForce 600 series. A look back at the previous months, NVIDIA has already released other members of the series. High-end ones like the GTX 670, GTX 680, and the dual-GPU GTX 690 have been around in the market for quite some time. Entry-level ones such as the GT 610, GT 620, and the GT 630 are hard to forget, knowing that NVIDIA gave away over a hundred of these cards during the successful GeForce Day event last month. In the middle of these two extremes, there is the GT 640 that comes in a number of configurations.

The NVIDIA GeForce 600 Series

GPU	Code Name	Fab (nm)	Die Size (mm2)	Transistors (in millions)	CUDA Cores	Graphics Clock	Processor Clock	Memory Clock	Bus Width (bit)	Memory Size	TDP (watts)	Temp (°C)
	GF119	40	79	Unknown	48	810MHz	1620MHz	1800MHz	64	1GB DDR3	29	102
	GF108	40	116	585	96	700MHz	1400MHz	1800MHz	64	1GB DDR3	49	98
	GF108	40	116	585	96	810MHz	1620MHz	1800MHz, 3200MHz	128	1GB DDR3, GDDR5	65	98
	GK107	28	118	1300	144, 384	720MHz, 797MHz, 950MHz	797MHz, 950MHz, 1440MHz	851MHz, 2500MHz	128, 192	1GB, 1.5GB, 2GB, 3GB DDR3/GDDR5	75	102
	GK104	28	294	3540	1344	915MHz	915MHz	6008MHz	192	2GB GDDR5	150	97
	GK104	28	294	3540	1344	915MHz	980MHz	6008MHz	256	2GB GDDR5	170	97
	GK104	28	294	3540	1536	1006MHz	1006MHz	6008MHz	256	2GB, 4GB GDDR5	195	98
	2x GK104	28	2x 294	2x 3540	3072	915MHz	915MHz	6008MHz	2x 256	2x 2GB GDDR5	300	98

Instead of reading a lengthy explanation, simply refer to the table above. Here, the GTX 660 Ti is somewhere in between the lower and higher end GeForce 600 GPUs. The first three are based on the older 40nm fabrication process and are known as rebranded GPUs from the GeForce 500 series. From the midrange GT 640 down to the top-end GTX 690, everything is manufactured using the new 28nm process.

Prior to the publishing of this article, details about the GTX 660 Ti were quite scarce and we just relied on those that we got from the Internet. The table above shows that the GPU shares similarities with the popular GTX 670, although differences in terms of bus width and power consumption are notable. With lower specifications, we anticipate that GTX 660 Ti cards would sell at lower price points. We’ll know more about it soon.

In this article, let us take a closer look at the GTX 660 Ti by quickly inspecting the ASUS GeForce GTX 660 Ti DirectCU II TOP and the Gainward GeForce GTX 660 Ti Phantom.