Is The GTX 660 Ti Still Worth Buying

The 640 A Budget Card: Not Much in Between

There was nothing really in between when it came to budget cards, costing just over $100. This meant that those looking to buy into the new lineup would have had to put up with either average performance at one end or spend a ton of cash at the other. The introduction of the 660 Ti offered something special for the mid-range Enthusiast, and we've got our hands on the EVGA version.

A Closer Look at the EVGA 660 Ti Superclocked Edition

Our test card is about 9% slower than a reference 67 and features a base clock of 980 MHz, 1,344 CUDA cores, and 2 GB of GDDR5. It requires a 450 W PSU with two six-pin connectors and supports DirectX 11 and even 12, ensuring that modern games won't be an issue as long as it has the power to handle them.

Testing the EVGA 660 Ti Superclocked Edition

We're using our i5 4460 here and 8 GB of DDR3, a moderate system which will allow the card to reach its maximum potential. All games are played and recorded at 1080p with NVIDIA's Shadow Play. We started with Fallout 4 in high preset but turned God RS down to low as they impact performance unnecessarily quite a bit. We're seeing an average of 48 frames per second here, which is still quite impressive.

A Balanced Experience: GTA V and Battlefield 1

Next up was GTA 5 on high settings with MSAA off, but FXAA enabled. The game runs very smoothly at around 62 FPS dropping into the low 50s on occasions. However, we wouldn't recommend any higher than this in terms of settings, as very high settings are limited somewhat by the 2 GB of VRAM and the slight graphical improvements aren't really worth it for knocked performance.

The Final Test: Far Cry Primal

For our final test, we started with Far Cry Primal on high preset. The game defaulted to high settings so that's where we left it. We saw 43 frames per second throughout the game, which did drop when entering or leaving caves, but this was like a 2-second stutter most of the time that soon corrected itself.

Conclusion

There's no need to really go any more in depth with this card as it is still more than capable of handling whatever you throw at it. It should be noted though that if you can get the standard 670 for the same or less money, then go for that. Alternatively, the GTX 950 is about the same in terms of performance and features newer architecture if you wanted to pay a little bit more.

A Look Back at the GTX 660 Ti

As we've seen, the EVGA 660 Ti Superclocked Edition is still a viable option for those looking to build a system with an older card. However, it's worth noting that going the other way and getting the standard 670 or even a little bit more may be worth considering if budget is no object. The GTX 950 offers similar performance but with newer architecture at a slightly higher price point.