Upgrade to 1 GTX 660Ti from 2 GTX 460's in SLi?

[mattmatik]

Hey Larry, mind posting up a little review once you have the card and have messed with it for a bit? For some reason, the 660Ti intrigues me a great deal.

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

FWIW, when shipping internationally, there's always a chance of getting dinged by customs, at which point they'll hit you with a duty tax which could make the entire enterprise not worth it.

You can always attempt to go around it by declaring the value of what you're shipping as less than what it is, or saying it's used, or um, other things, but you're SOL if they find out that's not true.

Yeah, this did cross my mind. Would basically render the whole mission useless, but I wonder how easy it is to get around it.

I was also wondering if it came from my work address, which I can ship from, if it would potentially get overlooked since we have an office or two in the UK.

i was one that voted 'no' originally based on the benchmarks. however, i love buying new hardware! plus, you get the copy of Borderlands for free. btw, you can use Physx in Borderlands. it looks spectacular.

in the near future, i'd save up some money and SLI that thing!

That is the plan. At worse, will ask for another one for Christmas, at best, I may be receiving an award at work soon for a project I just wrapped up, the lowest level of the award after taxes is, wait for it, $360. :shiftyninja: :laugh:

but yeah, two things played a pretty big role in this, both of which you mentioned. One, I like getting new toys, Two, Borderlands is $60, so I tried to look at it as the new card was $240.

I know I'm late on this, but .... 660Ti. lol. Sorry Larry. hahah

LOL No problem.

Hey Larry, mind posting up a little review once you have the card and have messed with it for a bit? For some reason, the 660Ti intrigues me a great deal.

My initial impression so far is very, very positive.

I fired up Battlefield 3 right away since it is a game I love to play, part of my thinking in getting this card was to prepare for Armored Fury, and despite what benchmarks will tell you, I got better performance from this one card then I did with my two cards in SLi.

The game was on the default settings I used to play it at with my 460's, and I was getting over 90 fps. Saw it get as high as 125. It was a mixture of medium and high settings, as I always prefer performance over visuals.

I then said screw it, and turned up everything as high as it could go. Literally everything was Ultra. 1920 x 1080.

Averaged right around 60 FPS the entire time. Saw it go as high as 72, and as low as 45, but that was with a whole, whole lot of chaos, and that was very rare. Typically it stayed right around 60 FPS, which is actually a decent amount higher then the benchmarks I have seen. It also never got higher then 43 degrees, which is pretty amazing. I was truly happy considering when i attempted the same settings with my 460's, it averaged around 40 FPS.

I did have a bit of weirdness when I first installed it, my device manager was just reading the card as Microsoft Basic Visual Display or something along those lines. Usually it at least detects it is a Nvidia card, but not this time. I went ahead and still installed the drivers, and the card was recognized instantly. that was the one and only issue I had, and it was nothing major. Other than that, everything else went smooth as can be.

So so far so good. Will definitely come and update this thread in a few weeks after I check out a few more games. I have a feeling Counter Strike is going to perform insanely good. Like over 100 FPS good.

[threetonesun]

Yeah, this did cross my mind. Would basically render the whole mission useless, but I wonder how easy it is to get around it.

I was also wondering if it came from my work address, which I can ship from, if it would potentially get overlooked since we have an office or two in the UK.

If you try doing a business -> home address, it will definitely get flagged. Person to person, depends on what you declare it as.

Business -> business -> home, probably no one would ever care.

[tsupersonic]

congrats! I'm tempted to upgrade from my 560 Ti (got it for free). I could sell my 560 Ti and get a 660 Ti, but I really have no reason to upgrade.

I don't like how Nvidia has a history of releasing a 2nd version of x60 cards - they did this with the GTX 260 (192 cores then later 216 cores), 560 Ti (384 cores, then 448 cores). I hope they don't do that with the 660 Ti.

[mattmatik]

My initial impression so far is very, very positive.

I fired up Battlefield 3 right away since it is a game I love to play, part of my thinking in getting this card was to prepare for Armored Fury, and despite what benchmarks will tell you, I got better performance from this one card then I did with my two cards in SLi.

The game was on the default settings I used to play it at with my 460's, and I was getting over 90 fps. Saw it get as high as 125. It was a mixture of medium and high settings, as I always prefer performance over visuals.

I then said screw it, and turned up everything as high as it could go. Literally everything was Ultra. 1920 x 1080.

Averaged right around 60 FPS the entire time. Saw it go as high as 72, and as low as 45, but that was with a whole, whole lot of chaos, and that was very rare. Typically it stayed right around 60 FPS, which is actually a decent amount higher then the benchmarks I have seen. It also never got higher then 43 degrees, which is pretty amazing. I was truly happy considering when i attempted the same settings with my 460's, it averaged around 40 FPS.

I did have a bit of weirdness when I first installed it, my device manager was just reading the card as Microsoft Basic Visual Display or something along those lines. Usually it at least detects it is a Nvidia card, but not this time. I went ahead and still installed the drivers, and the card was recognized instantly. that was the one and only issue I had, and it was nothing major. Other than that, everything else went smooth as can be.

So so far so good. Will definitely come and update this thread in a few weeks after I check out a few more games. I have a feeling Counter Strike is going to perform insanely good. Like over 100 FPS good.

Thanks a lot.

I'm really itching to pull the trigger and upgrade my 6850. Twice I've got to the checkout on newegg and held off...don't know how many more times I can do that though! I'm sure CS will play very well, hell it plays great on my 6850, But yeah, with Armored Kill coming out for BF3 I just think the 660ti will be the way to go for me. And you gotta love the free Borderlands 2. And the SLi option later on is definitely intriguing.

I need to find a suitor for the 6850.

[Xerxes]

I'd say get the 660 Ti, since you can buy another and SLI them later on, it's a more cost effective option for you. I upgraded to the 670 (from a 260) simply because I wanted a decent card that will last me a few years (got 4 out of my 260, so hoping for the same again) and SLI is not an option (my m/b doesn't support it). Very happy with the 670, can max out all but the most recent games although running at my 24" @ 1920 x 1200 monitor's native resolution probably is pushing the card too hard :p but overall, is a great card :happy:

[mattmatik]

About to pull the trigger on the MSI 660Ti PE but just wanted to see if there are any additional comments/opinions on the card. I currently game on a 22" 1680x1050 monitor but am hoping to get a new one for Christmas.

[cps1974]

About to pull the trigger on the MSI 660Ti PE but just wanted to see if there are any additional comments/opinions on the card. I currently game on a 22" 1680x1050 monitor but am hoping to get a new one for Christmas.

hi pal - did you make a purchase yet? i see no harm in the upgrade but wonder if you will see any major benefits. I went from GTX 460 SLI (oc @ +/- 800MHz) to Gainward Phantom GTX 670 2GB - I've seen a large difference but I play games @ 1920x1080 with as much AA and AF and FXAA I can get

- BF3 @ the ultra presets needs more than 1GB to run without stutter

- Skyrim needs more than 1GB ram (ultra, nvidia settings tuned via nvinspector, HD textures for all aspects of game, ENB with SSAO etc)

the above 2 games (along with Metro2033) are the most demanding 3d fps games I've come across in terms of card memory usage and I reckon @ 1650x1000 the 1GB memory is less of an issue whilst the 2 x 800MHz in the SLI config is better than 1 x 1100/1000Mhz with the 660

of course you will use a lot less power, the 6xx cards are very efficient on power imho and your case will have lower temps and better airflow with 1 card rather than 2.

what games do you play?

CHaz

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

About to pull the trigger on the MSI 660Ti PE but just wanted to see if there are any additional comments/opinions on the card. I currently game on a 22" 1680x1050 monitor but am hoping to get a new one for Christmas.

the 660 would match perfectly w/ that "low" resolution. it'll allow you to run most games at max settings. have you ever seen Metro 2033 completely maxed out? it's insane.

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

About to pull the trigger on the MSI 660Ti PE but just wanted to see if there are any additional comments/opinions on the card. I currently game on a 22" 1680x1050 monitor but am hoping to get a new one for Christmas.

Sorry man, never saw you ask this or I would have replied.

Liking the card so far, a lot actually. Although SLi was not a huge pain, it is nice to not even have to worry about it. And I am definitely getting the same, if not slightly better performance, from the 660Ti.

Temps have remained very good, it runs all current games, including BF3, at 1920x1080 with almost everything set to high or ultra, at very damn good frame rates. Overall, very happy with the purchase. So yeah, especially considering you want to do 1680, this card will be a beast for you. (Y)