Is the GeForce GTX 660 2GB GDDR5 the best card money can buy for 120 bucks?

saucell · Dec 4, 2014

hello, the GeForce GTX 660 2GB GDDR5 is currently on sale at frys electronics for 150 plus 30 dollar rebate, I have a few questions!

Is this card the best you could hope to buy for 120 bucks, or are there similar cards with comparable performance for around the same price? I ask because the sale is ending soon and im thinking about buying it before its too late, but if this card is not much better than any normal priced 150 dollar card then i wont be too anxious to pull the trigger.

Also my current card is the PowerColor AX6670 1GBK3-H Radeon HD 6670 1GB 128-bit DDR3, What kind of performance gains could i expect upgrading to the GTX 660 2B GDDR5? Would it be a massive difference? Thank you!

Calculagator · Dec 4, 2014

I don't know that it's the "best" since sales come and go, but it is a decent value. You can expect huge performance gains over your 6670. It has roughly 3-4 times the power of the 6670.
The closest comparable card from AMD would be the R7 265 which you can pick up for about $130.

Alec Mowat · Dec 4, 2014

What is your PSU?

saucell · Dec 4, 2014

Thank you for your response, that AMD card also looks great. How comparable would you say it is? is it basically the same card power wise? If so i wont be buying the gtx660 just because its on sale, i will take my time and pick up something like the AMD r7 265 at a later date. Thank you!

saucell · Dec 4, 2014

Im still on my orginal cooler master 460 watt PSU. Im assuming i would have to upgrade to a new PSU, perhaps a 600W?

Calculagator · Dec 4, 2014

It is pretty much equal as far as I can tell. You may be able to pick up a 270 for not much more as well which will beat the 660 in most benchmarks.

Alec Mowat · Dec 4, 2014

saucell :

500W would be fine, but that's already increasing your budget by another $60.

You might be better off with a 750 ti.

What CPU are you using?

saucell · Dec 4, 2014

Thank you Calculagator, ill hold off on the sale and take more time to buy the right card for around the same price.

Alec my cpu is a AMD Phenom II X4 925 2.8GHz (Quad Core) 45nm, AM3 6MB Cache and im using 4GB PC12800 DDR3 1600MHz ram. I mostly want to upgrade my gpu to play last gen games at high frame rates and settings, games like skyrim or the ezio assassins creed trilogy. Im not trying to build a gaming rig that will do current gen stuff like far cry 4 at ultra settings or anything. thanks

Calculagator · Dec 4, 2014

The 750 ti would be a better value if it would mean not upgrading your psu. I do think that a good 460w power supply should be able to handle your system with an r7 270.

Alec Mowat · Dec 4, 2014

saucell :

You are going to hit a big bottleneck on your CPU and RAM, I don't think you will run Farcry 4 well.
You'll need at least 8 GB of RAM and probably an FX or i5 at least.

I think the best GPU is the 750 ti for your setup, don't upgrade your PSU. You'll be able to run new games, but not at ultra. The performance isn't far behind the 660, but the power consumption is a lot less.

You're next purchase will be a whole new system.

saucell · Dec 4, 2014

Is the 750 ti a better card then the r7 270? Im ok with replacing the psu if i have to, my current gpu causes the psu fan can get fairly loud after gaming on it for a while, i would imagine a better gpu would do the same or worse.

Alec- yes, im just looking into giving my 2010 computer one last upgrade until i have to start fresh! Im mostly playing games from a few years ago, but good to know the 750 ti could run new games!

Calculagator · Dec 4, 2014

saucell :

It's not a better performing card, but it gets similar performance using half as much power. It's the better choice for systems that have small PSUs.

Alec Mowat · Dec 4, 2014

saucell :

It won't really matter which card is better, you will bottleneck on your CPU performance and RAM with either card. Buying a card better than the 750 ti will provide a minimal benefit and require you to upgrade your PSU, adding significantly higher cost.

saucell · Dec 4, 2014

thanks for helping me guys, the 750ti would probably be the way i go from my current rig. I was thinking this upgrade would bleed into my next system, meaning if i bought a new psu and a better gpu then currently needed i could put them into a new rig into the future. however i do like saving money and not buying a new psu would be nice on the wallet. you guys are freakin smart!

Alec Mowat · Dec 4, 2014

saucell :

You could bleed the GPU over, but realistically, by the time you get a new rig, there will be better cards for less money on the market anyway.

saucell · Dec 4, 2014

Ill most likely buy the 750ti after xmas. thanks again Alec Mowat and Calculagator! you guys fuggin ROCK!!11111

Calculagator · Dec 4, 2014

Alec Mowat :

This is just not true for the games you indicated. Skyrim and the Assasins creed 1-3 will run just fine with a Phenom II and 4 gb. You could get better performance with a better cpu, but your primary bottleneck right now is your GPU and will continue to be even if you upgrade to a 750ti. You absolutely will get a massive increase in performance by upgrading to a 750 ti/ r7 260ish. You can always increase your ram if it is a problem, but more than 4gb is only required for either the most modern games or the absolute top performance. You are very explicitly not aiming for these things.

Alec Mowat · Dec 4, 2014

Calculagator :

Alec Mowat :

This is just not true for the games you indicated. Skyrim and the Assasins creed 1-3 will run just fine with a Phenom II and 4 gb. You could get better performance with a better cpu, but your primary bottleneck right now is your GPU and will continue to be even if you upgrade to a 750ti. You absolutely will get a massive increase in performance by upgrading to a 750 ti/ r7 260ish. You can always increase your ram if it is a problem, but more than 4gb is only required for either the most modern games or the absolute top performance. You are very explicitly not aiming for these things.

Skyrim will bottleneck on that CPU pretty hard.

Most games will bottleneck on that CPU, That's not a BE chip. It's a low grade, 925.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Phenom+II+X4+925

Calculagator · Dec 5, 2014

Alec Mowat :

I think that you and I must have pretty different standards. The best comparison of amd CPU's running Skyrim is here: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/piledriver-k10-cpu-overclocking,3584-15.html
The Phenom 925 should outperform the Athlon 640. Obviously the performance is reduced, but it still looks playable at 1080p ultra settings.
A true bottleneck is not a component that simply limits or lowers performance, it is a component that lowers performance significantly more than the rest of the system. I don't think the Phenom is a bottleneck for him because it is well matched to the performance of an r7 260x/270. He will be able to play most games a at 1080p on medium to high settings. Many games are significantly less dependant on CPU performance than Skyrim. The 925 is toward the low end, but it's still probably better than the CPUs in the PS4 and XB1.
Far Cry 4 won't run well at full resolution on ultra. Neither will AC Unity nor DA Inquisition, but they won't run well because of the entire system. They won't run well with 16GB RAM and an i7 with an R7 270.

saucell · Dec 5, 2014

I decided i dont want to wait, i ordered the 750ti yesterday. i think the 750ti will be my final performance upgrade to this machine until i move on to a new rig. right now im totally fine with the performance of my cpu and ram, and i think the new video card will bring my machine up to exactly what im looking for. maybe ill bump this next week after i receive the card. thanks again for the great recommendation dudes.

Alec Mowat · Dec 6, 2014

Calculagator :

That's a 965, it's significantly better than a 925. The 925 is about the same as the Athlon II X4 640, barley pushing 55 FPS.

http://cpuboss.com/cpus/AMD-Phenom-II-X4-925-vs-AMD-Athlon-II-X4-640

It won't run Farcry 4 at Ultra, even the FX struggles
http://www.techspot.com/review/917-far-cry-4-benchmarks/page5.html

Stop lying to OP. It might match the R7 performance, but then OP needs a PSU and he's spending $200 on a videocard that costs more money and isn't good enough to carry over to the next. The 750 ti will give equal performance, no need for a PSU and save him money.

It's not comparable to a consoles, consoles are designed for Running games. PC's run operating systems, that emulate gaming through Direct X. They have significantly more overheard, and the memory is not managed nearly as well. The Xbox could be half the speed of his PC and it will still get 3x the performance. The games on Xbox can also limit their frames or reduce image quality in certain parts to keep the FPS up, and you would never notice.
Don't even bring up that comparison.

saucell · Dec 6, 2014

my gpu is definitely my systems bottleneck right now, the windows 7 rating thing has my cpu at 7.2, ram at 7.5, and gpu 6.6 for both category's. if i run skyrim in 1080p everything has to be set to low. i wasn't even dreaming of skyrim in ultra at 60fps+. i also wasn't even sure if my cpu and ram met the minimum requirements for far cry 4, i was never planning to play it on my pc. if i can get skyrim in medium to high settings with a playable framerate ill be totally happy. this upgrade is not to turn my system into a super gaming rig, its just to get the gpu up to speed of my other components, which thanks to your guy's recommendation i think i found the best card for my set up.

saucell · Dec 12, 2014

hey guys, you may be long gone by now but i received the 750ti yesterday and ive been having a good time with it so far. it has definitely given my computer a boost when it comes to games. on my old card half my games had to be played at 720p just so they wouldn't look like the worst thing ever, now im playing all my games at native res with silky smooth frame rates. running my games in 1080p 60fps means the more graphically demanding games like skyrim or bf3 are mostly in the medium to low settings, but compared to how my games used to look and run this is a good upgrade.

from what i can tell the 750ti is a really good deal for the price and not having to upgrade my psu sweetens the deal even more. i guess with video cards you get what you pay for, and if i want higher settings in more demanding games at this res and frame rate i have to spend more money, but that can wait till the next machine! thanks again bros it was a good upgrade!

Calculagator · Dec 12, 2014

saucell :

hey guys, you may be long gone by now but i received the 750ti yesterday and ive been having a good time with it so far. it has definitely given my computer a boost when it comes to games. on my old card half my games had to be played at 720p just so they wouldn't look like the worst thing ever, now im playing all my games at native res with silky smooth frame rates. running my games in 1080p 60fps means the more graphically demanding games like skyrim or bf3 are mostly in the medium to low settings, but compared to how my games used to look and run this is a good upgrade.

from what i can tell the 750ti is a really good deal for the price and not having to upgrade my psu sweetens the deal even more. i guess with video cards you get what you pay for, and if i want higher settings in more demanding games at this res and frame rate i have to spend more money, but that can wait till the next machine! thanks again bros it was a good upgrade!

I'm glad to year that you are pleased with the upgrade. Have fun!

saucell · Dec 13, 2014

sorry to bump this and i doubt anyone cares but ive been playing around with this card more and it might be more powerful then i initially thought. when i played skyrim with the default settings it was mostly set to medium, then i configured the settings with the geforce experience and everything was boosting into the high territory and still maintained a very nice frame rate. also some games like cs go through the geforce experience leave out v sync and motion blur, when i enable those settings the frame rate still stays at 60fps when running fraps. so it appears each game i own will need a little tailor fitting to get the most out of my 750ti, but i am very pleased with this upgrade, it was definitely a good boost. thanks for your suggestions

Is the GeForce GTX 660 2GB GDDR5 the best card money can buy for 120 bucks?

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