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GTX 480 or GTX 660?

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So, I'm building a new PC. I ordered a GTX 480, but I'm beginning to have second thoughts. Its still in the mail, so I haven't received it quite yet. I'm having second thoughts because I could get the GTX 660 for the same price as the GTX 480. There really isn't anything on the Internet that compares the two cards.

I like the 660 because it's cooler, quieter, and uses less power. But it is only 192-bit compared to the 384-bit 480 which I believe would benefit Anti-Aliasing. The 660 has 960 CUDA cores, but the 480 only has 480 CUDA cores. The 480 is the high end of the 400 series whereas the 660 is middle of the road for the 600 series, but is the 660 powerful enough to be better than the 480?

My system is as follows:
i5-3570K
8 GB RAM
MSI Z77A-G45 Thunderbolt
256 GB Samsung 830 SSD
750 GB HDD

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? From my perspective it's like comparing red apples to green apples. I would prefer the 660 if it as powerful or more powerful, because it's cooler, quieter, and uses less power. I'm not interested in any other card except these two unless it can be had for $200 or less.

More about : gtx 480 gtx 660

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Graphics card Expert

The 660 is slightly more powerful than the 480 at stock, and although the 480 has much better overclocking potential, it runs much hotter uses much more power and is much louder.

Not to mention the 660 has all of the Kepler features such as Adaptive V-sync, GPU boost and TXAA.

I would see if you can return the 480 and go with the 660. If not, the 480 is one beast of a card.

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Anonymous
Graphics card Master

lets look at some benches with using the GTX 580 as a "control card"
the 480 in metro 2033

16.6/24.7=68.4% performance of the GTX 580

21.8/27.3=79.8% performance of the GTX 580 (the blue bar is "stock")

crysis anyone?

32.6/38.5=84.6%

38/41.7=91%


so in this rather unscientific example the 660 is clearly better in a highly demanding games such as metro 2033 and crysis.
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Graphics card Expert

Anonymous said:
lets look at some benches with using the GTX 580 as a "control card"
the 480 in metro 2033
http://tpucdn.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_580/images/metro_2033_1920_1200.gif
16.6/24.7=68.4% performance of the GTX 580
http://tpucdn.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_660_Direct_Cu_II/images/metro_2033_1920_1200.gif
21.8/27.3=79.8% performance of the GTX 580 (the blue bar is "stock")

crysis anyone?
http://tpucdn.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_580/images/crysis_1920_1200.gif
32.6/38.5=84.6%
http://tpucdn.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_660_Direct_Cu_II/images/crysis_1920_1200.gif
38/41.7=91%


so in this rather unscientific example the 660 is clearly better in a highly demanding games such as metro 2033 and crysis.




You made a mistake on your calcs for the gtx 480 in metro, the 480 gets 21.6, not 16.6.

So the 660 and the 480 basically tie, while the 480 can overclock to match the 580, the 660 has bad OC potential.


http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/09/19/asus_geforce_...


Anonymous
Graphics card Master

maxalge said:
You made a mistake on your calcs for the gtx 480 in metro, the 480 gets 21.6, not 16.6.

So the 660 and the 480 basically tie, while the 480 can overclock to match the 580, the 660 has bad OC potential.


http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/09/19/asus_geforce_...

AH!

but that leaves 1 to 1 lets look at a third, just for the H E double hockey sticks of it:


nope! can't use those . .different AA settings. though it is not surprise with the larger memory bandwidth the 480 is apparently ahead.
btw, the reviews i used (bad from not to give a citation!)
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_5...
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_660...

btw, thanks for the correction and not being insulting about me making a mistake.

cheers.
Graphics card Master

Also, it looks like the 660 looks like a better option on this premise. How many people typically OC there gpu maybe there CPU but rarely there GPU. Also a another contributing factor is the tech that goes into the 660 dx11 and the opengl version. You are getting a more complete featured card with the 660 and you are getting a tie in performance.
Graphics card Expert

bigshootr8 said:
Also, it looks like the 660 looks like a better option on this premise. How many people typically OC there gpu maybe there CPU but rarely there GPU. Also a another contributing factor is the tech that goes into the 660 dx11 and the opengl version. You are getting a more complete featured card with the 660 and you are getting a tie in performance.



The 480 is dx11 as well, and had adaptive v-sync too, I believe it also has a lot more mature opengl, not quite sure about the last one.


Really, the only considerations should be the fact that it IS a power hungry card and it will get hot if you don't turn up the fan with a more aggressive fan profile on afterburner.


Happy hunting.




Graphics card Expert

I would go 660 due to relative performance out of the box. You can also connect up to 4 displays should you choose to do so down the road. 480 can only do 2 unless you SLI another to drive more displays. You will will be warm this Winter with the 480 as you would not have to use a heater for your room =P.
Graphics card Master

Ironslice said:
The 660 is slightly more powerful than the 480 at stock, and although the 480 has much better overclocking potential, it runs much hotter uses much more power and is much louder.

Not to mention the 660 has all of the Kepler features such as Adaptive V-sync, GPU boost and TXAA.

I would see if you can return the 480 and go with the 660. If not, the 480 is one beast of a card.
+1 This
Graphics card Master

Maximus_Delta said:
I see you went with 2 GTX670s :o 

How do u like those new AMD drivers ?? :kaola: 

Never Settle (don't forget that)
I like amd drivers fine and i like my cards just fine i am a fan of both go sip your red koolaid somewhere else it's not welcome here
Graphics card Master

bigshootr8 said:
haha yea if you read anything hes posted you'd know he has both. I think it was you whose son's computer has a amd card no?
Yep my son has a 7950 that i payed for the guy is just trolling

Thanks for the help everyone. I placed my order yesterday for the GTX 660. I would rather have this card even if they have virtually the same performance. I would rather have it for being quiet, cool, and sipping power.
Graphics card Master

kevin82485 said:
Thanks for the help everyone. I placed my order yesterday for the GTX 660. I would rather have this card even if they have virtually the same performance. I would rather have it for being quiet, cool, and sipping power.



*sip sip mmmmm now thats the stuff*
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