GeForce GTX 660 Ti Review: Nvidia's Trickle-Down Keplernomics

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Nvidia's Kepler architecture is finally manifest in a $300 graphics card, which the company says beats AMD's Radeon HD 7870 and challenges its more expensive 7950. Can this GK104-based mainstream card carve out a spot between the GCN-based competition?

Benchmark Results: Max Payne 3

We set Max Payne 3 to its highest detail levels, specifying Normal tessellation, high-definition ambient occlusion turned on, and 4x MSAA.

Max Payne 3 appears to favor the Radeon cards at these settings. The GeForce GTX 660 Ti actually ends up trailing the GeForce GTX 580.

Using the same settings at 1920x1080, frame rates drop (as expected), but remain higher than our 30 FPS minimum on every card. The GeForce GTX 660 Ti overtakes the GTX 580, but both trail the rest of the pack.

We have to drop to 2x multi-sampling at 2560x1600, and HDAO is compromised in favor of screen space ambient occlusion, which is less demanding. As a result, the GeForce GTX 660 Ti maintains smooth performance, with frame rates between 30 and 40 FPS. The other GPUs do better, though.

Don Woligroski
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Don Woligroski was a former senior hardware editor for Tom's Hardware. He has covered a wide range of PC hardware topics, including CPUs, GPUs, system building, and emerging technologies.