Asus GTX 660 TI-DC2T-2GD5 Review

Nvidia’s GTX 660 Ti GPU has been a big hit with gamers all over and we’ve already seen it in action in the ZOTAC GTX 660 Ti. Although it offers amazing performance, the price point is a bit on the high side and not many gamers are willing to shell out so much when the GTX 670 can be had for just a little more. Maybe Asus can change that with their GTX 660 Ti offering. We have with us today the GTX 660 Ti-DC2T-2GD5, their factory overclocked GTX 660 Ti with their custom cooler.

Design and Build
Unlike ZOTAC’s custom PCB design, which we absolutely love, Asus has stuck with the reference PCB design but has used their own cooler we’ve seen on their previous offerings as well. At 10.7 inches in length, it’s a big card so make sure you have a decently spacious mid-tower chassis. It is a dual-slot card thankfully and not a triple-slot one so it shouldn’t block too many slots. The cooler uses copper heatpipes to direct heat from the core more effectively. The aluminium fins help dissipate the heat which is then cooled by the two fans.

Well designed and built

For connectivity, we have two dual-link DVI (one DVI –D and one DVI-I) connectors, HDMI and a full sized DisplayPort. There are some exhaust vents at the rear as well although it really shouldn’t matter much since the card has an open design so most of the hot air is dumped inside the chassis itself. The GTX 660 TI-DC2T-2GD5  has a very good design and the build of the card is very good; no complaints here.  

Features
Asus has pushed the clock speeds of the card quite a bit, slightly higher than ZOTAC’s AMP! Edition. The core is clocked at 1059MHz while the 2GB GDDR5 memory is clocked at 1502MHz (6008MHz effective). ZOTAC had pushed the memory speeds a bit higher in the AMP! Edition so it may be able to have an edge in performance, which we’ll see in a bit. Other than a DVI-VGA adapter and PCIe to Molex power adapter, Asus does not bundle any game with the card. The bundle also includes Asus’s GPU Tweak utility.

Very good set of connectors

Since this GPU is based on the same GK104 die, you get all the new features that Kepler offers. These include GPU Boost, Adaptive V-Sync and new Anti-Aliasing (AA) models. GPU Boost is similar to Turbo Boost, in the sense that the card will dynamically increase its own clock speeds and voltages in a game, if and only if it does not go beyond a set TDP threshold. For instance, if there is an intense battle scene in the game which demands more shader power, the built-in algorithms will automatically check the current power draw, temperature, voltage etc. of the card and accordingly increase only those parameters that can be pushed. This keeps changing as you play the game and is built into Kepler itself, so it kicks in by default. Adaptive V-Sync can now be found in the Nvidia Control Panel and what it does is, dynamically toggle the V-Sync state depending on the frame rate. For instance, if you’re getting more than 60fps, then V-Sync will be on to avoid screen tearing and if it dips below 60fps, then it switches it off to avoid stuttering. The two new AA modes (FXAA and TXAA) are said to offer similar quality levels as MSAA, but without the huge performance hit.

Testbench

• Processor: Intel Core i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40 GHz
• Motherboard: GIGABYTE P67A-UD3R
• Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws 8GB (4GB x 2) @1600MHz
• Hard drive: Intel SSD 520 240GB (Boot Drive), WD Velociraptor 300GB (Secondary Drive)
• GPU: Asus GTX 660 TI-DC2T-2GD5
• PSU: Cooler Master Silent Pro 1000W
• OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit