welcome to my unboxing and first look at the allnew GeForce GTX 660 from NVIDIA
now this is actually pretty different from the 660ti in fact they are even
using different GPU cores so let's get
into what's special about MSI's twin frozer version of this card this is an
ed card it has 2 gigs of memory just like a GTX 660ti it is PCI Express 3.0
ready so this is using a Kepler GPU with all of the latest features from NVIDIA
full support for direct X11 and a three-year warranty in US Canada and
Mexico only moving right along we've got
what well what else does MSI have to say for themselves MSI afterburner is a
fantastic utility you should use it whether you have an MSI card or not it's
a great overclocking utility they're using solid caps although I don't see a
military class any military class branding on here so they've at least got
the solid caps going from their military class concept they've also using their
new propeller blade fans so these do generate more air flow than their well
their previous generation fans and multiple heat pipes direct contact
design high density heat sink so they're talking a lot about the twin frozer
cooler which we will again look at more closely once we open it up so let's just
you know what let's dive right into it here because you guys want to see the
card itself you don't want to hear me talking about it so Kepler what is
Kepler all about Kepler is all about way
better performance than fery with less power consumption than fery
and well yeah I mean do you need do you need do you need more than that uh so
last the last generation cores were all based on the fery architecture and now
we have Kepler available for the masses so Kepler started with the GTX 680 which
brought all kinds of cool new features uh with its introduction including their
adaptive vsync which turns vsync on when you need it and off when it's not going
to be helping you but rather hindering you as well as new anti-aliasing modes
phenomenal power consumption I can't stress that enough compared to previous
generation cards you are going to need a less powerful power supply which means
instead of spending money on more wattage you can spend money on better
efficiency which is actually going to save you money on your power bill I mean
not not a ton especially if you live here in Canada where power is relatively
cheap but if you're somewhere in Europe for example or in some parts of the US
it can actually make a difference if you can have you know a slightly better
gaming experience or a significantly better gaming experience and save a few
bucks a month on your power as well and like hey why not right in terms of
accessory we have a quick users guide uh
well yeah see this download the latest version yeah do that uh We've also got a
quick installation guide again DVI to VGA adapter and a dual Molex to six pin
PCI E connector so here we go let's get into the card itself there are the
propeller blades there's your twin frozer you've got three heat pipes so
two smaller heat pipes and then one big fat super pipe coming out directly over
the GPU core you can tell where the GPU core is cuz you can see it on the back
and taking the heat as far away from the GPU itself as possible so almost the
entire card is covered in aluminum fins here so I'm going to go ahead and give
you guys a pretty good view of it there and then again almost the entire card up
to the end of the PCB here and up to almost the end of the PCB here is
covered by these fans so while this card doesn't have a full unisync as we've
seen on some previous MSI cards where here I'll try to give you guys a view of
that where all the memory chips are sometimes covered by by a heat sync by a
heat spreader it does have their
rigidity enhancing piece so I don't know
what they're calling this but uh the point is what it does is it keeps the
weight of the card from weighing down on your slot and keeps the card from
flexing and and torquing like this against the PCI Express slot so this
little aluminum piece right here doesn't really contribute anything in the way of cooling but it does make your card more
stable in the slot which can help especially if you're buying a system you might want to choose one of these so
that it doesn't have a chance of of breaking or destroying anything in the
process of shipping in terms of outputs we've got more Kepler features so dual
DVI HDMI and DisplayPort Powers up to 3
+ one 3+ one 3+
one uh 3 plus one displays in surround
gaming with a single auxiliary display however I would suggest that if you're
going to run triple displays especially at 1080p you probably want to step up to
its Big Brother the 660 Ti which is using a GK 104 core whereas this guy
right here is using a GK 106 core both the 660 and the 660 Ti are using 192-bit
memory interfaces which will not affect your performance that much particularly
on the 660 Ti compared to the 670 until you get into really high resolution
gaming or very large textures where it's really needing that fast data transfer
on and off of the frame buffer which you will get with a 670 or a 680 and I'll
let you guys come have a look here because you're going to see a fairly strange arrangement to the memory so
there's only four memory chips on the back and what that here compared to how
many are on the front it should be is it only four on the front too oh bizarre so
what NVIDIA is doing in order to achieve a 2 gig frame buffer with only 192bit
memory bus okay is they're doing some voodoo magic that allows them to
actually mix and match the density of the memory mod of the not modules of the
memory chips that they're using on the card so that uh they can get an even
number so a one gig a two gig or even I guess potentially a 4 gig frame buffer
if they come up with higher density chips for them um with a non-even memory
bus width so normally it'd be 128 or 256
in order to get an even memory amount but they gone they've gone with a 192-bit bus and an even memory amount
all the usual NVIDIA Technologies are supported so you've got full support for
SLI although only two-way SLI there's only one SLI connector on the top of the
cart you've also got support for 3D Vision as well as NVIDIA Cuda um fizx is
also supported so all those new anti-aliasing technologies txaa
FXAA um and oh right power requirement
so I've talked a lot about how it's a low power requirement card only a single
six pin PCIe connector is required for this card and the performance does get
pretty close to its bigger brother the 660 Ti so what does it come down to this
is a great option if you're gaming at 1080p although I'd say above 1080p if
you want to run on high details it starts to become a less compelling
option you might want to step up to a 660 Ti
and I think that pretty much covers it thank you for checking out our unboxing
and first look at the 660 GeForce GTX 660 from NVIDIA particularly the twin
frozer Edition from MSI don't forget to subscribe L Tech tips for more unboxings
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