GTX 660 MSI GeForce Twin Frozr Edition Video Card Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2013-05-07
·
1,410 words · ~7 min read
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welcome to my unboxing and first look at the allnew GeForce GTX 660 from NVIDIA
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now this is actually pretty different from the 660ti in fact they are even
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using different GPU cores so let's get
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into what's special about MSI's twin frozer version of this card this is an
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ed card it has 2 gigs of memory just like a GTX 660ti it is PCI Express 3.0
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ready so this is using a Kepler GPU with all of the latest features from NVIDIA
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full support for direct X11 and a three-year warranty in US Canada and
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Mexico only moving right along we've got
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what well what else does MSI have to say for themselves MSI afterburner is a
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fantastic utility you should use it whether you have an MSI card or not it's
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a great overclocking utility they're using solid caps although I don't see a
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military class any military class branding on here so they've at least got
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the solid caps going from their military class concept they've also using their
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new propeller blade fans so these do generate more air flow than their well
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their previous generation fans and multiple heat pipes direct contact
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design high density heat sink so they're talking a lot about the twin frozer
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cooler which we will again look at more closely once we open it up so let's just
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you know what let's dive right into it here because you guys want to see the
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card itself you don't want to hear me talking about it so Kepler what is
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Kepler all about Kepler is all about way
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better performance than fery with less power consumption than fery
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and well yeah I mean do you need do you need do you need more than that uh so
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last the last generation cores were all based on the fery architecture and now
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we have Kepler available for the masses so Kepler started with the GTX 680 which
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brought all kinds of cool new features uh with its introduction including their
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adaptive vsync which turns vsync on when you need it and off when it's not going
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to be helping you but rather hindering you as well as new anti-aliasing modes
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phenomenal power consumption I can't stress that enough compared to previous
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generation cards you are going to need a less powerful power supply which means
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instead of spending money on more wattage you can spend money on better
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efficiency which is actually going to save you money on your power bill I mean
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not not a ton especially if you live here in Canada where power is relatively
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cheap but if you're somewhere in Europe for example or in some parts of the US
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it can actually make a difference if you can have you know a slightly better
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gaming experience or a significantly better gaming experience and save a few
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bucks a month on your power as well and like hey why not right in terms of
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accessory we have a quick users guide uh
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well yeah see this download the latest version yeah do that uh We've also got a
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quick installation guide again DVI to VGA adapter and a dual Molex to six pin
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PCI E connector so here we go let's get into the card itself there are the
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propeller blades there's your twin frozer you've got three heat pipes so
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two smaller heat pipes and then one big fat super pipe coming out directly over
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the GPU core you can tell where the GPU core is cuz you can see it on the back
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and taking the heat as far away from the GPU itself as possible so almost the
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entire card is covered in aluminum fins here so I'm going to go ahead and give
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you guys a pretty good view of it there and then again almost the entire card up
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to the end of the PCB here and up to almost the end of the PCB here is
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covered by these fans so while this card doesn't have a full unisync as we've
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seen on some previous MSI cards where here I'll try to give you guys a view of
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that where all the memory chips are sometimes covered by by a heat sync by a
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heat spreader it does have their
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rigidity enhancing piece so I don't know
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what they're calling this but uh the point is what it does is it keeps the
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weight of the card from weighing down on your slot and keeps the card from
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flexing and and torquing like this against the PCI Express slot so this
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little aluminum piece right here doesn't really contribute anything in the way of cooling but it does make your card more
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stable in the slot which can help especially if you're buying a system you might want to choose one of these so
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that it doesn't have a chance of of breaking or destroying anything in the
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process of shipping in terms of outputs we've got more Kepler features so dual
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DVI HDMI and DisplayPort Powers up to 3
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+ one 3+ one 3+
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one uh 3 plus one displays in surround
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gaming with a single auxiliary display however I would suggest that if you're
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going to run triple displays especially at 1080p you probably want to step up to
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its Big Brother the 660 Ti which is using a GK 104 core whereas this guy
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right here is using a GK 106 core both the 660 and the 660 Ti are using 192-bit
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memory interfaces which will not affect your performance that much particularly
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on the 660 Ti compared to the 670 until you get into really high resolution
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gaming or very large textures where it's really needing that fast data transfer
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on and off of the frame buffer which you will get with a 670 or a 680 and I'll
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let you guys come have a look here because you're going to see a fairly strange arrangement to the memory so
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there's only four memory chips on the back and what that here compared to how
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many are on the front it should be is it only four on the front too oh bizarre so
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what NVIDIA is doing in order to achieve a 2 gig frame buffer with only 192bit
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memory bus okay is they're doing some voodoo magic that allows them to
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actually mix and match the density of the memory mod of the not modules of the
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memory chips that they're using on the card so that uh they can get an even
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number so a one gig a two gig or even I guess potentially a 4 gig frame buffer
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if they come up with higher density chips for them um with a non-even memory
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bus width so normally it'd be 128 or 256
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in order to get an even memory amount but they gone they've gone with a 192-bit bus and an even memory amount
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all the usual NVIDIA Technologies are supported so you've got full support for
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SLI although only two-way SLI there's only one SLI connector on the top of the
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cart you've also got support for 3D Vision as well as NVIDIA Cuda um fizx is
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also supported so all those new anti-aliasing technologies txaa
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FXAA um and oh right power requirement
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so I've talked a lot about how it's a low power requirement card only a single
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six pin PCIe connector is required for this card and the performance does get
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pretty close to its bigger brother the 660 Ti so what does it come down to this
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is a great option if you're gaming at 1080p although I'd say above 1080p if
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you want to run on high details it starts to become a less compelling
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option you might want to step up to a 660 Ti
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and I think that pretty much covers it thank you for checking out our unboxing
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and first look at the 660 GeForce GTX 660 from NVIDIA particularly the twin
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frozer Edition from MSI don't forget to subscribe L Tech tips for more unboxings
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