Introduction

NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 660 was released almost exactly one year ago. It packs a total of 960 CUDA cores with 80 texture memory units (TMUs), 24 raster operations processors (ROPs), and a 192-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. Back in the day, the card made waves.

Unlike its "Ti" cousin, the GeForce GTX 660 is not based on the GK104 silicon from which several other GPUs are derived, including the GTX 670, GTX 680, and the dual-GPU GTX 690. The GTX 660 is, instead, based on the GK106 GPU, a physical downscale of the GK104 using the same 28 nm process as all other recent NVIDIA GPUs.



MSI's new GeForce GTX 660 GAMING comes with a big name. We've reviewed nearly every MSI "GAMING" graphics card in the recent months, and they impressed with low noise levels, decent performance, and affordable pricing.

My guess is that sales are going great for MSI, which is why they decided to release a SKU based on the GK106 GPU for which no GeForce 700 variant has been announced yet.

At around $210 for MSI's overclocked GTX 660 GAMING, pricing seems a bit high. The cheapest GeForce GTX 660 is available for $190. MSI is then asking a $20 price premium for the GTX 660 GAMING we are reviewing today.