Gadgetory

welcome to my unboxing and first look at the all-new 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 special about MSI's Twin Frozr version of this card this is an O state card it has two 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 DirectX 11 and a three year warranty in US Canada in Mexico only moving right along we've got whatever 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 clasp any military clasp branding on here so they've at least got the solid caps going from their military class concept they long they're also using their new propeller blade fans so these do generate more airflow than their well their previous generation fans and multiple heat pipes direct contact design high-density heatsink so they're talking a lot about the Twin Frozr 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 Fermi with less power consumption than Fermi and well yeah I mean do you need do you need you need more than that so the last the last generation cores were all based on the Fermi 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 with its introduction including their adaptive vsync which turns vsync on when you need it and off what 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're going to need a less powerful power supply which means instead of spending money on you can spend money on better efficiency which is actually gonna save you money on your power bill I mean 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 write in terms of accessory we have a quick users guide oh yeah see this download the latest version yeah do that we've also got a quick installation guide again DVI to VGA adapter and a dual molex to 6-pin PCI II 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 geet 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 because 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 I'm gonna go ahead and give you guys a pretty good view of it there and then again almost the entire cart up to the end of the PCB here and up to almost the end of the PCB here is covered by these fins so while this card doesn't have a full yuna sink as we've seen on some previous msi cards where here I'll try to give you guys a view that where all the memory chips are sometimes covered by by a heatsink by a heat spreader it does have their rigidity enhancing pieces I don't know what they're calling this but 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 have got more Kepler features so dual DVI hdmi and displayport powers up to 3 plus 1/3 plus 1/3 plus 1 displays in surround gaming with a single auxilary display however I would suggest that if you're gonna run triple displays especially at 1080p you probably want to step up to its big brother the 660ti which uses using a GK 104 core whereas this guy right here is using a GK 106 core both the 660 and the 660ti are using 192 bit memory interfaces which will not affect your performance that much particularly on the 660ti 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 the 670 or a 680 and I'll let you guys kinda 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 suddenly four on the front to open sorry so what NVIDIA is doing in order to achieve a two gig frame buffer with only 192 bit memory bus okay is there doing some voodoo magic that allows them to actually mix and match the density of the memory modules of the memory chips that they're using on the card so that they can get an even number so a 1 gig a 2 gig or even I guess potentially a four gig frame buffer if they come up with higher density chips for them 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 are gone they've gone with a 192 bit bus and an even memory amount all the usual and video 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 physx is also supported so all those new anti-aliasing technologies TxAA fxaa and oh right power requirements so i've talked a lot about how it's a low power requirement card only a single 6 pin PCI II connector is required for this card and the performance does get pretty close to its bigger the 660ti 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 660ti and thank you for checking out our unboxing and first look at the 660 geforce gtx 660 from nvidia particularly the Twin Frozr edition from MSI don't forget to subscribe - tech tips from unboxings reviews and other computer videos