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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660M

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660M

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660M is an upper mid-range, DirectX 11.1 compatible graphics card that was announced in the first quarter of 2012 for laptops. As of this writing, it is the fastest Kepler-based GPU built on the GK107 architecture and is manufactured in 28nm at TSMC. The graphics card uses a 128-Bit wide memory interface with GDDR5-VRAM.

Architecture

The Kepler architecture is the successor to the Fermi architecture that first appeared in laptops with the GeForce 400M series. The GK107 Kepler core offers two shader blocks, called SMX, each with 192 shaders for a total of 384 shader cores that are clocked at the same speed as as the central core. Although more shader cores are available in the Kepler architecture as compared to the Fermi design, the Kepler shaders are still expected to be up to twice as power efficient. However, due to the missing hot clock of the shader domain, two shaders of a Kepler chip are of similar speed to one shader of a Fermi chip (as the latter was clocked twice as fast). PCIe 3.0 is now supported by the mobile Kepler series and an optional Turbo mode can automatically overclock the Nvidia card by a theoretical 15 percent if the laptop cooling system allows it. The implementation of this boost mode is done in the BIOS, but it is ultimately dependent upon the manufacturer of the laptop.

Performance

Thanks to the GDDR5-VRAM, the gaming performance of the GeForce GTX 660M is well ahead of the GT 650M DDR3 and on par with the AMD Radeon HD 6950M. Even the older high-end Fermi-GPU GTX 570M is only slightly faster. Therefore, current games as of 2012 run moderately well in 1080p resolution and high details. Only a few very demanding games, such as Metro 2033 or Crysis 2, may need reduced graphical settings for smoother gameplay.

Features

The improved feature set now includes support for up to 4 active displays. Furthermore, high resolution monitors of up to 3840x2160 pixels can now be connected using DisplayPort 1.2 or HDMI 1.4a if available. HD-Audio codecs, such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD, can be transmitted via bitstream mode through the HDMI port. However, as most laptops will feature Optimus, the integrated GPU will likely have direct control over the display ports and may limit the feature set available by the Nvidia Kepler cards.

The 5th generation PureVideo HD video processor (VP5) is also integrated in the GK107 core and offers hardware decoding of HD videos. Common codecs such as MPEG-1/2, MPEG-4 ASP, H.264 and VC1/WMV9 are fully supported up to 4K resolutions while VC1 and MPEG-4 are supported up to 1080p. Two streams can be decoded in parallel for features such as Picture-in-Picture. Another novelty is the inclusion of a dedicated video encoding engine similar to Intel QuickSync that can be accessed by the NVENC API.

The power consumption of the GeForce GTX 660M should be best suited for notebooks 15-17 inches or greater.

ManufacturerNVIDIA
GeForce GTX 600M Series

GeForce GTX 680M SLI 2688@720MHz

GeForce GTX 680MX 1536@720MHz

GeForce GTX 675M SLI 768@620MHz

GeForce GTX 670MX SLI 1920@600MHz

GeForce GTX 680M 1344@720MHz

GeForce GTX 675MX 960@600MHz

GeForce GTX 675M 384@620MHz

GeForce GTX 670MX 960@600MHz

GeForce GTX 670M 336@598MHz

GeForce GTX 660M 384@835MHz

CodenameN13E-GE
ArchitectureKepler
Pipelines384 - unified
Core Speed *835 MHz
Shader Speed *835 MHz
Memory Speed *2000 MHz
Memory Bus Width128 Bit
Memory TypeGDDR5
Max. Amount of Memory2048 MB
Shared Memoryno
DirectXDirectX 11, Shader 5.0
technology28 nm
FeaturesOptimus, SLI, PhysX, Verde Drivers, CUDA, 3D Vision, 3DTV Play
Notebook Sizelarge
Date of Announcement22.03.2012
* The specified clock rates are only guidelines for the manufacturer and can be altered by them.

Benchmarks

3DMark 11 - Performance 1280x720
0% 100%
min: 2307     avg: 2544.9 (25%)     max: 2727 points
3DMark 11 - Performance GPU 1280x720
0% 100%
min: 2087     avg: 2327 (21%)     max: 2414 points
3DMark Vantage - P Result no PhysX 1280x1024
0% 100%
min: 9659     avg: 11016.3 (30%)     max: 12698 Points
3DMark Vantage - P GPU no PhysX 1280x1024
0% 100%
min: 8725     avg: 9665.6 (26%)     max: 10028 Points
3DMark 06
0% 100%
min: 13893     avg: 15019.8 (51%)     max: 16085 Points
3DMark 05 - Standard 1024x768
0% 100%
min: 18640     avg: 20551.1 (56%)     max: 23933 Points
3DMark 03 - Standard 1024x768
0% 100%
min: 35347     avg: 39387.3 (26%)     max: 41898 Points
3DMark 2001SE - Standard 1024x768
0% 100%
min: 46020     avg: 46020 (75%)     max: 46020 Points
Unigine Heaven 2.1 - high, Tesselation (normal), DirectX11 1280x1024
0% 100%
min: 31.3     avg: 32.6 (22%)     max: 33.4 fps
PCMark Vantage - Gaming Score 1024x768
0% 100%
min: 8060     avg: 13087.5 (50%)     max: 18429 Points
SPECviewperf 11 - Catia 1920x1080
0% 100%
min: 5.01     avg: 5.6 (8%)     max: 6.22 fps
SPECviewperf 11 - Ensight 1920x1080
0% 100%
min: 22.24     avg: 23.3 (39%)     max: 24.43 fps
SPECviewperf 11 - Lightwave 1920x1080
0% 100%
min: 12.49     avg: 13.6 (17%)     max: 14.67 fps
SPECviewperf 11 - Maya 1920x1080
0% 100%
min: 12.06     avg: 12.3 (11%)     max: 12.6 fps
SPECviewperf 11 - Pro/ENGINEER 1920x1080
0% 100%
min: 1.06     avg: 1.2 (7%)     max: 1.29 fps
SPECviewperf 11 - SolidWorks 1920x1080
0% 100%
min: 9.08     avg: 9.1 (14%)     max: 9.08 fps
SPECviewperf 11 - Tcvis 1920x1080
0% 100%
min: 1.08     avg: 1.1 (2%)     max: 1.08 fps
SPECviewperf 11 - Siemens NX 1920x1080
0% 100%
min: 3.38     avg: 3.8 (6%)     max: 4.3 fps
Cinebench R11.5 - OpenGL 64Bit
0% 100%
min: 30.55     avg: 39.8 (45%)     max: 48.07 Points
Cinebench R10 - Shading 32Bit
0% 100%
min: 4425     avg: 6075 (56%)     max: 6574 Points
Windows 7 Experience Index - Graphics
0% 100%
min: 6.8     avg: 7.2 (91%)     max: 7.3 points
Windows 7 Experience Index - Gaming graphics
0% 100%
min: 6.8     avg: 7.2 (91%)     max: 7.3 points
- Range of benchmark values for this graphics card
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card

Game Benchmarks

The following benchmarks stem from our benchmarks of review laptops. The performance depends on the used graphics memory, clock rate, processor, system settings, drivers, and operating systems. So the results don't have to be representative for all laptops with this GPU. For detailled information on the benchmark results, click on the fps number.

Metro: Last Light
Metro: Last Light (2013)
low:
62.5  fps      Compare
med.:
50.2  fps      Compare
high:
27.4  fps      Compare
ultra:
14.3  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings med..
BioShock Infinite
low:
126.5  fps      Compare
med.:
72.4  fps      Compare
high:
64  fps      Compare
ultra:
22.9  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm
low:
246.9  fps      Compare
med.:
112.6  fps      Compare
high:
78.5  fps      Compare
ultra:
29  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
SimCity
SimCity (2013)
low:
54.2  fps      Compare
med.:
33.7  fps      Compare
high:
27.7  fps      Compare
ultra:
17.3  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings low.
Tomb Raider
Tomb Raider (2013)
low:
131.7  fps      Compare
med.:
72.6  fps      Compare
high:
48.5  fps      Compare
ultra:
14.1  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Crysis 3
Crysis 3 (2013)
low:
74.7  fps      Compare
med.:
39.8  fps      Compare
high:
26  fps      Compare
ultra:
10  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings med..
Dead Space 3
Dead Space 3 (2013)
low:
243.8  fps      Compare
med.:
113.8  fps      Compare
high:
85.1  fps      Compare
ultra:
49.5  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Far Cry 3
Far Cry 3 (2012)
low:
77.9  fps      Compare