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.
GeForce GTX 600M Series
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Codename | N13E-GE | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Architecture | Kepler | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Pipelines | 384 - unified | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Core Speed | 835 MHz | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Memory Speed | 4000 MHz | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Memory Bus Width | 128 Bit | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Memory Type | GDDR5 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Max. Amount of Memory | 2048 MB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Shared Memory | no | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| API | DirectX 11, Shader 5.0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Man. Technology | 28 nm | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Features | Optimus, SLI, PhysX, Verde Drivers, CUDA, 3D Vision, 3DTV Play | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Notebook Size | large | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date of Announcement | 22.03.2012 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
- Average benchmark valuesThe 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 detailed information on the benchmark results, click on the fps number.
For more games that might be playable and a list of all games and graphics cards visit our Gaming List
Asus G55VW-S1020V: Intel Core i7-3610QM, 15.60", 3.8 kg
Review » Review Asus G55VW-S1020V Notebook
Lenovo IdeaPad Y580-59-377745: Intel Core i5-3230M, 15.60", 2.8 kg
External Review » Lenovo IdeaPad Y580-59-377745
MSI GE60-i560M247: Intel Core i5-3230M, 15.60", 2.4 kg
External Review » MSI GE60-i560M247
Gigabyte P2742G-CF1: Intel Core i7-3630QM, 17.30", 3.2 kg
External Review » Gigabyte P2742G-CF1
Gigabyte P2742G-CF2: Intel Core i7-3630QM, 17.30", 3.2 kg
External Review » Gigabyte P2742G-CF2
MSI GE60-0ND-257US: Intel Core i7-3630QM, 15.60", 2.4 kg
External Review » MSI GE60-0ND-257US
MSI GE60-I760M287: Intel Core i7-3630QM, 15.60", 2.4 kg
External Review » MSI GE60-I760M287
MSI GE70-0ND-293UK: Intel Core i7-3630QM, 17.30", 2.8 kg
External Review » MSI GE70-0ND-293UK
MSI GE70-0ND-055UK: Intel Core i7-3610QM, 17.30", 3.1 kg
External Review » MSI GE70-0ND-055UK
Razer Blade RZ09-00830100-R3U1: Intel Core i7-3632QM, 17.30", 3 kg
External Review » Razer Blade 17 inch Late 2012
Gigabyte P2542G: Intel Core i7-3610QM, 15.60", 2.7 kg
External Review » Gigabyte P2542G
MSI GE70H-i789W7H: Intel Core i7-3610QM, 17.30", 3.1 kg
External Review » MSI GE70H-i789W7H
Asus G55VW: unknown, 15.60", 3.8 kg
External Review » Asus G55VW
Asus G55VW-S1129V: Intel Core i7-3610QM, 15.60", 3.7 kg
External Review » Asus G55VW-S1129V
Schenker XMG A522: Intel Core i7-3610QM, 15.60", 2.8 kg
External Review » Schenker XMG A522
Lenovo IdeaPad Y580-20994HU: Intel Core i7-3610QM, 15.60", 2.8 kg
External Review » Lenovo IdeaPad Y580-20994HU
Lenovo IdeaPad Y580-59-335956: Intel Core i7-3610QM, 15.60", 2.8 kg
External Review » Lenovo IdeaPad Y580-59-335956
MSI GE70-033US: Intel Core i7-3610QM, 17.30", 2.7 kg
External Review » MSI GE70-033US
Lenovo IdeaPad Y580-M772BUK: Intel Core i5-3210M, 15.60", 2.8 kg
External Review » Lenovo IdeaPad Y580-M772BUK
Asus G75VW-T1124V: Intel Core i7-3610QM, 17.30", 4.3 kg
External Review » Asus G75VW-T1124V
Asus G55VW-ES71: Intel Core i7-3720QM, 15.60", 3.8 kg
External Review » Asus G55VW-ES71
Asus G55VW-DS71: Intel Core i7-3610QM, 15.60", 3.9 kg
External Review » Asus G55VW-DS71
Asus G55VW-S1024V: Intel Core i7-3610QM, 15.60", 3.7 kg
External Review » Asus G55VW-S1024V
Asus G75VW-AS71: Intel Core i7-3610QM, 17.30", 4.3 kg
External Review » Asus G75VW-AS71
Asus G75VW-DS71: Intel Core i7-3610QM, 17.30", 4.3 kg
External Review » Asus G75VW-DS71
Asus G55VW-S1073V: Intel Core i7-3610QM, 15.60", 3.8 kg
External Review » Asus G55VW-S1073V
» Comparison of GPUs
Detailed list of all laptop GPUs sorted by class and performance.
» Benchmark List
Sort and restrict laptop GPUs based on performance in synthetic benchmarks.
» Notebook Gaming List
Playable games for each graphics card and their average FPS results.
Top 10 Laptops
Multimedia, Budget Multimedia, Gaming, Budget Gaming, Lightweight Gaming, Business, Budget Office, Workstation, Subnotebooks, Ultrabooks, Chromebooks
under 300 USD/Euros, under 500 USD/Euros, 1,000 USD/Euros, for University Students, Best Displays
Top 10 Smartphones
Smartphones, Phablets, ≤6-inch, Camera Smartphones
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