NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 2GB Review

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by Rob Williams on September 14, 2012 in Graphics & Displays

With the release of its GeForce GTX 660, NVIDIA has delivered what we feel to be one of the most attractive Kepler offerings to date. It may be a step-down from the Ti edition released last month, but the GTX 660 delivers great performance across the board, and priced at $229, it won’t break the bank.

Page 7 – Total War: SHOGUN 2

Strategy games are well-known for pushing the limits of any system, and few others do this as well as Total War: SHOGUN 2. It fully supports DX11, has huge battlefields to overlook with hundreds or thousands of units, and a ton of graphics options to adjust. It’s quite simply a beast of a game.

Total War: SHOGUN 2

Manual Run-through: While we normally dislike timedemos, because strategy games such as this are very difficult to benchmark reliably, we’ve opted to use the built-in benchmark instead.

GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 660 - Total War: SHOGUN 2 (1680x1050)

GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 660 - Total War: SHOGUN 2 (1920x1080)

GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 660 - Total War: SHOGUN 2 (2560x1600)

Like DiRT: Showdown, AMD has optimized its drivers for SHOGUN 2, and it shows. But regardless of the GPU, it’s going to get a serious workout at 1080p if you plan on maxing out the detail settings. At 1680×1050, the GTX 660 holds a “just playable” FPS, while anything past that is out of the question. Still, when a game can prove to be an amazing test for our top-end GPUs here, there is only so much you can expect of a $229 offering. The performance seen here is good, but for 1080p and higher, you’ll want to moderate your settings a little bit.

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Rob Williams

Rob founded Techgage in 2005 to be an 'Advocate of the consumer', focusing on fair reviews and keeping people apprised of news in the tech world. Catering to both enthusiasts and businesses alike; from desktop gaming to professional workstations, and all the supporting software.

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