Has anyone tested the GTX 660 (non-Ti)?

[henrik_s]

Hi guys,

I'm putting together a hackintosh and except for the graphics card I've got the components down. I don't need the power of the 660 Ti and with people saying they have sleep issues, I'm looking the 660. Being a Kepler chip, I guess it's expected to work, but has anyone tested it?

 

[Albertsw]

It should work because it uses the same GPU as the 660 ti.

 

[pool1892]

@albertsw no, it does not. 660 ti is a cut down gk104 (same chip as 670, 680, 690) with a narrowed down memory interface.
660 (non-Ti) is the first card to use the gk106.


i would love to know if anyone had success with the vanilla 660 as well - especially since it uses only 6 watts in 2D mode, which is about half of the gk104 based cards.
well, and it is cheaper.

 

[thelostswede]

Hi guys,

I'm putting together a hackintosh and except for the graphics card I've got the components down. I don't need the power of the 660 Ti and with people saying they have sleep issues, I'm looking the 660. Being a Kepler chip, I guess it's expected to work, but has anyone tested it?

Your best bet is the GTX 650 if you don't need a lot of GPU power, it works OOB 100% as it's the same GPU as what Apple uses in the retina MacBook Pro and we already have reports of it working perfectly.

 

[pool1892]

@thelostswede the 650 is very useful if you do not play games. it is waaaay too slow for gaming (and quite expensive...consider 6850 or 560, both were available for about the same money as the 650 is now and both are much faster).

 

[dtrvndrn]

@albertsw no, it does not. 660 ti is a cut down gk104 (same chip as 670, 680, 690) with a narrowed down memory interface.
660 (non-Ti) is the first card to use the gk106.

I wonder what they're smoking to come up with such naming schemes at Nvidia...

 

[pool1892]

I wonder what they're smoking to come up with such naming schemes at Nvidia...

they are having severe yield issues with this generation of cards (kepler) or with the 28nm production line. so they are pushing solutions like 660ti to fill the gaps in the market. they have been running for half a year with a500$ card, a 350$ card and a sub-100$ card, nothing else.
(this, and amds rather underwhelming line of 28nm cards, is the reason for the very small performance jump with the new production process. it is customary for graphics chip generations to jump about 50-80% with a new process node (which happens about every two generations of cards, that is every 2-3 years), not 30% as with the 28nm).

 

[thelostswede]

You do know that originally the GTX 680 was meant to be the 670, right?
The only reason Nvidia didn't bother to go with something faster/hotter/more expensive is because they realised that the current 680 was faster than anything AMD had, they could make more margin and they could do so by getting better yields...
This time around is purely about making money for Nvidia, as Fermi ended up costing them a lot of cash. So far it appears to be working quite well...

And yes, the GTX 650 is a bit on the expensive side, but it works really well in OS X and it's always going to be supported unless Nvidia/Apple starts adding specific Nvidia GPU ID's into the drivers. For $20 more than a GT 640, it's still a better card though, at least if you're planning on doing something a little bit GPU intensive.

 

[roadkill74]

Hi guys,

I'm putting together a hackintosh and except for the graphics card I've got the components down. I don't need the power of the 660 Ti and with people saying they have sleep issues, I'm looking the 660. Being a Kepler chip, I guess it's expected to work, but has anyone tested it?

I bought one yesterday, threw it in and no go. I should have done my homework better, based on what I see in this thread that the core is different. Nice card, works well in windows for games, decent price but without OS X support, I'm afraid it's going to have to go back and I will throw the 6870 back in.

FWIW - I have not tried terribly hard to get it working. Basically threw it in, pulled ATI config from org.XXX.plist file and set GraphicsEnabler = No.

My goal here is not to complain, just to let you know it was not a drop in and run situation, based on my relatively simple effort. If anyone wants a test bed to try things out, send your suggestions on over and I will give it a shot.

System Info:
Gigabyte H67MA-USB3 - F8
Gigabyte GTX 660 2GB
16GB RAM - 8GB 1333 8GB 1600 running at 1333
i7 2600K
ML 10.8.1

 

[henrik_s]

I really appreciate your warning, roadkil74, and I'm sorry it didn't work out for you. Now debating whether the 670 is worth it ...