Performance tests

Testbed:

• 2 x Intel Core i7-3960X (o/c to 4 GHz) CPU
• Hydro SeriesT H100i Extreme Performance CPU cooler
• Intel Thermal Solution RTS2011LC cooler
• ASUS Sabertooth X79 motherboard on the Intel X79 chipset
• MSI X79A-GD45(8B) motherboard on the Intel X79 chipset
• 16GB of 1600MHz Corsair Vengeance CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9 DDR3 SDRAM
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 3TB SATA2 HDD
• WD Caviar Blue WD10EZEX 1TB SATA2 HDD
• 2 x Corsair Neutron CSSD-N120GB3-BK SSD
• 2 x 1200W Corsair CMPSU-1200AXEU PSU
• Corsair Obsidian 800D Full-Tower case
• Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, DirectX 11
• 30" Dell UltraSharp U3011 display
• VSync disabled
• AMD Catalyst 12.11beta8; NVIDIA Drivers 310.70

Benchmarks:

• 3DMark 11 (FutureMark) — DirectX 11.0, Performance settings.
• Aliens vs. Predator (Rebellion/SEGA) — DirectX 11.0, Very High settings, run from in game.
• Nexuiz (2012) (IllFonic/THQ) — DirectX 11.0, built-in benchmark, maximum quality settings.
• Crysis 2 Maximum Edition (Crytek/EA) — DirectX 11.0, Very High settings, Central Park level, launched with the Adrenaline Crysis 2 Benchmark Tool.
• DiRT: Showdown (Codemasters) — DirectX 11.0, Ultra High settings, launched as follows: dirt showdown.exe -benchmark example_benchmark.xml.
• F1 2010 (Codemasters) — DirectX 11.0, Ultra High settings, run as follows: "formulaone.exe -benchmark example_benchmark.xml".
• Hard Reset (Flying Wild Hog) — DirectX 11.0, built-in benchmark, maximum quality settings.
• Heaven Benchmark 2.0 (Unigine) — DirectX 11.0, High settings.
• Metro 2033 (4A Games/THQ) — DirectX 11.0, Super High settings, PhysX disabled, run from in game.
• Total War: Shogun 2 (Creative Assembly/SEGA) — DirectX 11.0, maximum quality settings.
• Sleeping Dogs (United Front Games/Square Enix) — DirectX 11.0, built-in benchmark, maximum quality settings.

Final thoughts

The capability rating compares each graphics card with GeForce GT 630, which is considered the baseline or 100%. The rating is based on both synthetic and gaming results and shows, as the name implies, what a product is capable of.

The usability rating is obtained by dividing each card's capability rating by its price. It basically shows whether a given product is over or underpriced, considering what it can do, and thus how reasonable it is to buy it.

The complete ratings can be found in our i3Dspeed. Below are just the parts relevant to today's review.

Sorted by capability (high to low)

MSI's GTX 660 is the leader in its price segment. The lower-range GTX 650 Ti from MSI shows average results, like all adapters based on this GPU. MSI's GTX 650 is priced like the reference GTX 550 Ti but loses to it in terms of performance—certainly, not an advantage.

Sorted by usability (high to low)

MSI's GTX 660 is the leader again and the best buy, coming in second in the entire usability rating. MSI's GTX 650 Ti yields to Radeon HD 7850 but significantly outperforms the reference counterpart. MSI's low-range GTX 650 is just three bucks more expensive than its reference counterpart, but it does matter in that price segment, so our lowest-range competitor falls behind.

MSI GeForce GTX 660 TwinFrozr OC Edition justifies every dollar you pay for it. The only disadvantage is minor noise its TwinFrozr cooling system produces.

MSI GeForce GTX 650 Ti OC Power Edition is a good choice if you want to enjoy the silence: its Zalman cooling system is very efficient and quiet. Bear in mind that Radeon HD 7850 seems to be a better bargain albeit a bit more expensive.

MSI GeForce GTX 650 OC Power Edition looks rather odd with its overkill cooling system, which makes it more expensive and less competitive than the reference counterpart. It's a decent graphics adapter nevertheless.

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