GeForce GTX 590 vs 660

Place in performance ranking	403	461
Place by popularity	60	not in top-100
Value for money	2.34	0.46
Architecture	Kepler (2012−2018)	Fermi (2010−2014)
GPU code name	GK106	GF110
Market segment	Desktop	Desktop
Release date	6 September 2012 (11 years old)	24 March 2011 (13 years old)
Launch price (MSRP)	$229	$699
Current price	$172 (0.8x MSRP)	$600 (0.9x MSRP)

Value for money

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

GTX 660 has 409% better value for money than GTX 590.

Technical specs

General performance parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider their benchmark and gaming test results. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores	960	1024
CUDA cores	960	1024
Core clock speed	980 MHz	607 MHz
Boost clock speed	1033 MHz	no data
Number of transistors	2,540 million	3,000 million
Manufacturing process technology	28 nm	40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	140 Watt	365 Watt
Maximum GPU temperature	no data	97 °C
Texture fill rate	78.4 billion/sec	77.7 billion/sec
Floating-point performance	1,981 gflops	2x 1,244.2 gflops

Size and compatibility

Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).

Bus support	PCI Express 3.0	16x PCI-E 2.0
Interface	PCIe 3.0 x16	PCIe 2.0 x16
Length	9.5" (24.1 cm)	11" (280 mm) (27.9 cm)
Height	4.376" (11.1 cm)	4.376" (111 mm) (11.1 cm)
Width	2-slot	2-slot
Supplementary power connectors	One 6-pin	Two 8-pin
SLI options	+	+

Memory

Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.

Memory type	GDDR5	GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount	2 GB	3072 MB (1536 MB per GPU)
Memory bus width	192-bit GDDR5	768-bit (384-bit per GPU)
Memory clock speed	6.0 GB/s	1707 MHz
Memory bandwidth	144.2 GB/s	327.7 GB/s
Shared memory	no data	-

Video outputs and ports

Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.

Display Connectors	One Dual Link DVI-I, One Dual Link DVI-D, One HDMI, One DisplayPort	Three Dual Link DVI-IMini DisplayPort
Multi monitor support	4 displays	+
HDMI	+	+
HDCP	+	no data
Maximum VGA resolution	2048x1536	2048x1536
Audio input for HDMI	Internal	Internal

Technologies

Supported technological solutions. This information will prove useful if you need some particular technology for your purposes.

3D Blu-Ray	+	no data
3D Gaming	+	no data
3D Vision	+	no data

API support

List of supported graphics and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX	12 (11_0)	12 (11_0)
Shader Model	5.1	5.1
OpenGL	4.3	4.2
OpenCL	1.2	1.1
Vulkan	1.1.126	N/A
CUDA	+	+

Synthetic benchmark performance

Non-gaming benchmark performance comparison. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.

Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark performance score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

GTX 660 10.32
+19.6%

GTX 590 8.63

660 outperforms 590 by 20% based on our aggregated benchmark results.

Passmark

This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark, part of Passmark PerformanceTest suite. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various types of load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.

Benchmark coverage: 25%

GTX 660 3998
+19.7%

GTX 590 3341

660 outperforms 590 by 20% in Passmark.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics

Fire Strike is a DirectX 11 benchmark for gaming PCs. It features two separate tests displaying a fight between a humanoid and a fiery creature made of lava. Using 1920x1080 resolution, Fire Strike shows off some realistic graphics and is quite taxing on hardware.

Benchmark coverage: 14%

GTX 660 5040

GTX 590 6680
+32.5%

590 outperforms 660 by 33% in 3DMark Fire Strike Graphics.

GeekBench 5 OpenCL

Geekbench 5 is a widespread graphics card benchmark combined from 11 different test scenarios. All these scenarios rely on direct usage of GPU's processing power, no 3D rendering is involved. This variation uses OpenCL API by Khronos Group.

Benchmark coverage: 9%

GTX 660 11261

GTX 590 11950
+6.1%

590 outperforms 660 by 6% in GeekBench 5 OpenCL.

Gaming performance

Let's see how good the compared graphics cards are for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in FPS.

Average FPS across all PC games

Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular games across different resolutions:

900p	55−60 +17%	47 −17%
Full HD	47 −132%	109 +132%
1200p	130−140 +16.1%	112 −16.1%

Advantages and disadvantages

Performance score	10.32	8.63
Recency	6 September 2012	24 March 2011
Cost	$229	$699
Maximum RAM amount	2 GB	3072 MB (1536 MB per GPU)
Chip lithography	28 nm	40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	140 Watt	365 Watt