Folding Forum

Posted: **Thu Jan 31, 2013 2:49 am**

I want to replace my Radeon HD 6950 GPU with either the Nvidia GTX 660Ti or the GTX 670. I am not a gamer, and the graphics card will be used almost solely for folding (running 24/7) and photo/video editing. Does anyone know from experience whether there is a significant performance difference in PPD between these two cards? I would prefer to spend less rather than more on the new card. Any advice will be most appreciated. My system includes:
Intel i7-870 CPU (with cooler)
8 MB of 1600 MHz RAM
Radeon HD 6950 (to be replaced)
WD Caviar Black hard drive (7200 rpm)
Crucial Adrenaline solid state cache

Thanks very much,
Crestwood

Posted: **Thu Jan 31, 2013 3:15 am**

If one of the threads get deleted and it ends up being the other one....heres what I posted over there.
You should check out this GPU stats database. It has some results from both of those cards and many more.
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=22281

Posted: **Thu Jan 31, 2013 3:52 am**

Crestwood wrote:I want to replace my Radeon HD 6950 GPU with either the Nvidia GTX 660Ti or the GTX 670. I am not a gamer, and the graphics card will be used almost solely for folding (running 24/7) and photo/video editing. Does anyone know from experience whether there is a significant performance difference in PPD between these two cards? I would prefer to spend less rather than more on the new card. Any advice will be most appreciated.

Hi, I just bought four of the Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti GV-N66TOC-2GD cards this month. These cards self-overclock as high as 1228MHz, please see my stats here and here and here. As you can see, these cards have very good cooling, getting to a maximum of 60C on the very demanding P762x WUs.

Also, here is a sorted list of compdewd's Folding@Home GPU Statistics Database. The overclocked GTX 660 Ti's, including this entry of mine:

Code: Select all

GTX 660 Ti 	P7623 	TPF 5:11 	39152 PPD    Overclocked   1228MHz   Driver 306.97    Core 0x15    Core Version 2.25

have higher PPD values than the GTX 670's in the database.

Posted: **Thu Jan 31, 2013 5:34 am**

Both models have the same number of shaders and the same stock clocks, so they'll perform basically identically. The only notable difference between the two is the memory bus width, with the 660 Ti equipped with a 192-bit bus to the 670's 256-bit, but that has never been a limiting factor for FAH.

Posted: **Thu Jan 31, 2013 10:51 am**

Zagen30 wrote:Both models have the same number of shaders and the same stock clocks, so they'll perform basically identically. The only notable difference between the two is the memory bus width, with the 660 Ti equipped with a 192-bit bus to the 670's 256-bit, but that has never been a limiting factor for FAH.

Yes, the Comparison of NVidia GeForce 600 Series shows identical GFLOPS (FMA) of 2460 at the same Core frequency (915 MHz) for the GTX 660 Ti and the GTX 670.

Posted: **Thu Jan 31, 2013 2:16 pm**

I currently have 2 GTX 670's in a dedicated folding rig. I've got them set at 1175GHz. They run at about 61c on the 80xx WU's and about 68c on the 762x WU's.

Right now they are folding the following:

WU 7623 @ 39152 PPD
WU 7626 @ 39026 PPD

A couple of days ago they folded some 80xx's:
WU 8072 and 8073 get around 27k PPD on these cards.

My understanding (I have no way of testing this though) is that the GTX670 draws more power than a comparably clocked GTX 660ti. But you'll have to verify it as it was just something that I read a couple of different places. And the list price of the 670 is about 25% higher than the 660ti.

Posted: **Thu Jan 31, 2013 5:00 pm**

Bleeder wrote:I currently have 2 GTX 670's in a dedicated folding rig. I've got them set at 1175MHz. They run at about 61c on the 80xx WU's and about 68c on the 762x WU's.

Right now they are folding the following:

WU 7623 @ 39152 PPD
WU 7626 @ 39026 PPD

A couple of days ago they folded some 80xx's:
WU 8072 and 8073 get around 27k PPD on these cards.

My understanding (I have no way of testing this though) is that the GTX670 draws more power than a comparably clocked GTX 660ti. But you'll have to verify it as it was just something that I read a couple of different places. And the list price of the 670 is about 25% higher than the 660ti.

Yes, these are the same PPD numbers that I get on my overclocked GTX 660 Ti's, although the Gigabyte GV-N66TOC-2GD cards don't go over 60C on the 762x WUs, at the highest overclock (1228MHz) that I've used. The GTX 660 Ti specs show a Maximum Graphics Card Power of 150W at stock clocks. The GTX 670 specs show a Maximum Graphics Card Power of 170W at stock clocks.

Posted: **Thu Jan 31, 2013 7:08 pm**

For the money, I would go for the 660ti

Posted: **Thu Jan 31, 2013 8:21 pm**

Extra video ram does add to the price and takes more power to run it. Memory size or speed has never been a significant factor for FAH. We've been saying that for a long time, coupled with a disclaimer that we can't definitively predict that it never will be. Shader count and shader speed have always been the important factors. When I had a choice, I've always bought the one with less memory but that's because I'm looking at it for FAH only, not for games or to drive super-high-resolution monitors.

Posted: **Fri Feb 01, 2013 9:48 pm**

Thanks to all who posted their very helpful comments. After reading just about every available tech review of the Gigabyte GTX 660Ti OC, I found a very good price for the card and have ordered it. The card should arrive early next week, and after I've used it for a week or two, I will post any pertinent comments.
Best regards,
Crestwood

P.S. I had my 70th birthday last November, and the technology improvements we are seeing today are astounding to me. Prior to retiring, I worked for two fairly well-known biotech research firms in Seattle (ZymoGenetics, and the Institute for Systems Biology), so I also have a strong interest in the research being done by the Pande lab. Keep up the great work you are doing!!

Posted: **Fri Feb 01, 2013 11:10 pm**

Crestwood wrote:P.S. I had my 70th birthday last November, and the technology improvements we are seeing today are astounding to me.

Congratulations! I will be having my 60th this coming June. Been retired for 10 years now, and having a blast. The whole folding community here at the Forum is amazing, it's really a fun place to be around.

Art

Posted: **Fri Feb 08, 2013 1:12 am**

I said I would post a follow-up comment or two on the new Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC card after a few days experience with it. In a nutshell, this new GPU is a very significant improvement over my previous Radeon HD 6950. I am currently running two clients: GPU and SMP (all 8 cores of the CPU). The current PPD is in the 49,000-50,000 range, although on one of the short project assignments it topped out at nearly 59,000 PPD. By comparison, using the old GPU (HD 6950), my system ran in the 19,000-20,000 PPD range. I am also pleased to note that the 660 Ti OC card runs cool -- steady readings of 61-62 degrees at 50% fan speeds -- and is also quieter than the HD 6950. So, I am very pleased with the improved performance.

Posted: **Sun Mar 10, 2013 10:11 pm**

This will be my last post on this thread. I have now been using the Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC for just over a month, and continue to be very satisfied with its performance. After the first week of use, when the PPD totals fluctuated rather dramatically (I suspect due to the projects assigned to my computer), the points total has settled into a fairly regular pattern in the 39000 - 41000 PPD range. I tried doing some mild tweaking on Gigabyte's factory overclock, but encountered some stability problems and subsequently decided to leave the card settings alone. The card runs very cool (it rarely exceeds 60 deg C.), and is VERY quiet (much quieter than its predecessor, a Radeon HD 6950). Since I got a rebate on the card at the time of purchase, the price-to-performance ratio has proven excellent, and I can recommend the GTX 660 Ti OC without reservation.

Posted: **Wed Feb 12, 2014 5:41 am**

bruce wrote:Shader count and shader speed have always been the important factors.

What's the difference between shaders and cuda cores?

Thanks.

Posted: **Thu Feb 13, 2014 9:02 am**

bs_texas wrote:What's the difference between shaders and cuda cores?

Thanks.

Different names for the same thing.

Folding Forum

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Re: Nvidia GTX 660Ti vs. GTX 670?

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Re: Nvidia GTX 660Ti vs. GTX 670?

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