Overclocking gtx 660m

[Guido7142]

Hi everyone, I am making this thread to share everybody's experience on overclocking the GTX 660m.

I have the G75VW-BBK5 (Best Buy version) and I am more than pleased to tell you that I have reached +135 on the core and +350 on the memory clocks. I did not push the memory any further since I did not wanted it to overheat. The clock is maxed out with +135, I can not push it further, EVGA Precision did not let me go beyond that point. So far it hit only 68 C which is by no mean a terrible temperature. I made the test and taking out the bottom cover so that air can flow directly into fans and GPU temps did not hit 65 C... IMAGINE WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH NO BOTTOM COVER AND A COOLING PAD !!

The moment of truth was 3DMark Vantage where I WAS ABLE TO MAKE 13900 !! This thing overclocks like a beast.

Just thnx for your time in reading this, and leave your experience too !

[Guido7142]

Someone sent me a PM asking about weather to get the 660m or 670m. Just to clarify this for everyone I post what I told him.

From the experience I'm having with the 660m, so far it has been wonderful. I was able to overclock it up to 1085MHz at the core and it did not show any signs of artifacts or any fail. I would not consider that level a everyday overclock, as such I would use instead 1070MHz or 1065MHz. I only took memory to +350 from base clock but it can go beyond that for sure, I just did not wanted to risk anything (if there is). Without any overclock, 660m gets around 12100/12200 points in 3DMark Vantage (overall score). With the overclock I was able to hit 13900 points which is monster overclock. I think stock 670m gets around 13000 (from what I read). So overclocked 660m passes stock 670m. Nevertheless it as been said that 670m can be overclocked very far achieving 14700/14900 at frequencies I do not know.
On the temperature side my 660m did not overpass 67 C in max overclock... I have heard that 670 gets pretty toasty, I particularly prefer a bit less performance for a less hot card. Remember that 660m is Kepler while 670m is Fermi.

All this I'm saying it in reference to G75, so in G55 you will see less overclock and more temperature. If I had a G55 i would definitely go with the 660m.

Finally I was able to play BF3 in ULTRA with a bit less anti aliasing at 1080p. (around 27/30 fps)
Crysis 2 at HARDCORE with same fps and also 3D capable with no overclock. So imagine around 3 more fps with overclock.
GTA 4 with ENB series tweak, which kills whichever card you have, and got around 26 fps with almost all at HIGH and shadows at very high. This result was overclocked.

Hope it helps. Any other question don't hesitate to ask.

[Desani]

Hi Guido7142,

First off thanks for the information you have provided. I have a couple of questions for you.

What program are you using to overclock?
I am currently using MSI Afterburner and Nvidia Inspector.

You said that you are able to over clock to 1085 MHz. What is it that is being put at that frequency? If I push my core clock up +135 which is the max it looks like I can push it it only reaches 970 MHz

Also how is overclocking with the 301.42 drivers?

I will also be doing various tests with different frequencies and report back my findings with different benchmarks.

[Desani]

Here is my result with +135 core clock and +300 Memory Clock and 301.42 Drivers

3dMark Vantage : P12880

http://3dmark.com/3dmv/4114212

Do you know why I am off about 1000 from yours?

[Guido7142]

Hi Desani. First of all, apparently driver 301.42 is stable, I noticed a bit more performance than the factory one.

As regards the core overclock, I must tell you tan the +135 are from 950MHz which is the turbo frequency of the 660m (at least it is in my G75). I don't know if you have a G75 or G55. I have been using EVGA Precision for overclocking all the time. In Precision (latest version which I think is 3.something) you will see kind of a tachometer like the one in your car which marks the core clock. There are two lines shown in that tachometer, a blue one which is the base frequency of the card (835MHz) and an orange one which marks the turbo frequency (950MHz); if you do no overclocking at all, the GPU automatically boosts to 950MHz by it's own when needed (At least in High Performance mode of Power4Hybrid). Whenever you add an overclock to the core, it is summed to the turbo frequency, ex: +10 will take you to turbo frequency of 960MHz.

As regards the difference in score in 3DMark Vantage, I don't know if it affects the benchmark but I have an SSD. Theoretically it would not be any difference. I can post my different stages of overclock with it's respective scores, I have been keeping record of them as I overclocked the GPU.

Keep providing me with your experience so I can help you get that GTX 660m to it's maximum.

[Guido7142]

Capture.jpgCapture2.jpgCapture3.jpgCapture4.jpgCapture5.jpgCapture6.jpgCapture7.jpg

Each frequency change was testes with Furmark for 10 minutes to check if it was stable.

[Desani]

I am using the G75VW model with the 660m. I pushed mine to the same limits as yours and I had very similar results. I am not using the full version of 3DMark Vantage though and so it doesn't run as many tests. I think this is the reason why we have a variance.


3DMark Score
12899 3DMarks

Graphics Score
11349
Your Graphics Score was 11278. Very similar

CPU Score
21849
This is where the main difference was. Your score was 50357. I assume this is from different tests?


Jane Nash
33.78 FPS
I assume this is your GPU Test 1 with the result of 33.71

New Calico
32.69 FPS
I also assume that this is your GPU Test 2 with the result of 32.34

Both almost identical.


AI Test
2976 operations/s
I assume this is your CPU Test 1 with the result of 2959.64

Physics Test
30 operations/s
This is where it changes. You have 167.40 for your 2nd CPU test.

Here is a lint to my results.
http://3dmark.com/3dmv/4114331

I really like this program for overclocking and I wasn't aware of the step up in processing power on the GPU.
I had recently bought a g74sx with a 560m graphics processor before this and had to return it and ended up getting this as an upgrade. I had noticed that the 560m had slightly better performance in Skyrim but I do believe that it was due to properly written drivers. I do hope we get some official 301.42+ ones from Nvidia soon.

[Guido7142]

Still don't know why we get so different CPU scores, don't forget to put it on High Performance mode.

Why did you return the G74 ?

Today I tested Crysis 2 in Extreme settings (only above is ULTRA ) and 1080p and got 28 fps average; with DX11 enabled. This GPU is quite a beast. I would like to give a test to the 670m although... I come from a low end pc and I am always tempted to max out the graphics in everything in this notebook, but I would like to see more of 30 fps and above also by taking things a bit lighter. Don't get me wrong, 660m is incredible, but it can not extremely max out such demanding games like BF3 or Cry2, still gets very close.

What games have you tested so far ?

[komaron]

For me GTX 660m (G55) i got a 10FPS increase (on average) with +135GPU/+350MEM on Diablo 3 - maxed settings.

[Daylife]

With some updated Drivers from Nvidia im sure the performance will increase. I still think that this video card is incredible, its cool and runs anything. very happy with it.