We would like to thank the following companies for supplying and supporting us with our test system hardware and equipment: Intel, ASUS and Corsair.

Above you can see our standard X79 video card testbed we've been using since late last year. With everything covered above let's get into the video cards we'll be using in our graphs here today before we get into the performance side of things to see what NVIDIA's new GEFORCE GTX 660 Ti is capable of achieving.

We'll be comparing the GTX 660 Ti reference model against a number of cards today to find out just how the new model sits. On the NVIDIA side of things we'll be looking how it goes against the older GTX 580 which was last generation's top-dog single GPU option. We'll also be seeing how it compares against its big brothers, the GTX 670 and GTX 680.

More importantly, though, we'll be checking out how it compares against the AMD line up of cards starting with the HD 7850 and HD 7870, which will be its main competition. Along with that, though, we've also got the HD 7950, HD 7970 and the new GHz Edition version of the HD 7970.

Let's get started!

The FPS Numbers Explained

When we benchmark our video cards and look at the graphs, we aim to get to a certain level of FPS which we consider playable. While many may argue that the human eye can't see over 24 FPS or 30 FPS, any true gamer will tell you that as we climb higher in Frames Per Seconds (FPS), the overall gameplay feels smoother. There are three numbers we're looking out for when it comes to our benchmarks.

30 FPS - It's the minimum number we aim for when it comes to games. If you're not dropping below 30 FPS during games, you're going to have a nice and smooth gaming experience. The ideal situation is that even in a heavy fire fight, the minimum stays above 30 FPS making sure that you can continue to aim easily or turn the corner with no dramas.

60 FPS - It's the average we look for when we don't have a minimum coming at us. If we're getting an average of 60 FPS, we should have a minimum of 30 FPS or better and as mentioned above, it means we've got some smooth game play happening.

120 FPS - The new number that we've been hunting down over recent months. If you're the owner of a 120 Hz monitor, to get the most out of it you want to get around the 120 FPS mark. Moving from 60 FPS / 60 Hz to 120 FPS / 120 Hz brings with it a certain fluidity that can't really be explained, but instead has to be experienced. Of course, if you're buying a 120 Hz monitor to take advantage of 3D, an average of 120 FPS in our benchmark means that in 3D you will have an average of 60 FPS, which again means you should expect some smooth gameplay.