KFA²'s take on a mid-range beast
It's doubtful that NVIDIA's AICs will recycle GeForce GTX 680 PCBs, as they have done for GTX 670 and GTX 660 Ti, for this new GPU. A smaller, cheaper PCB is very much the order of the day.
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KFA² obliges by using a fundamentally different PCB and cooler on its GTX 660 EX OC 2GB card; the GTX 660 Ti variant is a different beast altogether. Measuring 9in long and feeling much more like a mid-range card than the underlying die would suggest, the non-Ti card looks reasonably similar to the firm's GeForce GTX 460 offerings. This GPU would certainly do well to fill those particular GeForce shoes.
Build quality is solid and, looking at the rear, we believe that a substantially shorter card can be manufactured. A single SLI finger gives rise to two-way SLI and KFA² increases the core speed from 980MHz to 1,006MHz - GPU Boosting to 1,072MHz - but keeps the memory dialled in at a default 6,008MHz: a mild overclock, if you will.
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The side-on shot shows the solitary 6-pin PCIe connector situated underneath the PCB-long heatsink. Cooling is sensible rather than over-the-top, with three heatpipes jutting out from the centre and snaking through the aluminium fins. IO ports are very much a replica of those found on all high-end GeForce GTX 600-series cards, which is good, as they comprise of two dual-link DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort. All four can be used concurrently, too, and three-screen setup, most common for gamers, requires no additional adapters.
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The EX OC carries eight Hynix 6Gbps chips - four on each side - and, as mentioned, the use of mixed-density memory enables a GPU-wide 2,048MB framebuffer to be created. Again, the vast expanses of PCB real estate lead us to believe that some AIC will produce a teeny-weeny GeForce GTX 660 board; KFA², meanwhile, is all about performance.
There's even little need for a copper insert on the cooler, according to the firm, and the heatsink is fairly generic for a mid-range card. A couple of PWM-controlled 80mm fans do the hard work of pushing air across the entire card. The KFA² GeForce GTX 660 2GB is uncomplicated, aesthetically pleasing and ships with a mild overclock on the core. Pricing is yet to be confirmed though, taking an educated guess, we suspect it to be around £190, including VAT.
