Asus GTX 660Ti DirectCU II TOP Graphics Card Review

Like we have seen with Gigabyte cards, Asus cards are quickly becoming a regular customer to our test benches and so we are getting a better feel for how they perform before we even get them fired up. As said back at the start of the review, we have seen one of Asus’ TOP cards before, powered by a Radeon HD 7770, and that gave us an insight into the quality control that goes in to each card. The ASUS GTX 660Ti TOP today reflects that same binning and selection process, with only the best cards going through to the validation process to ensure that they are fit for TOP branding.

The DirectCU II cooler is no newcomer to our hands, and in our charts we find the two quietest cards featuring a SKU of this cooler in one form or another. We do have to point out that whist the cards are quiet, they could do with being a little cooler as mentioned and a slight sacrifice on acoustic performance could be made to give a better thermal performance out of the box.

On the performance side of things I’m a little on the fence with this card to be honest, by all means it is no slouch and its easily keeps up with other overclocked 660Ti’s out there but it does require a higher overclock to do so. I was expecting this to sit above all other 660Ti’s with ease but we did find in some tests this card dropping a little behind, which did come to a surprise. I would like to suggest that looking at the memory clocks would be an option and if by playing around in that department would have a little effect on the overall performance and therefore setting the card apart from the rest. On the pricing front also there is marginal difference between this and other overclocked GTX 660 Ti’s that we have looked at and for the slight amount more you can get a card that performs just as well, if not a little better all round.

Where I can see this card being popular is with the Asus following, and let’s be honest there is quite a crowd out there, when it comes to Asus rigs, the vast majority of them have ROG at the base, but ROG cards can be quite pricey so thats where the TOP line steps in, in my mind. They offer up the ‘TOP’ level of performance as the name suggests and similar styling with the coolers, just with a slightly lower price tag. If you’re after an Asus board and GPU combo then you can’t go wrong with one of these cards at all.

Bottom line, if you’re specifically after a mid-range NVIDIA powered card from Asus with a little bit extra then by all means go for it, but if you’re not brand conscious, then there are other options out there to consider for the money.