Review index:
- 1 – Overview
- 2 – Gallery
- 3 – GPU Data
- 4 – Benchmarks
- 5 – Linux Test
- 6 – Burn-in Test
- 7 – Overclocking
- 8 – Conclusion
2 – GTX 660 HAWK Gallery
The GTX 660 HAWK is a nice card and the Twin Frozr IV VGA cooler brings a sexy touch:
A backplane is provided to protect the rear side of the PCB:
The HAWK is equipped with the GPU Reactor. The GPU Reactor is an additional power module to improve the stability of the GPU under high stress and overclocking / overvoltage.
When the card is working, the GPU Reactor provides a bluish light:
The board comes with two 6-pin power connectors while only one is available on a regular GTX 660. The card is ready for all you OC torture sessions!
The golden SSC (Solid State Choke): these components are inductors, one of the fundamental parts of any VRM.
The HAWK supports 2-way SLI:
Serious overclocking requires the exact reading of the board voltages. That’s why MSI has added three voltage check points for the GPU, the memory and the PLL. Three connectors for voltmeters are part of the bundle:
The bundle includes a CDROM with tools (Afterburner, Kombustor) and drivers, two power connectors (molex to 6-pin PCI-E), three voltage check points connectors, a DVI/sub-d adapter and a certificate of quality and stability:
Review index:
Unigine Heaven has a lower score under Linux ONLY when using AA, it’s a known thing and they did not bother to fix it, so yeah, comparisons are useless, try without AA, with Tess: Extreme and they’re on the same level.
Thanks Licaon_Kter, I’ll do again the Heaven benchmark without AA. It’s time I release my new tests under linux and win….
I just tested with the following settings:
– 1920×1080 fullscreen
– no AA
– 16x aniso.
– shaders: high
– Tessellation: extreme
Windows: 50.7 FPS, Scores: 1278
Linux: 36.3 FPS, Scores: 915
– Tessellation: normal
Windows: 65.9 FPS, Scores: 1660
Linux: 49.3 FPS, Scores: 1243…
wtf?
On my plain GTX460/700/3600, tested with the same settings for Heaven 3.0:
-1920×1080 fullscreen
-no AA
-16x aniso.
-shaders: high
-tess: extreme
-Linux 310.14 / Windows 310.33 & 306.97
Linux: 23.4 / 589 / 12.1 / 59.3
WOGL: 23.4 / 588 / 11.9 / 61.2
WDX11: 24.6 / 619 / 12.5 / 66.6
That’s just ~5% difference…
Either you forgot to disable VSync (as it’s enabled by default on Linux) or there is something else at fault, like your DE/WM compositor, etc.
I tested with Heaven 2.1, maybe that could explain the difference. I’ll try with Heaven 3.0 as you did.