Nvidia announces affordable GTX 660 and GTX 650 graphics cards

CHIP DESIGNER Nvidia has announced two additions to its Kepler 600 series, the Geforce GTX 660 and the GTX 650 graphics cards.

Nvidia tells us that these new gaming cards are the "high-performance weapon of choice for gamers", especially when paired up with Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Assassin's Creed III and World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria.

The Nvidia Geforce GTX 660 has been designed specifically with budget gamers in mind, costing just £179. However, Nvidia tells us that doesn't mean the video card is underpowered, as it sports a new GK106 chip that features 960 CUDA cores and 2GB of RAM, meaning that users can expect four times the performance of the Geforce 9800 GT.

The Geforce GTX 650 is even cheaper at just £89, and Nvidia says it's an entry level gateway into PC gaming. Unlike the more expensive GTX 660 it lacks GPU boost, but the company said it comes with 384 CUDA cores and 1GB of RAM, so it should be able to play most of today's games at HD 1080p media quality or higher at 1920x1080 resolution.

"Packed with cutting-edge technologies integrated into the Nvidia Kepler architecture - including DirectX 11 tessellation, Nvidia PhysX, Nvidia Adaptive Vsync, and temporal anti-aliasing (TXAA) - only GeForce GTX GPUs, such as the new GTX 660 and GTX 650, will ensure gamers have the most immersive gaming experience possible," Nvidia said.

The Geforce GTX 660 and GTX 650 graphics cards are available today from vendors like Asus and Gigabyte. µ