Can FSR Make an NVIDIA GTX 660 Usable for Gaming in 2025
A hardware fan from the YouTube channel GCS Hardware just tried an old NVIDIA GTX 660 graphics card to see if new upscaling tools like FSR could help it work for gaming in 2025. The test showed that even though it can work with these tools, the old GPU is just too slow to really benefit from upscaling.
Results from Testing in Modern Games
The GTX 660 was tried in four games: Counter-Strike 2, GTA V, Cyberpunk 2077, and Doom 2016. The tests showed the card's limits when using upscaling.
- Counter-Strike 2: This game showed the best results. The GTX 660 got 80-90 FPS at full HD with the lowest settings. But, turning on FSR in balanced or performance mode did not make the FPS go up, even though it was running at a low inner resolution.
- Cyberpunk 2077: As thought, this game needed the most. At full HD on the lowest settings, it ran at just 10-15 FPS. Using FSR 2.1 performance mode got it to low 20s, but then the screen went black. Other upscalers were worse; XeSS took it down to 1 FPS, and FSR 3.1 made the game crash.
Why FSR and XeSS Did Not Work on the GTX 660
The main problem is the GTX 660's old age and its build limits. Upscaling tools need some basic things to work, and this 13-year-old GPU does not meet them.
- Hardware Problems: Modern upscalers need certain things to work. For example, XeSS needs Shader Model 6.4, but the GTX 660's Kepler build only goes up to Shader Model 5.1.
- Downsides of FSR: FSR was made for FP16 compute, but it has a slower FP32 path for old GPUs like the GTX 660. This path is not as good and hurts performance. The GTX 660 can't do FP16 tasks by itself.
- Just Not Powerful Enough: The big issue is that it just does not have enough power. Upscaling needs a lot of computing work. If a GPU is too slow, the time it takes to do these tasks takes away any gains from showing the game at a lower resolution. The GTX 660 just does not have the power needed to handle both the game and the upscaler well.
The Verdict A GPU Left Behind
This test shows that there are limits to what software can do with old hardware. The NVIDIA GTX 660, a middle-range card from 2012, is just too slow for the demands of new upscaling tools, making them useless for making it work better in today's games.
