9800xt vs 6600gt?

anthrex

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jul 7, 2004
Messages
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I was wondering which one would be better to play hl2. right now i'm on a computer that was "decent" back in the day.
athlon xp 2000+
256mb pc2100
onboard gf2 (nforce, yea i kno it sux)

so i was wondering what vid card i should get or if the bottleneck would be to great for my system. right now i can get the 9800 xt for probably around $140 which is a pretty decent deal from what i can tell.

or maybe i should just wait to buy a better comp?

thanx

Anthrex
 
9800 XT for $140 is a good deal, but the 6600 GT outperforms it 20-30% depending on game.
 
get the 9800xt :) that's cheap as heck for one and it looks nicer than the 6600gt :) but yeah the 6600gt is faster than the 9800xt in most things.. but i would buy the 9800xt and sell it for 250 and get a 6600gt with some extra cash :)
 
If you plan to play Doom 3 engined games with any sort of intensity, go for the 6600GT which slaughters the 9800XT on this engine.

You won't be disappointed with either card and $140 is a stunning price for a 9800XT. I'm pretty sure I saw one for $417 (!) someplace today as they tend to be still optimistically priced - presumably retailers unwilling to take the hit and cut their prices to realistic levels.
 
hmm its a hard decision i guess, i think i'll buy hl2 and see how it runs on the 9800xt before i buy it.

well thanks again!
 
just one little comment...

I think it'll be someway stupid to buy such a graphics card if you own only 256 mb of system memory - minimum for a good performance is 512 mb. the smart way would be to buy a cheap DIMM of RAM so you've got 512 mb and then buy a 9800pro and bios-flash it to XT-level (for information if you really want to do this: nearly every MSI-9800-Pro produced atm has got the R360-Chip and is flashable to 9800 XT)


just my two cents...
 
Good point - 256Mb is woefully inadequate for modern gaming. 512Mb is starting to look underpowered as well.

Doom 3 for example needs a minimum of 384Mb and runs best with 1Gb+ RAM
 
Unless you're talking doom3, a 6600gt wont be beating a 9800xt by 20 to 30%. The 9800xt is the better deal.
 
Brent_Justice said:

If you guys actually read this, and read the Anandtech article comparing the 9800pro to the 6600gt, you would see there isn't that big of a difference in the performance of the two...

The 9800xt performs quite a bit better than the 9800pro right? Therefore the XT will match or beat the 6600gt in probably every game except doom 3.
 
I've seen a ton of benchmarks between the cards, and the 6600gt beats the 9800xt on lower resolutions, i've seen it mainly on 1024 x 768. it's not by a whole lot at all, maybe a few FPS, but unless your god you wont be able to notice 5 - 8 fps difference, unless its 32fps compared to 25fps, right? I dont know a whole lot about the whole sorts, i'm wondering how the AGP 6600gt does again the AGP 6800 Vanilla. I want an affordable video card, i keep seeing good things about the GT, but people are saying the Vanilla is in the lead vs the GT at a good price range.
 
If you look at the hard article you'll see an underclocked GT sweeping the 9800Pro.
 
You'll also notice that this is not an apples to apples comparison:

http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTEwMDQ3NzI0NHQycGptcjA0allfNl8yX2wuZ2lm

1100477244t2pjmr04jY_6_2_l.gif


The 6600GT is running at a higher res with more eye-candy turned on.
 
Doesn't really matter which card you get, with only 256MB of system RAM, performance is going to suck. If you're on a budget first, get at least another 256MB (if not 512) and then figure out what you can spend on the graphics card.
 
6600 GT AGP...

1. LOOKS better.

2. FASTER....

3. NEWER.

4. SUPPORTS pixel shader 3.0 , ultra shadow.. etc etc.. direct x 9.0c.
 
geekcomputing said:
6600 GT AGP...

1. LOOKS better.

2. FASTER....

3. NEWER.

4. SUPPORTS pixel shader 3.0 , ultra shadow.. etc etc.. direct x 9.0c.

I agree totally with this. Why would you buy older, outdated technology? that boggles my mind... The 6600gt may not be outperforming the 9800xt thta much, buit it was WAY more future friendly
 
9800xt for 140 bucks though, that is probably 100 cheaper than the 6600gt... a hundred dollars that can go to somehting like a 512 stick of ram, that will actually make a huge difference for him.

I would go 9800xt and 1 512 stick of ram any day over a 6600gt
 
anthrex said:
I was wondering which one would be better to play hl2. right now i'm on a computer that was "decent" back in the day.
athlon xp 2000+
256mb pc2100
onboard gf2 (nforce, yea i kno it sux)

so i was wondering what vid card i should get or if the bottleneck would be to great for my system. right now i can get the 9800 xt for probably around $140 which is a pretty decent deal from what i can tell.

or maybe i should just wait to buy a better comp?

thanx

Anthrex

Damn.. where can u get the 9800xt for $140? I will put one in every computer I got if it is that cheap. I remember people thought the 128mb 9500np's were a steal at $160 or so. Is it used or from a store?

[..:: magnetik ::..]
 
i actually already have the 9800xt its from a guy in my dorm. he never oced it or even used overdrive, but was just unsatisfied with it because he uses linux. so right now i'm just testing it out. it seems to have been working really well for the past few days.

sry guys no link :(
since it'll be a while before the 6600gt comes close to that price i think i'll stick with the 9800xt. well it looks like i'll be hunting for some memory.


Thanks again for all the great info

:D

~Anthrex
 
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