Promised review is up! NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT Review!!!

gordon151 said:
Firingsquad has a 9800 Pro in their review and it actually beats it in most non-AA situations, but they only enabled AA in like one or two of the games, but I'd assume the 9800 Pro would noticeably outperform it there.
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The only benchmark that the 9800 Pro beats it is the first FC other then that it either beats or matches the Pro. The 9800 XT is a different story thought, the 6600GT trails it.

Considering that the 9800XT is $300 at the lowest (Newegg) against the 6600GT which is $199 I would say thats pretty good.

Don't forget the fact that FS's review isn't an "Apples to Apples" comparison like the [H]'s.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/nvidia_geforce_6600_gt/default.asp
 
Mav451 said:
What worries is just how much cooler and efficient the .11 process is on the 6600GT in comparison to the .13 process on the 6800NU.

Is it worth waiting to see the AGP version or do i just jump on the NU.

I wonder how the 6800NU's compare to the 6600GT (insane 1Ghz mem clock).
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the card ran very cool, even with the core overclocked to 560MHz

you can see what we were able to run games at with the 6800NU here: http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjUy and then compare that to the results we got in the games for the 6600GT, we used the same games
 
lithium726 said:
but while thinking about the clock speed of the ram.. you also have to take into account hte memory bust that each has.. im willing to bet the 128-bit memory interface on the 6600 series is limiting it so that it does not begin to keep up with its big bro, the NU. im guessing the GDDR3 on the 6600 GT is more of a marketing move than anything, like it was on the 5700U. i could be wrong tho, this is all speculation :p

and WOW the x600 got its ass whooped
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GDDR3 allows it to achieve high memory frequency with less voltage required and less heat

its running at 500MHz, which with DDRII would be very hot and power hungry

that's 16GB/sec of memory bandwidth, which btw is what the NV30 debuted with at its launch, and it was suppose to be an enthusiast level card

so now here we are years later introducing a MAINSTREAM card with that kind of bandwidth! it is the highest memory bandwidth i've ever seen on a new card launched in the mainstream
 
CrimandEvil said:
The 6800 is a 12 pipeline card compared to 8 on the 6600GT, the 6800 has a 256-bit memory bus compared 128-bits on the 6600GT. I would venture a guess and say the vanilla 6800 would pimp the 6600GT but I would like to see how a pair of 6600GTs in SLI would handle the 6800 and maybe even the Ultra.
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that's what i'm most curious about as well

will SLI'd 6600GT's beat a 6800GT or Ultra?

that's what everyone wants to know
 
CrimandEvil said:
I'm pretty sure NV is using a bridge chip (ATI's cards though are PCIe native).
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the 6600 series are native PCI-E

they will use an HSI bridge chip to bridge them from PCI-E to AGP8X for those models
 
Tenchi4U said:
DAMN!!!!!

I can only push my PNY 6800GT to 440/1.3 and remain stable (non-voltage modded, but w/ NV Silencer 5). But am pretty sure I could kill a 6600GT (but I paid like $100 more than the $200 6600GT price).
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the 6800GT also has 16 pipelines, and the 6600GT has 8

therefore less transistors

also the 6600GT is .11u the 6800GT is .13u
 
Brent_Justice said:
the 6600 series are native PCI-E

they will use an HSI bridge chip to bridge them from PCI-E to AGP8X for those models
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Okay cool, it was probably mentioned but I didn't see it (I should read more carefully next time, lol). :)

Been reading Anandtech's review and found this pretty funny LOL
It's the 6600GT matching a XTPE in Jedi Academy...until you turn on the AA/AF. Still I found it funny. :D
 
Jonsey said:
Great review. If I was in the market for a mid-range $200 card it wouldn't be a 9600... it would be a 9800. Seems like the 9800 is the 6600's real competitor, unless the 9800's are phased out very soon or the 6600 quickly becomes cheaper than 199.
I wonder how the 6600 compares to the 9800?
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I saw it on some other websites. The 6600GT beat it or equalled in almost every benchmark. Especially as you cranked up the resolution. Though 4xAA seems to hurt it more than the 9800XT (probably b/c of 128bit memory vs 256bit)

so $200 6600GT > $300 9800XT (at about the same performance level and no SM3.0)
 
Risiko said:
I'd be interested to see if two of these running SLI can perform better than a 6800Ultra.
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At first, I was kind of dubious - but after thinking about it, they just might - and at a lower price. One 6800U gives you 16 pipelines running at 400 MHz, right? Two of these will give you 16 pipelines at 500 MHz. In memory, a 6800U gives you 1.1 GHz on the memory. Two of the 6600's will effectively give you 2 GHz. That's a lot of memory bandwidth, and the extra MHz in the cores should help out with AA.

Now, of course, two 128-meg cards in SLI isn't exactly like having a 256-meg card - it's closer to having a fast 128-meg card. Because of that, in games that really make good use of a 256-meg card, an SLI 6600 setup might not run optimally, but in games that run well in 128 megs, I'll bet that they're going to be real screamers.

steve
 
Brent_Justice said:
the card ran very cool, even with the core overclocked to 560MHz

you can see what we were able to run games at with the 6800NU here: http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjUy and then compare that to the results we got in the games for the 6600GT, we used the same games
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Yeah but the 6600GT review has a 3.0E, while the 6800NU (BFG) is using a FX-53. When the FPS's aren't video card limited...doesn't the CPU have a slight effect?
 
NerveGas said:
At first, I was kind of dubious - but after thinking about it, they just might - and at a lower price. One 6800U gives you 16 pipelines running at 400 MHz, right? Two of these will give you 16 pipelines at 500 MHz. In memory, a 6800U gives you 1.1 GHz on the memory. Two of the 6600's will effectively give you 2 GHz. That's a lot of memory bandwidth, and the extra MHz in the cores should help out with AA.

Now, of course, two 128-meg cards in SLI isn't exactly like having a 256-meg card - it's closer to having a fast 128-meg card. Because of that, in games that really make good use of a 256-meg card, an SLI 6600 setup might not run optimally, but in games that run well in 128 megs, I'll bet that they're going to be real screamers.

steve
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Dont forget the 6600GT is 128-bit memory INTERFACE. = half the bandwidth. So the memory is actually equal for a 6800U vs 2x 6600GT's

Plus, the latency penalty for syncronizing 2 cards is going to have to hurt it. (transfering stuff over the PCIe bus vs. having all 16 pipes on the same core.
 
Anandtech has a review that includes some other cards to see how yours stands. Seems it'll be a decent step up from this 9700 Pro =)
 
9mmx19 said:
Anandtech has a review that includes some other cards to see how yours stands. Seems it'll be a decent step up from this 9700 Pro =)
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I'm not so sure about it. It's better than 9700 but not that much really. IMHO it won't be worth upgrading to single agp 6600GT but upgrading to twin 6600GT in SLI might be a diffrent matter :D
 
I wouldn't quite call it the new 4200. The 4200 used the same architecture as the high end cards, all one needed to do was overclock and they could get top notch performance. That's why I think it's more like the how the GF2 MX was to the GF2 GTS.

andrewuk said:
Ladies and Gentleman - I give you the new Ti4200, the 6600GT :)
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andrewuk said:
Ladies and Gentleman - I give you the new Ti4200, the 6600GT :)
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Nah, the 6800 vanilla is closer to what the ti4200 was, even though it only has 12 pipes vs. 16 pipes.

And the 6800GT is the ti4400.

P.S. better sell your 9800's & 5900's now, before the 6600's hit the market!
 
P.S. better sell your 9800's & 5900's now, before the 6600's hit the market!
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9800 pros and and 5900s in the budget bin. What a funny thought. Seems like only yesterday they were sitting high on the throne.

ATI and NV are both doing some amazing things this gen.
 
Yeah, it's been almost exactly a year since I got my 9800 pro. It was the fastest thing you could get, the 9800 XT wasn't even out yet.
Oh well, that's the way of the high end video card, the only product that depreciates faster than an ice cream cone in July! :)
 
Was looking at these untill I scored a 256mb 9800XT for $120.00 Think it will stay in the work rig for a while. ;)
 
Hate to embarrass the hard review crew but the x700 will be the competition of the 6600GT not the x600. And there are already benchmarks of it on Korean sites where the x700 pro runs slightly behind the 6600GT, but pretty much even. I'd expect the x700 XT to be equal or outperform it. Nvidia must use seperate PCB's on the AGP version thats why you wont see it til November or December. As for SLI, it is great for bragging rights but the truth is it will never net much money for nVida considering you will have to spend at least $50 extra for a MB that supports it, and possibly another $50 on a 500 watt power supply. With those extra costs, it just makes better sense to get the high end card and sell the 6600 on ebay.
 
killerD said:
Hate to embarrass the hard review crew but the x700 will be the competition of the 6600GT not the x600. And there are already benchmarks of it on Korean sites where the x700 pro runs slightly behind the 6600GT, but pretty much even. I'd expect the x700 XT to be equal or outperform it. Nvidia must use seperate PCB's on the AGP version thats why you wont see it til November or December. As for SLI, it is great for bragging rights but the truth is it will never net much money for nVida considering you will have to spend at least $50 extra for a MB that supports it, and possibly another $50 on a 500 watt power supply. With those extra costs, it just makes better sense to get the high end card and sell the 6600 on ebay.
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the x700 is also pci e only ;) just like that x600 for the first few months at least, why would you need a 500 watt power supply with the 6600gt in SLI logically speaking this card takes less then half the power consumption the 6800 ultra needs. Probably will be half of what the 6800 gt needs.

Also the x700xt is the one thats on par with the 6600 gt, same clocks for ram and gpu. If ya want to talk about theoretical, that means the 6600gt shoudl be slightly faster in real game tests, as clock for clock the gf 6 line is faster then the x800 lines.
 
killerD said:
Hate to embarrass the hard review crew but the x700 will be the competition of the 6600GT not the x600. And there are already benchmarks of it on Korean sites where the x700 pro runs slightly behind the 6600GT, but pretty much even. I'd expect the x700 XT to be equal or outperform it. Nvidia must use seperate PCB's on the AGP version thats why you wont see it til November or December. As for SLI, it is great for bragging rights but the truth is it will never net much money for nVida considering you will have to spend at least $50 extra for a MB that supports it, and possibly another $50 on a 500 watt power supply. With those extra costs, it just makes better sense to get the high end card and sell the 6600 on ebay.
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hahaha...when killerD is this subdued, you know nvidia is really doing well...hahaha...even if the x700xt is faster...it costs more...it'll be slower than the 6600 in OpenGL (*cough*, doom3) and it doesn't have PS3 or SLI...even with a faster card, ATI doesn't look they'll be competing very well unless they lower the price point to $199 instead of $249...
 
^eMpTy^ said:
hahaha...when killerD is this subdued, you know nvidia is really doing well...hahaha...even if the x700xt is faster...it costs more...it'll be slower than the 6600 in OpenGL (*cough*, doom3) and it doesn't have PS3 or SLI...even with a faster card, ATI doesn't look they'll be competing very well unless they lower the price point to $199 instead of $249...
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Lets wait to some actual retail prices start showing up and Half Life 2 benches are shown before you assume too much. Doom 3 will soon be all but a sweet memory and has no multplayer to hold gamers. By the time anohter game based on its engine is released, the next generation of cards will be out.
 
killerD said:
Hate to embarrass the hard review crew but the x700 will be the competition of the 6600GT not the x600.
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Read the ENTIRE article:

Quote Brent:

For our comparison today we will take the NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT and compare it with the ATI Radeon X600XT since that is the closest video card we have for competition from ATI at this time at that price range.

So as of right now this is how NVIDIA and ATI compare with the fastest cards they have in the mainstream market.

NVIDIA Mainstream $199:

GeForce 6600GT (NV43) – .11 micron, 8 pixel-pipelines, 3 vertex engines, 128-bit memory bus, GDDR3, 500MHz/500MHz (1GHz DDR), Native PCI-E, Shader Model 3.0, 64-bit floating point texture filtering and framebuffer blending.

ATI Mainstream $199:

Radeon X600XT (RV380) – .13 micron Low-K, 4 pixel-pipelines, 2 vertex engines, 128-bit memory bus, DDR1, 500MHz/365MHz (730MHz DDR), Native PCI-E, Shader Model 2.0, not based on X800 architecture.



Quote Brent:

Rest assured though, while NVIDIA has gotten the jump on ATI with mainstream announcements and reference sampling, ATI is not sitting on their hands. You can expect to soon see a totally new VPU to challenge NVIDIA in the mainstream space. And from what we have seen, the challenge looks to be a very healthy one.






Get it, got it? Good.
 
killerD said:
Lets wait to some actual retail prices start showing up and Half Life 2 benches are shown before you assume too much. Doom 3 will soon be all but a sweet memory and has no multplayer to hold gamers. By the time anohter game based on its engine is released, the next generation of cards will be out.
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If ya want to talk that way then don't assume that the x700xt will be faster, lets wait till they come out. For now the 6600gt is throttling the x600.

The x700 is pretty much a 9800xt with .11 microns with Low k

the 9800 xt was clocked at 412MHz with 730 on the ram,

Well ram is up there by 25% and the core is also 25%.

with a 25% boost Its going to be very competetive with the 6600gt.
 
well i'm excited, having sli'ed voodoo2's back in the day certaintly makes me feel old but i'm glad to see the the technology evolve now i just gotta wait for some motherboards for amd to come out :D great review guys
 
All I know is I can't get a PCIe card to save my life! No X800's no 6800's, no 6600's no nadda. This card is just a tad above the X600XT which is fine if your in for the mid-level thing, but once you've owned a X800Pro Sapphire (mine just fried) how can you EVER go backwards?

I'm dying over here, and the only way I can a 800XT PCIe is spend $899 on the last Asus left in the USA. Then it'll be worth $300 in two months, kill me now please.
 
I'm only mildly excited about SLI... While I've been around long enough to remember gaming on SLI'd Voodoo 2's (wohoo, Longbow 2 flew on those), I also remember yanking them out less than 6 months after I bought them and replacing them with an NVidia TNT and not soon after a TNT2 (admittedly I didn't acquire my Voodoo 2s the second they were released).

The point is that from a performance point of view it may be exciting depending how much they can crank out of it and what cards they enable it on, but I really doubt it'll prove to be a method of cheaper video horsepower for the masses in the long run. It just doesn't add up, from a practical nor technical standpoint (more and more performance progress is made by added features in next gen cards rather than added horsepower).

It sure is nice to see that the mid and low-range sectors aren't being saddled with last-gen technology anymore as has been the trend lately tho.
 
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