NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT: Bringing NV4x to the Masses
by Derek Wilson on September 7, 2004 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
It is clear that the 6600 GT hits a very sweet spot in the market. The card consistently performs on par with some of the lower end high end cards (6800 and X800 Pro) at lower resolutions below 1600x1200 without AA and AF enabled. This should be enough to sell any casual gamer on the card. Let alone the fact that even when AA and AF are turned on, the NV43 based GT is still a better option than the 5950 U and the 9800 XT in performance. Considering that these two previous gen cards go for at least $300 anywhere we could find them, this makes the 6600 GT a much better buy. On top of that, previous gen cards that go for $200 will be much less performing still. All this adds up to mean that even the hardcore gamer who just doesn't have $300 to $500 to spend will be very satisfied with a 6600 GT. If $200 is in the budget, and PCI Express is a necessity, the 6600 GT is absolutely the way to go.Unfortunately, at this point in time, those who want PCIe graphics are stuck buying only Intel based systems. AMD fairly consistently leads (in some cases utterly dominates) Intel in gaming performance. We are very reluctant to recommend building a PCI Express system intended for gaming until someone manages to launch a chipset with PCI Express support for AMD systems.
Hopefully, NVIDIA will crank out an AGP follow up their native PCIe solution at least as quickly as they did the reverse earlier this year.
Not wanting to let this review end on such a bittersweet note, we will say that we are very interested in getting down and dirty with some 6600 GT SLI benchmarks as soon as we can convince NVIDIA that they want to send us a connector. We have been very impressed with the 6600 GT, and we are excited about seeing what ATI has to offer for this market segment as well. With current generation coming to the mid range market segment, nobody looses.
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ViRGE - Tuesday, September 7, 2004 - link
Carfax, they have a standard testbed, so the numbers from the other NV cards come from previous benchmarks. If they upgrade the drivers on everything else, they'll have to re-run the benchmarks on everything else.Cybercat - Tuesday, September 7, 2004 - link
Very nice performance. Best mainstream card in a LONG time.Carfax - Tuesday, September 7, 2004 - link
WHY where two sets of drivers used?!? Why couldn't you just use the 65.76 drivers for both the 6600GT and the rest of the Nvidia cards?ViRGE - Tuesday, September 7, 2004 - link
And continuing on #20's tangent, the 5950 Ultra beats the 6600GT by 200%? That definitely isn't right.railer - Tuesday, September 7, 2004 - link
I don't think those Jedi Knight results are correct. 9800xt beats the 9700 pro by 300%? I think not......Doormat - Tuesday, September 7, 2004 - link
"That isn't to say that they are less power hungry than an AGP card that requires external power, but that the PCI Express slot supplies enough voltage to the card that it doesn't need any more juice."Nitpick: the AGP and PCIE slots provides enough voltage, but the main restriction is current. Each spec is designed to deliver so many amps of current at the specified voltage. As cards get bigger and badder, they draw more current, and need the extra power hookups.
LoneWolf15 - Tuesday, September 7, 2004 - link
I'm puzzled as to why the 6600GT beats the 6800(straight) so often. Doesn't the 6800 have a full 256-bit path?neogodless - Tuesday, September 7, 2004 - link
Yes, fix "looses" on the final page!Crazy to see a Radeon 9700 Pro do so poorly... very surprised it's doing poorly compared to the 9600/X600. Is that right? Doesn't seem right to me...
Jalf - Tuesday, September 7, 2004 - link
#14: Yeah, but looks kinda weird that half the charts only shows those two cards, while the other half shows the full spectrum :)Falloutboy - Tuesday, September 7, 2004 - link
looks pretty good to me even at its worse its still on par with a 9800xt and in alot of games is besting the x800pro looks like a pretty good deal at 200 bucks prolly will go cheaper once it hits the stores in mass