Nvidia Graphic Card Geforce 6600 GT Review

noreply@blogger.com (KJ) — Sat, 15 Apr 2006 00:22:00 +0000

This review is taken from experts at Anandtech. To start with it is good to distinguish the difference between the AGP and PCI Express versions of the Nvidia graphic card for the Geforce 6600 GT series. First the Geforce 6600 GT for the AGP has an auxiliary power counter, which is not present in the PCI version because it can take up to 75 watts of power from a PCI express X16 slot. Also motherboards are only an option for the PCI slots not the AGP slots.

Until now, we didn't have a good midrange card with the latest technology on it for an affordable price. Those how wanted good performance and a reasonable price went with older cards that where cheap as time went on. This was fine but consumers lost out on staying on top of the latest technologies available to them with newer cards. This problem is especially present with Nvidia's release of the Shader Model 3.0 support. FarCry is a good example of the lack of Shader Model 3.0 support with older Nvidia graphic cards.

The key marketing factor for the Nvidia Geforce 6600 series aside from it features is its performance and price. All the feature with the Geforce 6600 series promises amazing value.

What Anandech did was a comparisons of the latest and most demanding games with a heavy focus on PS2.0 to see how it stacked up against current and previous version of ATI and Nvidia graphic cards.

The Test

As a comparison point Anandech took the ATI X600 XT, but this doesn't give a truly good comparison, the only way to get a good comparison is by comparing both AGP and PCI cards. One such comparison with Doom 3 uses a source engine AGP benchmark which ran on a over clocked Nvidia graphic card FX 5300, so that are not as comparable to the rest of the world.

Anandech felt this was a good setup because of the fact that PCI express systems will have to compete with AGP systems. So as long as the processor has enough power to keep it from becoming a large bottleneck they will have a clue about the graphic cards performance.

The Test Setup

The Geforce 6600 GT did very will and scored in a dead heat with the Geforce 6800 and ATI X800 pro. The games in which the test was done are the following: Doom 3, FryCry, Halo, Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, and Unreal Tournament 2004.

Doom 3 Performance

The Geforce 6600 GT scores high with the PCI express systems, but falls short compared to more powerful card as resolution increased beyond 1024 X 768 and AA is turned on. The resolution where lower then other test because Doom 3 is a very taxing game.

FarCry

The Geforce 6600 GT scored very well until it hit 1600 X 1200 without AA/AF, with the AA enable it dropped greatly in performance.

Halo Performance

Regardless of the resolution the Geforce 6600 GT scores between the Geforce 6800 and AT X800 Pro.

Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy Performance

Very strong performance until the AA and AF were enabled. Also this test shows that the Nvidia Geforce 6600 GT is perfectly capable of filling the gap the top of line, latest generation graphic cards.

Unreal Tournament 2004 Performance

This demo was very graphic intensive and stressed the cards more then other above games. The number show that the Nvidia Geforce 6600 keeps up with the lower performing current generation cards and out performs in most cases the last generation high end cards.

Final Words

The Geforce 6600 GT give a very high showing in the market. The card keeps up with some of the lower end high end cards (6800 and X800 Pro) at lower resolutions below 1600x1200 without AA and AF enabled. This alone should be enough to sell any normal gamer on the card. Especially that the two previous generation cards (6800 and X800 Pro) go for at least $300 anywhere Anandech 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. This is great for hardcore gamers who just doesn't have $300 to $500 to spend will be very satisfied with a 6600 GT. If they have the $200 in the budget, and PCI Express is a necessity, the Geforce 6600 GT is absolutely the way to go.

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