NVIDIA's GeForce 6600GT AGP: The Little Bridge that Could
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 16, 2004 12:15 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The Test
AMD Athlon 64 FX-55
2 x 512MB OCZ PC3200 EL Dual Channel DIMMs 2-2-2-10
MSI K8N Neo2 nForce3 Motherboard
ATI Catalyst 4.11 Drivers
NVIDIA ForceWare 66.93 Drivers
Doom 3 Performance
Since even before its release Doom 3 has clearly been an NVIDIA selling point. It is built around OpenGL, and preliminary benchmarks showed NVIDIA hardware running Doom 3 faster than ATI a year before the game's release. The end product doesn't seem to have deviated from the initial track, and surely NVIDIA couldn't be happier. We see here that the 6600GT is outperforming ATI's 12 pipe x800 Pro part with the the 6800 GT setting the bar on performance very high.
Under Doom 3 the 6600GT is a very powerful midrange card. Our resolution scaling graph shows a card with a profile that exceeds that of the x800 Pro. All of the previous generation cards fall a good distance behind the top three contenders in this test.
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Visual - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
i think it's important to compare the 6600GT with the normal 6800 and even the OEM 6800LEs that can be found around... also, any non-GT 6600s? because all these cards are around the best performance/value ratio... you should try to find/show which one is the best buy. you should also consider the 6800's chance of modding...nserra - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
#54But if the nvidia AGP numbers are equal to PCIe, wouldn’t ati numbers too? Is it because the card doesn’t exist?
Why do you keep talking so much about the nvidia VP, when Ati has this feature since 2002, is it because it doesn’t work?
DerekWilson - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
#53There will be no x700 agp before years end. If we had one to test we would love to have included numbers for it.
-- Derek Wilson
nserra - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
#7 DecoderThey can be solved, the funny thing is that Ati as decoding features since 07/18/02 and didn’t need of lots of transistors or processors to do that, and no one says that! Its like is a nv only feature. http://www.ati.com/vortal/videoinnovations/flash/i...
#28 draazeejs
There is no X700 AGP, but even so the 9800 does a great job for a 2 years old card.
But there should be an X700 PCIe in the test to see how fast it is over the 6600.
#29 Regs
You are absolutely right; some one should pay for having recommended nvidia cards over Ati in some “past” reviews.
#31 Cybercat
9700 cards aren’t that bad...
#32 vailr
See my #7 reply.
#34 Anand Lal Shimpi
Yeah, Ati as encoding and decoding since 07/18/02 and I didn’t remember anyone talking about it. The new Ati driver as WMV acceleration option also, why I didn’t get tested yet!!! Just because of the nvidia fancy name “Video processor” yeah right, they are playing catch up with Ati they were 2 years late!
#38 ChronoReverse
You are so relying in the SM3.0, is a new shading language, which delivers new shading code. Are you sure it will be that BIG. Remember that Microsoft from PS1.1->1.4 calls DirectX8.1 and from SM2.0->SM3.0 Microsoft call it DirectX9.0c, if it is that important don’t you think the right name would be DirectX9.1 or 9.5?
#39 Read the conclusion of own Anandtech on 04/11/04:
"If all of the cards in this review actually stick to their MSRPs, then the clear suggestion would be the $149 ATI Radeon X700. In every single game outside of Doom 3, the X700 does extremely well, putting even the GeForce 6600 to shame" I don’t think that putting the X700 out of this test was a good idea! Since 6600AGP and PCIe is at the same level, so the X700 AGP should too?
#40 Pete
See the up post! And it’s also an Anandtech conclusion!
R3MF - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
good article, cheers.i'll look forward to the vanilla 6800 benchies, as i'm building two PC's in short order, and i need the info. :)
Calin - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
Edit to #49: Radeon 9800 Pro should be at a tie with the 6600GT in Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory, as the speed difference is at best very hard to see (the biggest difference of performance is in the 6% range, just like the difference between the 5900XT and the 6600GT)Calin
danyel - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
Does anyone know if there a plan for an AGP version of the plain geforce 6600 as I don’t see it mentioned anywhere?Calin - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
Wolfenstein - Enemy territory is a tie, with the speed difference at most 6%. This is hardly a difference (however, the minimum frame rate have a bigger influence on game play than maximum frame rate)Calin
Samus - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
im ganna buy one asap, its exactly what i've been waiting for... my radeon 9600 pro chugs in doom3, and i can't even run it at my lcd's native res of 1280x1024...i've been holding off playing doom3 until a card like this came out.
jay75 - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
the ATI 9800pro beats the 6600gt when anti-aliasing(AA) is implemented in far cry. it doesn't in counter strike but the frame rate is above 75 at 1280*1024(4x AA) anyway. this is something to be noted.