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
Final Words
NVIDIA's 6600GT was a strong performer when it was released as a PCI Express solution, but now as an AGP card it is even stronger for two reasons:
1) The market for a $200 - $250 AGP card is currently much larger than the market for a PCI Express version of such a card, and
2) ATI will be very late to market with their X700 XT AGP, thus giving the 6600GT AGP a unique window of opportunity for the remainder of 2004.
Compared to the $200 - $300 AGP cards available today, the GeForce 6600GT AGP can't be beat. While the Radeon 9800 Pro offers close performance in older games, switch to any of the latest titles and the 6600GT truly spreads its wings.
The performance improvement the 6600GT offers over NVIDIA's older $200 price point card, the 5900XT, is nothing short of amazing. The performance comparisons we showed here today are a testament to how much NVIDIA has improved their core architecture since the days of NV3x, with the 6600GT completely demolishing the 5900XT in performance. Even the $400 5900 Ultra is outperformed by the 6600GT in almost all of the benchmarks.
NVIDIA didn't do anything that ATI couldn't have done with the 6600GT AGP, however it was NVIDIA's PCI Express to AGP bridge that they tested and validated several months ago that gave NVIDIA the time to market advantage over ATI.
For the first time in recent history our GPU recommendation is clear: the best bang for your AGP buck is none other than the GeForce 6600GT.
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Slaimus - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
What is missing is an AGP versus PCIE comparison, so the impact of the bridging can be seen.bob661 - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
Newegg has one for $235.http://tinyurl.com/6cjej
pio!pio! - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
#8: What do you mean unlock the stuff? Can you flash the 6800GT BIOS onto the 6800 regular or something?Da3dalus - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
NVidia rocks again 8DStaples - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
Hell yeah.I was hoping this card would hit before Christmas. My brother wants a 9800P for Christmas but after seeing the PCI-E vesion as a comprable price, it would pain me to buy a 9800P for the same price.
Staples - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
Bonesdad - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
Will the retail price here match the street price we see in the real world? Often the MSRP is appreciably higher than street price. Have to wait to see...if it is $175-$200 street price, then the message is clearFinalFantasy - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
Awesome card...I might pick one up for my dad's rig.CU - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
Anand you must be the only one in the world that can find 6800GT/U and x800Pro/XT, and now a 6600GT AGP the day it is out, but don't have a 6800nu to test with. I wish I had that problem.P.S. I don't mean this in a bad way or anything. I just thought it was funny.
mldeveloper - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
will we see a pci express 6600gt vs. agp 6600gt to confirm if the bridge chip actually affects performance