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 Sims 2 Performance
In our final test, the 6600GT once again sits between the 9800 Pro and the x800 Pro. The relatively linear looking graph and low frame rates is due in no small part to the fact that The Sims 2 is not a heavily graphics centric game. The 3D interface and eye candy in this game is a means to an end, and not an end in and of itself. The popularity of this game, and the advantages of a smooth framerate therein afford it a spot in our benchmarking suite. And the 6600GT holds a nice position in this benchmark along with the rest of them.
The x800 scales better (or is it worse?) with resolution than the other cards, but the 6600GT doesn't do a bad job either. At 1600x1200 the midrange NVIDIA card nearly catches up with its big brother the 6800GT. It seems to us that there is either an issue with the game or a driver that is causeing the x800 to be frame rate limited at lower resolutions, which is why we are seeing these strange numbers. Certainly the x800 posts the best numbers at the highest resolution, so it deserves recognition for that.
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Avalon - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
Thank you for taking our concerns into consideration, Anand :)coldpower27 - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
That's intresting, how the 6800 GT dips like that in Sims 2 performance at 12x10, do you have any reason why? Even stranger still how the X800 Pro seems to be actually beating the 6800 GT in this particular game in high res. However it's FPS seems to be limited to 40FPS max across the board :S. Also could you possibly bench the Sims 2 under 1152x864, I would like to see what the performance of the 6800 GT is at that res for this game.Oh good review, would like a 300/700 6800 LE 8x1/4 and 325/700 6800 Vanilla 12x1/5 tested as well. To see how those compare to these cards,
ciwell - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
Hmm...try to get the BFG OC one then...:D :D
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
Thanks for the comments. We did not have a vanilla 6800 available for testing for this review, but as soon as we get one in we will make sure to include it in our upcoming reviews.Take care,
Anand
ciwell - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
Yeah, I am wondering where the vanilla 6800 is too? It clearly is in direct competition with the 6600GT.ciwell - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
CU - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
I would also like to know why the 6800nu is not included. The message may not be so clear if the 6800nu was included.9700prolover - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
I love the last sentense. Even the writer of anandtech loves the "the message is clear, xxx wins/fails" style of conclusion.Avalon - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
Where was the vanilla 6800? You can get a BFG 6800 OC at Outpost for $249.99, and it's in stock at this moment. I recall the 6800 beating the 6600GT in 60% of benchmarks, while losing out in 40% of benchmarks. If the 6600GT is going to cost $225, that won't be much fun. I'd rather take the BFG 6800 and unlock the pipes and vertex shaders, artifact permitting.Decoder - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
What about the video decoding issues on the NVidia chips? Has that been resolved?http://techreport.com/ja.zz?comments=7535