GeForce 6600GT previews

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-09-07 08:10pm

The GeForce 6600GT has arrived:

Anandtech

Tom's Hardware

For those of you who don't feel like ponying up the $400 for a 6800GT, the 6600GT looks to be an increadible value. It is universally faster then the last generation cards (5950 Ultra and 9800XT) and even manages to edge out the $400 x800 Pro in a few games (including Doom III and Call of Duty) and posts some increadible scores in games that were typically weaknesses of nVidia (Halo).

As an added bonus, you get the ability to go SLI if you feel like giving yourself an extra shot of performance down the road, although you'll need either an nForce 4 or "Tumwater" based motherboard to take advantage of this. Still, even without the SLI, this is the best midrange card since the Ti4200 and doubtless has ATI scrambling for a proper response.

SPOOFE · Post by **SPOOFE** » 2004-09-07 08:57pm

My favorite part, aside from the goddamned awesome 3D performance, is that Nvidia put in a lot of hardware support for 2D and video editing... deinterlacing and such.

It's nice to see them adding something different and new, for a change, instead of just adding support for AwesomeGrafixShader 4.7.2.5c-II, or whatever.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2004-09-07 09:12pm

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... light=6600
I've already posted this before. Copycat!

It is an awesome card, though. Extremely good priced, better performance than a Radeon 9800XT, and with SLI no less.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-09-07 09:13pm

This looks like the card I'll be upgrading to (either that or a GF6600-non-GT). My puny R8500LE has problems with most games I play (C&C:G, HW2) as it is.

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-09-07 09:21pm

phongn wrote:This looks like the card I'll be upgrading to (either that or a GF6600-non-GT). My puny R8500LE has problems with most games I play (C&C:G, HW2) as it is.

The early looks at 6600 non-GT performance are not very encouraging. They gutted the clock speed of this part and with only a $50 price savings, the extra money seems to be extremely well spent on the better part.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-09-07 09:37pm

The old thread was light on specifics and also last month, so this one stays.

As for the weaker non-GT, I noticed that, but it is still less expensive and more powerful than what I have now. Of course, it'll be CPU-limited by my 1.53GHz Palamino, but thems the breaks.

As for the funky video and 2D acceleration, I wonder if Apple will hook into it more to via Core Image.

SPOOFE · Post by **SPOOFE** » 2004-09-07 11:13pm

The early looks at 6600 non-GT performance are not very encouraging. They gutted the clock speed of this part and with only a $50 price savings, the extra money seems to be extremely well spent on the better part.

Gutted compared the the 6600 GT, yes. Compared to its ATI "counterpart", the X600, it's still a much better deal.

But yes, I agree, it is WELL worth the performance gains to dump the extra $50.

Now to wait and see what the X700 will be capable of...

Post by **Vympel** » 2004-09-07 11:22pm

A 6600 gigaton video card? That's not canon!

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-09-07 11:26pm

Vympel wrote:A 6600 gigaton video card? That's not canon!

Someone's been over on SB one too many days

Dahak · Post by **Dahak** » 2004-09-08 08:36am

I'll wait for X800's to be available in more than homoeopathic doses in the shops, then I'll buy it.
And the slightly better performancce in games like Domm3, which are shadow-heavy, is due to the fact that Nvidia tweaked their cards to be better there. ATI still has the better performance when it comes down to shaders...

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-09-08 09:03am

Yes, well, the R400 also costs a lot more than the NV43 will.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2004-09-08 12:40pm

phongn wrote:
Vympel wrote:A 6600 gigaton video card? That's not canon!
Someone's been over on SB one too many days

With 13,000 posts? I think so

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2004-09-09 09:03am

For those of us with OCing interest... that card is the best overclocker yet, more then 100MHZ(on the GPU) with standerd cooling, and 140MHZ(on GPU) with watercooling, however, with the low memory clocks, all the improvements are wasted.

Still one of the best mid-range OCing cards.

Source: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/ ... gt-oc.html

I found the maximum GPU frequency at which the card was stable – 640MHz. Thus, the frequencies of the reference graphics card were 640/1100MHz at extreme overclocking.

From a base speed of 500MHZ and 1GHZ memory.

Companion Cube · Post by **Companion Cube** » 2004-09-09 10:26am

My poor old Ti4600 is looking less shiny by the day...

Meest · Post by **Meest** » 2004-09-09 04:09pm

Softmodding these cards is sounding like being a bitch also, people having trouble unlocking pipes and shaders.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2004-09-10 12:24am

Meest wrote:Softmodding these cards is sounding like being a bitch also, people having trouble unlocking pipes and shaders.

Uh, you don't try to softmod those cards (Only card from mid-range that could be softmodded into something better was the 9500), I assume your actully talking about the 6800?

For those of you in the U.S, are these cards actully in stores?

SPOOFE · Post by **SPOOFE** » 2004-09-10 01:46am

And the slightly better performancce in games like Domm3, which are shadow-heavy, is due to the fact that Nvidia tweaked their cards to be better there.

False.

ATI Fanbois have been spreading this silly rumor that nVidia and ID collaborated, some shadowy conspiracy shit. Of course, this conspiracy ignores the fact that ATI has always sucked at rendering in OpenGL.

Strangely enough, Doom utilizes OpenGL.

Wow! How insidious!

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-09-10 01:56am

SPOOFE wrote: False.

ATI Fanbois have been spreading this silly rumor that nVidia and ID collaborated, some shadowy conspiracy shit. Of course, this conspiracy ignores the fact that ATI has always sucked at rendering in OpenGL.

Strangely enough, Doom utilizes OpenGL.

Wow! How insidious!

There is some truth to this, but not in the way most people think. NV40 is designed to cull shadows that are not onscreen and to optimized lighting paths. This has a dramatic effect on games that are designed to utilize the UltraShadow function (and a modest effect on those that don't), but this is just one of the reasons Doom runs better on NV40. The OpenGL drivers are of course another.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2004-09-10 02:33am

Slightly OT: I didn't know Doom 3 was OpenGL. Glad to see more big game companies are utilizing OpenGL...the more OpenGL, the easier to make Mac and Linux versions that perform just as good as the originals.

SPOOFE · Post by **SPOOFE** » 2004-09-10 02:34am

Ah, new information.

Very well. Amend my accusation of falsity to read "'at's part o' de big ol' t'ing."

I turn Creole when amending statements.

EDIT: Dis was d'rected at De Kernel, o' course.