Holy cow. Bye bye 9800PRO. You have been replaced at the $200 pricepoint!!!

Mrbob

Member
http://www.nvnews.net/previews/geforce_6600_series/

8pipes, SM 3.0, 128MB, $199. Lets welcome the new sub $200 champion, the 6600GT! The only problem I see is the 128 bit data bus. But the card has one hell of a default clock that should help with the bus deficiency (500core/500mem).

Ok, it may not be ready to trump the 9800PRO yet, but it looks pretty damn good. :P If I didn't already have a 9800PRO I would consider this card. It smokes the X600XT from ATI which is a weak offering by them.



I'm waiting for the 6800GTs to drop in price. Also PCI-E boards so I can get my SLI 6800GT rig. :D
 
Can you find a bigger bitmap, I can hardly make anything out...

Nice internal benchmark from nvidia, why don't they show fps?? Probably because their graph probably wouldn't look as exaggerated.

Do the same test with HL 2 when that comes out and show me the results.
 
Lol, yeah I tried to resize it down. I may get rid of it though. Too big.

I think the 6600GT will be fine in HL2, though. It isn't crippled as it is based on Nvidias new hardware which works well with DX9.
 
Damn...

11191.jpg
 
So it's about 30% faster than a 9800 Pro and it's retailed for $200. Not bad.

But it's only PCI-E.
 
Well, depending on the benchmark. The 9800PRO still holds up very well, and will probably crush this card with AA/AF applied in significant numbers. The reason Doom 3 benches hold up so well is the game is pixel shader heavy without the need of significant AA/AF. It's too bad Nvidia didn't go with a 256bit bus. 6600GT would have been a real monster then. Although I can see why they didn't when they also have the 6800 and 6800LE models at just a tad higher price.

But it's only PCI-E.

AGP version will be made available in October.
 
8pipes, SM 3.0, 128MB, $199. Lets welcome the new sub $200 champion, the 6600GT! The only problem I see is the 128 bit data bus. But the card has one hell of a default clock that should help with the bus deficiency (500core/500mem).

That only problem is a pretty big problem.

At high resolutions with AA and AF its bandwidth limitations will struggle to keep up with a 9800 Pro. For its price point it seems to be a pretty good card though, kicks the shit out of the mid range ATI offering (x600 IIRC).
 
xabre said:
That only problem is a pretty big problem.

At high resolutions with AA and AF its bandwidth limitations will struggle to keep up with a 9800 Pro. For its price point it seems to be a pretty good card though, kicks the shit out of the mid range ATI offering (x600 IIRC).

Interestingly, I wonder how two 6600GTs would stack up against one 6800GT? They are both the same price (Two 6600GTS and one 6800GT), and in the PCIE models you can SLI these cards like the 6800 series.

You gotta hand it to Nvidia this round. They are offering attractive buys at every price point.
 
Mrbob said:
You gotta hand it to Nvidia this round. They are offering attractive buys at every price point.

At the moment this seems to be the case. The top line x800XT is a fine card but they need a worthy competitor against the 6800GT pretty quickly (x800 Pro isn't cutting it). I think they might have a 16 pipe card in the works (just downclocked from x800XT speeds), which would be a good move. The other issue is their mid range, it sucks. These cards (9600PRO-XT and x600XT) are barely past 9500 Pro standards which is what? 2 years old now. Surely they have something up their sleeve because they certainly need it. The other problem is their OGL drivers, but a rewrite is underway apparently. The situation is fixable for ATI but they do need to get their arse in gear.

I was thinking of buying a X800pro mainly because of HL2, is it worth it?

I think it's best to wait for the HL2 benches for this card. The 6800GT may well be the way to go.
 
Bluemercury said:
I was thinking of buying a X800pro mainly because of HL2, is it worth it?

Will it be worth it for Half Life 2? Yes. Will the 6800GT be a better buy? Probably. Just hold out a little longer.

I plan on playing through HL2 on my 9800PRO, and everything should be fine. X800PRO will do the job.
 
"These cards (9600PRO-XT and x600XT) are barely past 9500 Pro standards which is what? 2 years old now."

I would say these are the low end cards for sure especially in the price range they are selling. I mean you can get a 9600 PRO for 100USD. That's the best bang for the buck you can get right now.
 
It's here, my XFX 6600GT AGP is here!




Buy.com was pretty fast at getting it to me. ... now I await Halflife2, which will arrive here next week after Thanksgiving.
 
This thread is old! :lol

Mrbob from August 13 said:
Lol, yeah I tried to resize it down. I may get rid of it though. Too big.

I think the 6600GT will be fine in HL2, though. It isn't crippled as it is based on Nvidias new hardware which works well with DX9.


Three months before HL2 release and I called it. I'm patting myself on the back for this one! :lol Wise beyond my years I know! :P
 
I have a decent system, but everything I've thrown at it has run fine... I am totally happy w/ it. Better to buy two $200 cards (one and another in a year or two) than one for $500, in my mind at least.
 
trippingmartian said:
What are the drawbacks to having only 8 pipes?

The performance gains of extra pipes are relatively linear. A card of a similar architecture running at the same clock speed but with 16 pipes will be roughly twice as fast.
 
Seeing how I bought my Radeon 9800 Pro (now in my backup PC) 1 1/2 ago in the $200 range, I'd say it held up quite well since we are just talking about a successor in that price point now :)
 
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