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[Templar Wizard]

i have gone from Ati to nVidia and i have a 6600gt and a 6800LE to choose from...

but i havent seen any conclusive proof that the 6800 is the better component for gaming...

any pointers?

 

[jakershaker]

6600GT is the good card, around 20-25% faster than a Radeon 9800 Pro and cheap as hell too.


Every card with LE after it is crap. Stay away from those.

Just do a fast search on any of the hardware sites to check it

*Edit*

Note to self: Dont post when you've just woken up :/

Didin't see it was a 6800LE, well anyway the 6600GT maybe could be better. Hate those LE cards.

6600GT ROundup@Firingsquad
Here

Another link to a Farcry Bench, looks like those two cards are identical:
Here

 

[Doom_Bringer]

Is 6600GT AGP 4X compatible or is it AGP 8X ony? But being 20 - 25% more powerful doesn't sound too hot!

 

[jakershaker]

Shouldn't all card work in AGP4X too, if not just buy a new MB :lol

When reading some benchmarks the 6600GT goes from 20-25% up to double performance compared with a Radeon 9800 Pro(which still is a pretty good card) and at under 200$ is a great card. But with the 7800 cards just coming out the 6800GTs should be dropping in price soon and those are really nice.

 

[Shogmaster]

[B]feature                    6600GT             6800LE[/B]
# vertex shader            3                  4
Vertex shader type         3.0                3.0 
# pixel shader             8x1                8x1
pixel shader type          3.0                3.0
core speed                 500Mhz             300Mhz
fill rate                  4000 MTexels       2400 MTexels
memory bus                 128bit             256bit                     
memory type                GDDR3              DDR
memory speed               500Mhz             350Mhz
memory bandwidth           16GB/s             22.4GB/s
price as of 9/05           ~$150              ~$130

It's an interesting comparo. I'd go for the 6600GT.

 

[HokieJoe]

Ayuppp.

Go for the 6600GT- it's the all-around better card. This may or may not matter to you, but it has hardware-acceleration for WMV built-in. I've read about people running WMV clips at 1080p with 3.2 Prescott's @ 60% and lower CPU usage over on the AVS Forum.

That's pretty impressive.

 

[bronzodiriace]

6800le is better than 6600gt, you have the hope to unlock the 4 or 8 masked pipelines and vertex shader and more important the bus is set on 256 bit and this is important when you use filter like AA and Af.

 

[capitalCORN]

Bear in mind certain 6800LEs may be unlocked to 6800 status, giving you almost 2x performance of either

^^^Crap, Leadteks and Aopens might be good for unlocking, NO GUARANTEES^^^

 

[wobedraggled]

Be mindful of cooling with either card, these things run a bit toasty.

I'd go with the 600GT personally.

 

[HokieJoe]

Yeah, you can unlock the pipes, but you might also hose your card. If you do hose it as the result of a softmod or BIOS mod, then you could be SOL when it comes time to return it. Just be wary, and read as much as you can about the benefits and the pitfalls involved with this.

 

[Shogmaster]

Bear in mind certain 6800LEs may be unlocked to 6800 status, giving you almost 2x performance of either

^^^Crap, Leadteks and Aopens might be good for unlocking, NO GUARANTEES^^^

Seeing as how you can't hardly find 6800LE on sale at places like newegg, that's pretty moot now days I think. Apparently nVidia is having not much problem with 6800 yields that there's not much supplies of the ones that couldn't pass the QA to be sold as LEs.

Also, 6800 isn't exactly 2X of 6800LE.

[B]feature                    6800               6800LE[/B]
# vertex shader            5                  4
Vertex shader type         3.0                3.0 
# pixel shader             12x1               8x1
pixel shader type          3.0                3.0
core speed                 325Mhz             300Mhz
fill rate                  3900 MTexels       2400 MTexels
memory bus                 256bit             256bit                     
memory type                DDR                DDR
memory speed               350Mhz             350Mhz
memory bandwidth           22.4GB/s           22.4GB/s

 

[gblues]

[B]feature                    6600GT             6800LE[/B]
# vertex shader            3                  4
Vertex shader type         3.0                3.0 
# pixel shader             8x1                8x1
pixel shader type          3.0                3.0
core speed                 500Mhz             300Mhz
fill rate                  4000 MTexels       2400 MTexels
memory bus                 128bit             256bit                     
memory type                GDDR3              DDR
memory speed               500Mhz             350Mhz
memory bandwidth           16GB/s             22.4GB/s
price as of 9/05           ~$150              ~$130

It's an interesting comparo. I'd go for the 6600GT.

Interesting. The 6600GT has nearly double the fillrate, but lags behind in memory bandwidth (primarily due to the 6800LE having 256 bit memory bus). I would expect that the better fillrate would have a larger impact on performance than the more limited memory bandwidth, but I suppose it depends on the game?

Nathan

 

[MidgarBlowedUp]

I have an eVGA 6600GT AGP (8X) in my current system and I like it.
I like it a lot.
The card is overclocked to 550/1200 with stock cooling and never gets hot.

I've only got an AMD 2800+ (Barton) and I can run the 7800 Luna demo with FSAA.
It's really slow, like 10-15 FPS at the moment but it runs it.
Nalu is about the same speed as well.
I'm sure if I re-installed windows and did some tweaking I could run them faster.

The only odd thing about the 6600's is that some of the older cards like the 5700Ultra or the 5900 seem to run older games a little better.

Just remember to go into your PC's BIOS and set the arpeture size to something high like 256MB. For some reason the new Nvidia cards like big arpeture sizes.

I think either card, 6600GT or 6800LE would be a good choice but it might be wasted money if you get a 6800LE and can't unlock the extra pipes. It doesn't matter to be honest, since both cards are all ready out of date.

*edit*
I didn't realize the LE is so cheap now.
$130 is a steal for a nice graphics card.
Hmm, I dunno, tough decision.
You really can't go wrong with either one I suppose.

 

[ShowDog]

On Newegg you can find a real 6800 for about $20-$30 more than a 6600 GT. I've got one of these, seems to work great but I don't have a 6600 GT to compare it to.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150106 6800

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150089 6600GT

Ya it's less than $20 different

 

[Templar Wizard]

so i got both for one evening.

shogmasters comparison chart is quite valid. the 6600gt has a noticable performance gain.
i tried to unlock the pipes on the LE, but no go.

so i went for the 6600gt in the end.
tx for the help fellas Ü

 

[Gek54]

I got the 6800LE for less than the price of a 6600GT and I was able to unlock all but one of the pipes and I get MUCH better performance than the 6600GT.

Leadtek and Chaintech I would recomend.

 

[Gek54]

Yeah, you can unlock the pipes, but you might also hose your card. If you do hose it as the result of a softmod or BIOS mod, then you could be SOL when it comes time to return it. Just be wary, and read as much as you can about the benefits and the pitfalls involved with this.

Unlocking pipes will not damage your card only with overclocking do you need to be careful.

 

[HokieJoe]

Unlocking pipes will not damage your card only with overclocking do you need to be careful.

Hmmm, from what I've read, the problem is reflashing the BIOS if the softmod doesn't work. Apparently it works most of the time, but sometimes not. I've read accoounts of some people who couldn't get the OE BIOS to flash on the card again. It's certainly possible this was the result of user error; but I just thought it wise to warn him to be careful.