6600 GT vs X800 GT Game Title Shootout

Our testing is going to be simple but effective. Each card is going to run each game in both 800 x 600 and 1024 x 768 settings using a variety of AA & AF 3D effects. The bench marks are going to be performed at the maximum recommended settings for both the 6600 GT and the X800 GT. The mother board is going to be set at default using a 200MHz Front Side Bus. The ram will remain at 2-3-2-6 factory default with you guessed, default ram voltages. So in effect we are stuffing both cards in the same system, using the same settings and spending the next week playing on-line games and performing tests on the following game titles, let’s check what we got.

Test methodology

All tests are being conducted under single player mode using FRAPS as our in game benchmark utility. FRAPS compiles an average based on time based samples and are not final results, these are similar results to be expected on a similar system configuration. While your system may fair better or worse, hardware limitations and configurations will drastically change over-all system performance. So once again these are averages using the game titles listed and FRAPS gathering the benchmarks under our configuration.

Drivers & Tweaking Software

The iTurbo software was enabled and used during these test's. This put our core - memory clocks at 500 MHZ / 500 MHz. The drivers we are going to use for both cards are the latest downloads available from both NVIDIA and ATI.

• ATI CATALYST 5.8 for Windows XP
• NVIDIA WHQL Certified 77.77

Games Titles Tested

Battlefield 2

BF2 is one of the best selling game titles to date. Popularized as a first person shooter, Battlefield 2 is an awesome game and with that comes the need of power and performance from today’s latest graphic's cards. How does the HIS X800 GT IceQ II Turbo stack up to this title? Just take a look.

Battlefield 2 runs excellent on this card and our in game experience was excellent considering the cost of the card. At high settings using 4 x AA with 1024 x 768 we did notice some below 30 FPS hits, but only in intense fight scenes, but for the most part the VPU handles this game very well with the averages we see above. The 6600 GT using stock timings lags behind the HIS X800 GT IceQ II Turbo PCIe VPU, as the game is optimized for ATI hardware, so we are going to see a bit of a performance gain to begin with. However the 6600 GT plays the game great, just not as good the HIS X800 GT IceQ II Turbo.

Half-Life 2

We all know Half-Life 2 has been around the block and back. However for the sake of this review and performance wise, I decided to go ahead and publish another review with this game title. Even though its on the back of the shelf unit and not played anymore, there must be a few of you who have yet to play and if you want any indication how this VPU handles Half-Life 2, then this is what you will get as far as performance with a similar configuration.

The HIS X800 GT IceQ II Turbo breezes through Half-Life 2 with excellent picture quality and performance. The card never dipped below 40FPS at our highest test settings and the game was flawless throughout the test scenario. Again these tests were done in a single player mode and sampled using FRAPS. I suspect the HIS X800 GT IceQ II Turbo will play most titles with flying colors. As we can see here the most popular games of their time runs just fine with this value card.

Doom 3

Again the HIS X800 GT IceQ II Turbo runs this title way above satisfactory. The FPS shows excellent results that almost astounds the mind. The HIS X800 GT IceQ II Turbo simply crunches these games titles with ease and Doom 3 runs like a champ on our configuration. Let's take a look.

We ran the console time demos by opening up the console and typing in timdemo demo1. This allows us to run the internal benchmark engine giving us exact data in relation to performance. With the settings above we clicked off some very impressive scores and this shows the awesome power this card is capable of. At both 800 x 600 & 1024 x 768 the HIS X800 GT IceQ II Turbo ripped through this game like butter. The results say it all. The HIS X800 GT IceQ II Turbo runs Doom 3 easily and efficiently using our configuration. Let's check out some FarCry action.

FarCry v1.3

FarCry runs great on ATI hardware and this is no exception. The HIS X800 GT IceQ II Turbo shows blistering performance throughout the game and our samples show some excellent results. Using FRAPS, I sampled this game title in the same training map, half a dozen times and we still get the same results and what you see is what you get. The R423 core slices through the frames with more than enough power for this game title. However keep in mind while we benched from a single player scenario, online gaming performance will vary and these results do not reflect online benchmarks.

It is amazing even with 8 pipes the HIS X800 GT IceQ II Turbo screams through this title like its sitting still. The performance is significantly above average, we are seeing some pretty impressive results with this X800 GT, I think this card is a keep and should prove to be one of the best performing cards for the money on the market at this current time. Anyone looking for a exceptional card for a value price, should consider the X800 GT, especially if you are on a tighter budget.

Half-Life 2 closes the gap, between the performances of the two cards. What was even a fluke was the exact same FPS we got from both cards using about same maps to bench from, but obviously we did not repeat the exact run, so this was a fluke to say the least. However it seems the HIS X800 GT IceQ II Turbo PCIe is a true performance card at a value pricing index. This card is definitely worthy of its price and the performance is better than anything the 6600 GT can muster.

I have no clue why the 6600 GT took a deep hit on the 1024 x 768 setting the AA to high. However I ran it 3 times and this is our average on that card. I double checked and re-checked and for some unknown reason the card drops off in performance considerably under those conditions. However we come to understand both cards run these games excellent, but we have a proven winner and that is the HIS X800 GT IceQ II Turbo.