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On the Bench: nVidia's AGP-based GeForce 6600 GT |
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Written by Mavke
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Tuesday, 16 November 2004 |
ExtremeTech has published
a review on the nVidia GeForce 6600GT AGP graphics card. In the latest running of
the GPU bulls, there was a bit of a snag in the red cape—the platform transition
from AGP to PCI Express. Because large OEMs were locking and loading to put PCI
Express systems in the market, and because OEM business carves out 85–90% of the
discrete PC graphics pie, both ATI and nVidia were compelled to offer PCI Express midrange GPUs
first, with AGP-based offerings playing the part of
follow-on.
 On the Bench: nVidia's AGP-based GeForce 6600 GT
The new AGP-based offering has arrived, and it brings some good (though not unexpected) news: There isn't yet any performance difference between PCIe and AGP. Given that the current generation games were spec'ed out in an AGP universe, this isn't earth-shattering news, but it is nonetheless good new for gamers with AGP systems who have been chomping at the bit to get NV40 goodness into their systems. nVidia is first out of the gate with its AGP-based midrange offering, which depending on how quickly it can populate the retail channel with
product, could give it a leg up this holiday season.
So what we have here is a case of no news is good news. There's nothing that earth-shattering to report here, but that lack of news is good news for gamers
with AGP-based systems ready to make their next upgrade. You can get nearly all of the 6600 GT goodness in an AGP package, and leave very little on the table.
The only downside to the AGP version is a small memory clock deficit, and some industrious add-in card maker might decide to be more aggressive with its memory
selection, evening the stakes there as well. As our tests show, that memory clock delta doesn't cause large performance swings to one side or another, though the PCIe card does gain a slight edge from it.
There's still a bit of mystery surrounding the AGP version and Doom 3 with AA enabled, and once we get that unraveled, we'll let you know what was causing it. For now, the big unanswered question is, when will we see a Radeon X700 come to the market that's AGP-friendly? At this point, ATI is staying mum, but conventional wisdom says that if the company is capable, expect an AGP version of the X700 in time for the holidays.An AGP-based 6600 GT card will serve you well, but we're going to hold off making a definitive recommendation until we've had a chance to do a head-to-head comparison with an AGP-based X700 card. Stay tuned.
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ASUS 9800GTX+ (DK) PCIe 512MB - Rev 01
