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GeForce 6600 GT AGP8x (Reference) Preview |
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Written by Mavke
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Tuesday, 16 November 2004 |
While checking on Guru3D I noticed a new preview on the GeForce 6600 GT AGP8x. Ever since nVidia introduced the GeForce 6600 series you, the consumer, made something very, very clear to this particular chipzilla: you want an AGP version. Initially I did not think that nVidia would have released the AGP version of the 6600 before Christmas because it will directly compete with nVidia's own products, namely the GeForce FX series.
 GeForce 6600 GT AGP8x (Reference) Preview
But nVidia is clearly listening and can see where the money is. Slowly the GeForce FX series will phase out, not because it's bad or anything, but the Series 6 graphics products simply are heaps faster and thus offer true value for you hard earned bucks. So last week we received the reference model of the GeForce 6600 GT AGP 8x version. I know you guys are ready to get this puppy and good news, it's shipping throughout the world as we speak! This is a card that offers a lot of features and performance for a very reasonable amount of money the GeForce 6600 range is inexpensive and offers truly first-rate value for your money.
There's nothing much to argue about is there? The GeForce 6600 series offers astoundingly good value for your money. The GT versions bring you a little bit more of a complementary experience over the generic 6600. It's like having a little bit of reserve for the more heavy tasks and/or AA and AF settings and options. In the end the 6600 GT is the best product to buy in the mid-range segment of the graphics market as it is today.
The HSI bridge does not compromise in performance at all, something I simply did not expect. We see a less than ~2 frame per second difference in favor of the PCI-Express version that can be related to two things, differences between the two test platforms and a slightly slower memory frequency for the AGP 6600 GT.
Let's talk about game performance, first Doom 3. At a screen resolution of 1024x768 you'll be able to play this new title at tight high quality settings with an average of 66 Frames per second, at 1600x1200 it still plays at 43 FPS, that's just stunning!
Halo: Combat Evolved for that matter at that same 1024x768 resolution manages to squeeze out 69 FPS. Even Far Cry at the highest possible Image Quality setting did 50+ FPS. If that isn't value for you money then I'm lost.
When we tweak the product we see some nice overclocking potential, the 550MHz core is good and boosting another 200MHz out of its memory again will bring you an extra overall ~10% performance increase.
So here you have this AGP 8x product with great performance, is 100% stable in an AGP 8x configuration, offers dualview, the latest 3D feature set including Shader Model 3.0, offers HDTV output and in general offers anything you expect from a good graphics cards these days. So it boil down to this, if you can't afford a high-end product or simply do not have the ambition to own one, then this card is a spectacular product to get. You'll be in love with it, I simply have nothing negative to say about it.
Now then, last words. I think this is the last real new nVidia consumer graphics card product for 2004 but I'm missing a product, don't you think? Usually around this time we see a refresh product of the fastest product available. We know that the Series 6 product can easily take the 500/550MHz core, GDDR3 can do 1.3GHz, ForceWare drivers support 512MB graphics cards. So where is that stallion of a 512MB 16 pixel pipeline, 500+ MHz clocked GeForce 6900 with SLI feature? I'm thinking about a January/February 2005 announcement, don't you?
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