is this 6600 good or can i find better?

[hulabaleet]

when i get my motherboard back in the mail from RMA (sent it on saturday, now thursday and still no email notification) from newegg probably sometime next week i will finaly have my new rig running.
specs are:
amd athlon 64 3000+
512mb kingston pc3200 cl3-3-3 ram
MSI K8t Neo-fsr k8t800 mainboard
Chaintech GFFX5200 256mb video card

i plan to get a new video card in the $90-230 price range, ive been looking at this XFX Geforce 6600GT AGP 8x, its the only 8x agp that ive seen in the 6600 serious, and i wont get a 6600 only a a GT, so it fits my needs.
heres a link
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc....-150-080&DEPA=0 (http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=14-150-080&DEPA=0)

3 complaints are that it, from my recollection is 8 pipelines as oposed to 16 on the 6800, that it has 128 mb of GDDR3 ram(256 would be nice ) and that the ram is 128bit and not 256 bit.

should i just go for something else in the price range, such as a 9800pro with 256 mb of 256 bit ram?
im pretty sure the answer will be go for the 6600GT, but im also curious about radeons x700's and 600s, and other similar cards in the price range, what do you think?
the lower the price is always a little nice, kind of a tight budget :P

[Silent Archer]

I would go with the 9800PRO, For sure, and dont pay extra money for the 256MB unless you want to... really i dont see much differance... they both are chaneling the same stuff at 256-Bit... i guess the 256mb would help with the new games.. so what the hell, buy it :) and Nvidia is Utter teahat... so... i wouldn't buy it...

[Hasse]

I would go for the 9800 PRO and flash it to an XT. I have a 9800 XT and I run HL2 on everything on highest including AA & AF.

[pr0cs]

I myself would go with the 6600.
Check this article
AnandTech's 6600 review (http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2277)


Compared to the $200 - $300 AGP cards available today, the GeForce 6600GT AGP can't be beat. While the Radeon 9800 Pro offers close performance in older games, switch to any of the latest titles and the 6600GT truly spreads its wings.

[Hitman47]

Do not get 9800 PRO. Either save some money and buy GeForce FX6800 128mb 256bit 12 pipes or 6600GT.

[hulabaleet]

theres no such thing as a geforce fx 6800.
i thought the geforce6800's had 16 pipes?
wouldnt a Geforce6600GT out perform a 6800?
6600GT= 500/1000mhz clock speeds and 128mb GDDR3, 8 pipes
6800= 350/700 clock speeds and 128mb DDR , 12? pipes

would the 4 extra pipes on the 6800 make up for the extra 450 mhz and DDR3 ram provided by the 6600gt?

again price is an issue and the 6600 is at 225 about, 6800 not likely much under 300

[Hitman47]

Ok i found a benchmark on Toms Hardware. It compares Radeon 9800 Pro, GeForce 5950 Ultra, GeForce 6600GT and GeForce 6800 128mb 256bit 12 pipes(and pipes do make a difference).
Here http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/2...html#benchmarks (http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041119/geforce-6600gt-agp-03.html#benchmarks) (Scroll down and select which Benchmark you want to see in The table of content. Be sure to read the conclusion) I am surprised that Radeon 9800 did so Well.

[Strawberry knight]

Originally posted by hulabaleet@Nov 20 2004, 06:28 AM
theres no such thing as a geforce fx 6800.

Are you kidding me? :lol:

Of course, there is a GeForce 6800!

It uses 256-memory bit (like all 6800 series)
DDR memory
5 Vertex Pipelines
12 Pixel Pipelines
NV40 Architecture

It's better then the crappy 6800 LE edition :suicide:

A GeForce 6600 GT is like an updated GeForce FX 5800 Ultra however is has DDR 3 memory and newer Vertex/Pixel/Texture Pipelines and a new shader module :P :lol:

[Ranzy]

But there isn't an FX 6800, FX was dropped wasn't it? Anyways, the 6600GT performs on par with the 6800 check it out (http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2278&p=1). Do not buy a 9800 Pro, spend your money on at least a 6600GT (or get a 6800LE and mod it to 6800GT if lucky).

[Strawberry knight]

Originally posted by Ranzy@Nov 22 2004, 01:16 AM
(or get a 6800LE and mod it to 6800GT if lucky).
Lol that's like trying to make a GeForce4 Ti4800 perform like a GeForce FX 5950 Ultra :D (Only without the support FX has)

You can't mode the Fill Rate or he Memory Bandwidth of the card, so you'll just get an over clocked GeForce 6800 LE but with the same low Fill Rate & Memory Bandwidth :suicide:


Yes, FX was the 5### series.

If the price is right and the timing is good, I would pick a 6600 GT myself :thumbup:

[Ranzy]

Ehm, using Rivatuner you can in many cases unlock the normally locked pixelpipelines and vertex shaders, combine that with an Arctic Silencer and you can crank the clockspeed of the card to that of a GT or even an Ultra.

[Strawberry knight]

Originally posted by Ranzy@Nov 22 2004, 04:06 AM
Ehm, using Rivatuner you can in many cases unlock the normally locked pixelpipelines and vertex shaders, combine that with an Arctic Silencer and you can crank the clockspeed of the card to that of a GT or even an Ultra.
Yes, however the handle of the card would be pretty much the same, maybe some increase in the fps but tweaking pipelines is not yet been proven as working, update me if you got any info on that matter.

[Ranzy]

There is off course a chance that you can't unlock all or even any of the pipelines, but you have a pretty big chance of unlocking 4 extra pipelines, performance will go up as expected, there's no catch, if you can unlock 8 extra pipes, and crank up the clocks to match those of the 6800 Ultra, you actually have a 6800 Ultra.
Even if you can't unlock any pipes, they're great overclockers anyway, so you get great bang for buck...

And you probably won't understand a word on this (http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_messages/975878/) forum, but the numbers speak for themselves.
The title of the first poll is: How many pipes were you able to unlock?

Edit/
Here's one (http://www.buildyourown.org.uk/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4088&whichpage=1) in english.

[Strawberry knight]

Interesting, it gave me an idea to try and soft mode my 4200 :D although tweaking pipelines and such I doubt I can do with this card :bucky!:

[Ranzy]

Nope, you won't be able to do that, because the only difference between the Ti 4200 and the 4600 are the clockspeeds, they have the exact same number of pipelines and memory bandwith. Off course some manufacturers will have used lower quality RAM on some cards, and some cards just have lower yield processors, processors not suited for 4600 speeds, sold as 4200's, so you may not be able to clock it to 4600 speeds. So all you can do is stick some better cooling on it, overclock it and maybe voltmod it for even higher clockspeeds.

[Strawberry knight]

Originally posted by Ranzy@Nov 22 2004, 06:36 AM
Nope, you won't be able to do that, because the only difference between the Ti 4200 and the 4600 are the clockspeeds, they have the exact same number of pipelines and memory bandwith. Off course some manufacturers will have used lower quality RAM on some cards, and some cards just have lower yield processors, processors not suited for 4600 speeds, sold as 4200's, so you may not be able to clock it to 4600 speeds. So all you can do is stick some better cooling on it, overclock it and maybe voltmod it for even higher clockspeeds.
Not entirely true, the Memory Bandwidth on the 4600 card is by 2.18 GB/s bigger and it has slightly higher fill rate (around 400 MTexels/s more)

The rest is pretty much the same, NV25 Architecture and those pipes, like you said.

The memory was an issue among the 128 mb cards, the once made by Samsung are the bad once :suicide:

I have a 64 mb card, MSI version which I'm very proud of (keeps me playing every thing I want :D )

My card is OC by Factory to 250/500 (core/memory) and runs with no problems at all since a very good company made the memory (forgot the name :\ starts with "K" i think)

Regarding Riva tuner, I have just found some compatibility mode, which I can enable to suit my motherboard the best way.
Moreover, I think i got an increase on fps and more stable numbers. *example > not jumping from 30 to 60 to 40 to 80...but stable once like 60 to 61 to 80 to 59.

I will make some benchmarks :smartass:

[Ranzy]

That's nice. Those Ti cards really were great, it's a shame my old Gainward Ti4200 died, I think overclocked it too much... :)
Here's (http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20021118/geforcefx-04.html) how they calculate the maximum bandwith, as you can see, it is dependant on the memory speed.
And as you can see here (http://www.hardwareaccelerated.com/content/technology/currentgen/index.php), the fill rate is dependant on the core speed, so it's normal that the 4600 has higher bandwith and fillrate, it's clocked higher.