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- Date:
- Tuesday , September 07, 2004
- Author:
- Brent Justice
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT Preview
NVIDIA has provided a reference sample of their mainstream killer, the GeForce 6600GT. We put it under the full load of our evaluation suite. Inside we evaluate the 6600GT's gameplay performance and image quality using six real-world games and come away with some surprising results.
Introduction:
Competition for this current generation of video cards is much more fierce than the last generation. This generation both ATI with R420 and NVIDIA with NV40 are running neck and neck in gameplay performance at the enthusiast market levels. This generation it is all about one upping the competition in features and product availability. NVIDIA seems to have a couple of legs up on ATI currently in the features and availability department. NVIDIA currently has DirectX 9.0c Shader Model 3.0 support in their entire NV40 lineup which ATI does not have at this time. Most importantly though NVIDIA has products based on the new NV40 architecture placed at more price points than ATI for the consumer simply wishing wider choices.
At the very high-end enthusiast level we have the NVIDIA GeForce 6800Ultra competing with the ATI Radeon X800XT-PE. Both have a suggested retail price of $499, which is no small amount of change indeed. There have however been concerns lately about Radeon X800XT-PE availability in the retail channels, as products have been hard to find. While the GeForce 6800Ultra has a better chance of being found, its availability is far from meeting demand. Moving down a step we find that both ATI and NVIDIA offer a video card at the $399 price point. NVIDIA has the GeForce 6800GT and ATI has the Radeon X800Pro, both which are competing very well, almost neck and neck in the latest games (except DOOM 3 where the NVIDIA takes a commanding lead), and are much more available than the highest-end video cards.
When we hit the next two price points down the line we find something interesting. ATI has no "new" competition for NVIDIA! NVIDIA has a GeForce 6800 which is based on the NV40 (GeForce 6800) architecture sporting all the features of the 6800GT and Ultra only with reduced performance at a suggested retail price of $299, making it much more affordable for consumers. When we go to look at ATI’s side we find absolutely nothing based on the R420 (X800) architecture priced at $299. No ATI video card occupies this space with "next gen" technology currently.
When we move down to the $199 price level, which is considered the top-end mainstream price point, the situation gets even worse for ATI. You see, on August 12th NVIDIA announced a new product lineup that fills the mainstream price points and is based on all the technology that is in the NV40 (GeForce 6800 series). The actual core code name is NV43, which is being fabbed at TSMC at .11 nanometers, and does contain every single 3D feature the GeForce 6800 series has such as Shader Model 3.0 support, Internal 128-bit (FP32) floating point precision, 64-bit Floating Point texture filtering, framebuffer blending based on OpenEXR, Ultrashadow II, and more. The GeForce 6600GT is the $199 part and has 8 pixel-pipelines, 3 vertex engines and is using a 128-bit memory bus connected to GDDR3. The GeForce 6600 has everything the 6600GT has except it uses DDR1 and will be clocked lower on the core and memory. Both of these video cards are native PCI-Express and the 6600GT supports NVIDIA’s new SLI technology, but we will certainly see AGP inteface cards this year.
ATI currently does not have any products based on R420 (Radeon X800 series) at these price points. What they do have is basically a re-badged Radeon 9600XT with faster memory in PCI-Express format. This card is called the Radeon X600XT but it does not have the similar architecture makeup as the Radeon X800 series. The X600XT is based on the RV380 core which is akin to the RV360 core (Radeon 9600XT) with native PCI-Express at .13 micron Low-K. It has 4 pixel-pipelines, 2 vertex engines, and is clocked at 500MHz core speed on a 128-bit memory bus with RAM clocked at 365MHz (730MHz DDR).
So as of right now this is how NVIDIA and ATI compare with the fastest cards they have in the mainstream market.
NVIDIA Mainstream $199:
GeForce 6600GT (NV43) – .11 micron, 8 pixel-pipelines, 3 vertex engines, 128-bit memory bus, GDDR3, 500MHz/500MHz (1GHz DDR), Native PCI-E, Shader Model 3.0, 64-bit floating point texture filtering and framebuffer blending.
ATI Mainstream $199:
Radeon X600XT (RV380) – .13 micron Low-K, 4 pixel-pipelines, 2 vertex engines, 128-bit memory bus, DDR1, 500MHz/365MHz (730MHz DDR), Native PCI-E, Shader Model 2.0, not based on X800 architecture.
NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT:
Our GeForce 6600GT is a reference video card provided by NVIDIA, so the packaging reflects generic NVIDIA branding.
Here is what the reference design looks like for the GeForce 6600GT. As you can see, it is a single slot video card in PCI-Express form with a slim Heatsink Fan unit that covers only the GPU. In operation this fan was very quiet; we could not hear it over a case fan. One thing you will also notice is that there is no external power connector on board; this video card operates completely off of the PCI-Express connector for power. On the reverse side there isn’t much to look at; this card does not require any kind of extravagant circuitry that is obvious to the eye.
What you have probably already noticed by now is the SLI connector that adorns the top of this card. The NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT is ready to be used in a SLI dual video card configuration.
The GeForce 6600GT comes with the latest GDDR3 memory chips. Our reference 6600GT is using Samsung GDDR3 rated at 2ns, which if we do the math gives us a maximum chip frequency of 500MHz. Since the default memory speed for the 6600GT is 500MHz (1GHz DDR) the memory is already at its "maximum" frequency.
You may have also noticed a chip on the back of this 6600GT. This is a Philips Semiconductor SAA7115HL video capture chipset used for video in. You can read the specifications of it here.
Instead of dual DVI, this video card has one DVI port and one VGA port with your video out/in port.
You can see the GeForce 6600GT in our PCI-Express system above. Remember, it requires no external power.