6600GT: XFX or MSI?

[MTLink]

I'm planning to get a 6600GT and I was wondering whether to get teh XFX or MSI one? I heard both are good, but have yet to see them in a roundup together. I hear the MSI is super quiet, but runs hot, whereas the XFX is cool, but is loud.

PCI-E BTW.

 

[Vile]

I have a friend who bough an XFX video card and had lots of problems, that's just him tho. But if I were you, I'd go for the MSI, it's just 'safer'.

 

[tylerthedruid]

I hear XFX stock overclocks their cards... just food for thought.

 

[WJC]

:? I would consider a different card altogether if I were you. I personally have an EVGA (agp) version of the 6600gt, it is less than a year old and is totally useless in any 3D App.
It freezes after 5min; there are some other posts of people having similar problems with this card.

If you really want to go with a 6600 GT I will recommend the XFX due to the fact that it runs cooler than the MSI.

 

[Vile]

Compaq Presario /// 478-Pin P4 1600mhz at 100mhz QDR /// 256MB DDR266 & 256MB DDR333 @ 133mhz; 2.5CAS & 2CAS /// GeForce FX5500 256MB 270/350; 4Pipes; 128-bit mem bus /// Mysterious Unnamed Motherboard with AGP4x
RUNS FEAR AT MAX SETTINGS MAX REFRESH!11

rofl

 

[Vile]

:? I would consider a different card altogether if I were you. I personally have an EVGA (agp) version of the 6600gt, it is less than a year old and is totally useless in any 3D App.
It freezes after 5min; there are some other posts of people having similar problems with this card.

If you really want to go with a 6600 GT I will recommend the XFX due to the fact that it runs cooler than the MSI.

Aww, it's not that bad, my best friend has the MSI 6600GT and he runs fear on 800x600 with medium settings without softshadows of course. He pretty much plays all games in medium. Say, Earth 2060 or watever the year is, he plays it at 1280x1024, max out and even some AA.

I'd say it's an 'ok' card for todays games, but don't expect the card to run games that might come out later this year very nicely.

Also, take a look at the X1600. I think it was more pixelpipes.

 

[MTLink]

I hear XFX stock overclocks their cards... just food for thought.

Yeah, but ATM I can't find any OCed XFX 6600GTs.

The MSI HSF looks beatiful, and looks like it could cool down a stove with something as big as that, it's really surprising that people say it runs hot.

I'm also considering a 6800GS, but since I'm on a really tight budget, I will probably have to go with the 6600GT for now.

 

[apache_lives]

every single MSI product i own'd never made it past its waranty or to see an upgrade, they all had issues, and my MSI GeForce4 Ti4200 overheated and the fan was noisy and WHO THE HELL MAKES A NVIDIA CARD GOD DAM RED

No offence to ATI or anything but reds there color, MSI even makes ATI cards green uch.

Total dead MSI products: 12 (all)

Dam Garbage

 

[Vile]

every single MSI product i own'd never made it past its waranty or to see an upgrade, they all had issues, and my MSI GeForce4 Ti4200 overheated and the fan was noisy and WHO THE HELL MAKES A NVIDIA CARD GOD DAM RED

No offence to ATI or anything but reds there color, MSI even makes ATI cards green uch.

Total dead MSI products: 12 (all)

Dam Garbage

Lol, like you'd care what's the video card color is anyways.. I dunno, I like MSI for some reason, I only had a mobo and it worked just fine, and I'm planning on buying another 1 soon.

 

[xyzunit]

WHO THE HELL MAKES A NVIDIA CARD GOD DAM RED

Haha, I had the exact same card. Worked perfectly for about a month and then after that the fan wouldn't spin causing it to overheat. I checked for all the possible reasons why it wouldn't work and I guess it was happening to other people too. What a piece of junk....[/quote]

 

[apache_lives]

I had a MSI cd burner that burnt discs and took a restart to burn a restart and a month later didnt work (back then i didnt burn too many discs), then i updated the firmware and it burnt another ~5 cds and stoped again - i checked the net and every one of em had the same trouble (the MSI CR48-A or MS-8348A 48x16x48 CDRW).

I had a MSI board based on the Intel 440BX and one of the IDE ports died, then the board eventually wouldnt post and the funny thing was the diag lights on the board said it was fine.

I also had countless MSI boards based on VIA chipsets and they didnt last more then a few months (got one replaced 3 times and the last one they blamed me and i had to buy a new board) but thats VIA (which is worse with MSI involved)

MSI is crap concidering i have loads of other older that just wont die - my ASUS P2B, my Gigabyte GA5AA (ALi Chipsed, JUST WONT DIE) and other various boards i have.

Its prolly just my bad luck but i ask everyone here - have any MSI products you have ever owned ever lasted more then a year without issues?

 

[doublehelix]

I'm planning to get a 6600GT and I was wondering whether to get teh XFX or MSI one? I heard both are good, but have yet to see them in a roundup together. I hear the MSI is super quiet, but runs hot, whereas the XFX is cool, but is loud.

PCI-E BTW.

I have an MSI mobo that's still running and never had problems...
Currently I have a MSI NX6600GT-128 (PCI-E) video card and actually have it OC'd to 575Mhz (Stock 500Mhz) w/ the memory running at 1150Mhz (Stock 1000Mhz). No freeze-ups, lockups, or hangs... managed to gain an extra 500+ points in 3dmark05

Been running it OC'd for a good 4 months now and it idles around 46-48C. Under a full load with OC'd it comes up to around 80-90C...

I did remove the standard heatsink/fan and put some AS5 on it then remount the heatsink/fan. I think it made a difference rather than the white crap they used.

 

[MTLink]

WHO THE HELL MAKES A NVIDIA CARD GOD DAM RED[/quote]
Gainward does it, too.

Thanks for the feedback guys. I'm also considereing the Leadtek one because I hear it runs cool and quiet.

I'm going by Anandtech's 6600GT shootout, because it's the only one I can find that compares noise and heat. Most sites just talk about a whole bunch of benchies and how good the card is for teh money, but fail to adress the issue of noise and heat, which is very important to many people.

 

[illicitsc]

go for the msi
its super quiet and i run Fear at 1024x768 medium no lag
its not too hot, 45degrees idle 50-55 full load
and best of all ITS RED!!! green cards are like cheap shit. if u pay 600 for a 7800gtx get a blue one plz. ii'd personally get blue/red ram if i had the extra dough.

green=old and lame

 

[apache_lives]

leadtek's are great - they usually always do overkill on the cooling

 

[breakpoint138]

I had a MSI 6600gt and thought it was great card. I bought it cuz of the stock copper heatsink. My friend had an Asus 6600gt and it ran hot.

I had it oc'd @ 555/1120 and temps were great. Now I ran most games at high settings (including fear and bf2) with exception of shadows and lighting which I kept on med. and kept somewhat decent fps.

I got a 7800gt for xmas so that's the only reason I don't have it anymore and was debating rather to keep it or not. I even asked the guy's on this site about what I should do, with their opinions and me switching back and forth testing both cards, I decided to keep it.

I recomend saving just a little more and get something better. 6600gt's are quickly dying out.If the 7800's are a stretch money wise then I would go for the 6800gs. Nothing less.

 

[Heyyou27]

Yeah but they still suck. My old evga 6800 GT could overclock to 418MHz core 1.16GHz memory on stock, but my Leadtek 6800 GT can only overclock to 410MHz core 1.1GHz memory, on it's huge copper heatsink. Both AGP 8X.

 

[apache_lives]

i had a prolink 6600gt cause they were out of albatrons (this is over a year ago) and it kept on locking up cause it overheated, now with a zalman cooler (the new copper ones) its max temp is below the stock coolers idle piece of crap. It locked up at 93's.

 

[MTLink]

illicitsc: Haha, it's just a matter of personal opinion I guess. I don't have a windowed case nor do I take a peek inside my computer very often, so I don't really care what color the PCB is.

Apache_lives: Anandtech seems to think so, too. Round fans with no shrouds help to keep it quiet, and the temperature was one of the lowest in their roundup.

breakpoint138: It's not copper, it's aluminum painted gold/orange to make it look like copper.

Also, I don't think I need a better video card. I usually play BF2, WoW, CS:S, NFS: MW, nothing crazy like F.E.A.R. or CoD2. If I had more money I would spring for something better, but unfortunately I don't. At least a 6600GT would be alot better than my current card.

My current card is an Inno3D FX5700LE. Trust me, this card sucks ass. It's fanless, and tries to be quiet, but fails miserably. It sounds like a hair dryer on low, which is too loud already. The heat is higher than a card should be, idle around 48-49 and load around 74-75 Celsius. Ran for about a year and a half fine, then major artifacts starting showing up in about 80% of the games I try to play. The nVidia control panel now says my card is PCI, even though it's AGP. With a card this bad, a 6600GT will be a huge upgrade for me.

 

[apache_lives]

i upgraded from a leadtek vinilla 5600 (a bit better then a 5700le i think) to a 6600GT and the 6600GT is by far quicker - Battlefield2 on high too easy and most other games easily.

The 6600GT is as fast as the fastest FX (geforce5) or Radeon 9xxx cards so there impressive for the price (or was).

 

[tylerthedruid]

Compaq Presario /// 478-Pin P4 1600mhz at 100mhz QDR /// 256MB DDR266 & 256MB DDR333 @ 133mhz; 2.5CAS & 2CAS /// GeForce FX5500 256MB 270/350; 4Pipes; 128-bit mem bus /// Mysterious Unnamed Motherboard with AGP4x
RUNS FEAR AT MAX SETTINGS MAX REFRESH!11

rofl

I know