Evga 6600gt BEATS PNY GeForce 7900GTX ? It must be scrwd up!

[OEM-NIB-OBO]

Was just looking at pcworlds ranking of Graphic cards, the other day,

(www.pcworld.com/reviews/sfchart/0,typid,46,product_type,GraphicsBoards,00.asp)
(Before reading on got to the link and then rank the graphic cards on the page by their perfomance rating in the left hand panel. And then continue too read on with the post)

And I noticed that when I ranked all their tested graphics card by their performance rating in games (fps rating) I noticed that 1st place was a xfx 7800gtx, 2nd place was a evga 6600gt and 3rd place was a PNY GeForce 7900GTX. The PNY 7900gtx was then followed in performance rating by other such expensive cards like 7800gt's and 7600gt's. So what is up with that? :?:

I looked up the stats for the "EVGA eGeForce 6600GT" and it turned up too be really fast. However the only difference between the"6600gt" in 2nd place and the "PNY GeForce 7900GTX", was the fact that the 6600gt had a 128bit interface while the 7900gtx had a 256bit interface. :!:

Therefore, which card is better for me to get? Should I go with the Evga 6600gt that is rated higher or should I go with the pny 7900gtx? I reall dont want to spend $500 on a graphics card when its ranked lower thatnb another one for less than 1/4 the price.


EVGA eGeForce 6600GT

General
Bus PCI Express
Chip Set nVidia GeForce 6600 GT
Installed RAM (MB) 256 MB
RAM Type DDR3
RAM Speed (MHz) 1300 MHZ
Processor Speed (MHz) 500 MHZ

Below is a link to the full test report
(http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/test_report/0,prodid,27714,00.asp)

PNY GeForce 7900GTX


General
Bus PCI Express
Chip Set nVidia GeForce 7900 GTX
Installed RAM (MB) 512 MB
RAM Type GDDR3
RAM Speed (MHz) 1640 MHZ
Processor Speed (MHz) 675 MHZ


Below is a link to the full test report

(http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/test_report/0,prodid,28233,00.asp)

Just because the 6600gt got a higher rating and is really cheap ($120) I'm kind of leaning towards it. Because $500 is a lot of money and you really cant tell and difference between a Framerate of 40fps and 100Fps. However i will leave it up too you guys too decide.

Thanks

 

[jaguarskx]

The PCW rating is a combination of peformance, features, and design.

The rating are probably for card within the same family or series, so the 6600GTs are compared to each other, and not the 7900GTs or any other card.

The PNY GeForce 7900GTX Limited Edition's FPS is clearly higher than that of the 6600GT. Those are the important numbers. It got score of only 61 (fair) because other 7900GTX probably have at little more extra features.

Don't waste your time with those ratings. Go to a good hardware review sites that do a thorough and less confusing comparison.

This is a good GPU review from Anantech.com.

The 6600GT is considered a higher end Budget card, or a lower end mainstream card. The 7900GTX is a premium card with the price to match.

But before dump a load of money on the 7900GTX with 512MB of RAM, you need to ask yourself at what resolution do you play at? This card is great if you are playing at 1600 x 1200 (or higher) with anti-aliasing, and high quality textures. If you are playing at 1280 x 1024 then this card will be an overkill. Yes, you will get really high frame rates, but many people would consider it a waste of money at this resolution.

If you are playing at 1280 x 1024 or lower then get the 7900GT 256MB that can be had for less than $300.

If that is too much then get a 7600GT which can be bought for $175 or less if there are rebates.

 

[OEM-NIB-OBO]

So do you know what the difference bewteen 128bit interfrace vs 256bit interface is?

 

[moparman390]

It's the interface with the graphics memory, the bigger the interface, the more bandwidth it can transfer to and from the memory with.

 

[pauldh]

While once a great buy, 6600GT's are typically far from a great buy in this day and age. Of course, that's what you get for reading the website of a printed magazine as they won't be consistently up to date compared to online hardware review sites.

In PCI-e you can get a faster X800 128MB for under $80AR, or spend the full $120 or a little more and grab something even better. And You don't have to decide between 6600GT or 7900GTX, the best bang for your buck are inbetween.

If you can do the $150-170 for these cards, they are in another league compared to 6600GT:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814133150
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814142067

Even better is the X1800XT, 7900GT, or newcomer X1900GT. They are in the $250-300+ range.