popsicledeath

Distinguished
Jan 19, 2005
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18,510
I've searched for several hours and have found alot of information on both the 6800 and 6600gt cards, but I've been wondering about their performances when compared to eachother (6600s have been left out of most benchmark testing charts I've found).

I see differences like 128-bit for the 6600gt compared to 256-bit for the 6800. 500mhz core speed vs 325mhz, 128mb GDDR3 vs 128mb ddr etc. (as you probably all well know without me regurgitating specs). What do all these differences actually mean to the performance gap? I can't really afford 6800gt, money is an issue as I'm a poor slacker, so is the $60 difference ($215 retail 6600gt vs $275 refurbished 6800, both leadtek that I've read are decent) worth the performance difference? have been reading some about overclocking and unlocking pipes if that could make a difference between the cards too.

secondly, my general system specs right now are amd athlon xp 1800/1.53ghz, 768mb pc2700ram, sun cheer 300w power supply, is this even good enough to bother upgrading to either video card (from pos 7k series ati). I plan on playing World of Warcraft mostly and want to get a mid priced athlon 64 cpu/motherboard setup in 2-3 months, but can't get all upgrades at once due to said poorness. Will one of these cards work until then? any recomnedations?

Thanks for any advice/clarification. I really appreciate this site and the people willing to take the time to help noobs like me that want to learn more, and not always have to learn the hard way.
 

pauldh

Illustrious
Both cards are good choices. The plain GF6800 is the more powerful card. But where you will see it is when raising resolutions and/or enabling eye candy such as AA/AF.

The 6600GT is clocked muched higher, so it performs well. But even those much higher clock speeds can't make up for the fact that the GF6800 has 4 more pipes and a 256-bit memory interface. (architecture, # pipes, clock speeds, memory inteface All factor into the performance of a card)

As for prices, your 6600GT price is better than going for the refurb GF6800. Definately of those two buy the new GF6600GT. That said, often I have promoted the GF6800 as a better option to the GF6600GT AGP because of price. The AGP6600GT came out high and because of the added bridge has generally still stayed much higher than the PCI-e. At one point in time, the best GF6800 price I knew about was less than the best GF6600GT AGP. ANyway, currently the cheapest I have seen either is <A HREF="http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=1099382222003&skuId=6949822&type=product" target="_new">$188 for 6600GT AGP</A>, and $199 after $30 rebate for the GF6800(many weeks ago). The 6600GT is sold out online, but may be available at your local stores. Entering my zipcode, I get 6 stores with it in stock.

Typically I think that if you find a GF6800 for under $250, it's a better deal than a $220 6600GT.



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pauldh

Illustrious
Ugh, I delayed and you beat me to it. :frown:


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pauldh

Illustrious
I guess it's always a bonus to possibly be able to utilize the 4 disabled pipes. Your kinda card huh? :smile:


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