Good 3D Performance at a Middling Price: GeForce 6600 Shootout

GeForce 6600 Architecture

The architecture of the GeForce 6600 graphics processor - codenamed "NV43" - is based on the NV40/45 graphics processor introduced last year, which is used on GeForce 6800 cards. On paper, NVIDIA's GeForce 6 card series offers the most modern 3D architecture currently on the market, with full DirectX 9.0c or Shader Model 3.0 support.

The structure of NVIDIA's NV43 graphics processor (GeForce 6600).

To bring the production costs of the graphics processor down to the midrange level, NVIDIA trimmed the NV43 GPU down in a few areas. The NV43 is equipped with only 8 pixel pipelines, instead of the 16 or 12 of the NV40/45. The number of vertex shader units was also reduced from 6 to 3, and the memory interface was cut from 256 bits to 128 bits in width. These measures save on transistors, and reduce the production costs of the circuit boards.