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

GeForce 6600 Architecture, Continued

We offer more in-depth detail and information on the GeForce 6600 in the following articles:

• NVIDIA Takes a New Stab at the Mainstream with GeForce 6600
• NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT Comes To THG's Lab
• NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT: AGP Has Not Been Forgotten

The NVIDIA specification currently includes four different GeForce 6600 models:

• GeForce 6600 GT : GPU Rate 500 MHz, Memory Data Rate 1000 MHz, 128 MB GDDR3, PCI Express, SLI
• GeForce 6600 : GPU Rate 300 MHz, Memory Data Rate 550 MHz, 128 MB DDR, PCI Express
• GeForce 6600 : GPU Rate 300 MHz, Memory Data Rate 550 MHz, 256 MB DDR, PCI Express
• GeForce 6600 GT : GPU Rate 500 MHz, Memory Data Rate 900 MHz, 128 MB GDDR3, AGP

In the past, card manufacturers meticulously held to NVIDIA's rating specs, but the GeForce 6600 cards are different. Many card manufacturers would like to single out their special 6600 cards and clock the graphics processors and memory considerably higher than the NVIDIA specification provides. This is possible by means of an improved cooling system, faster memory modules, and generous performance reserves in the graphics processor itself. In the area of cooling, the newest innovations are especially quiet fans or even passive cooling.

All of this means that it's worth looking a little closer before buying a GeForce 6600 graphics card, especially since the prices tend to not differ a whole lot between models.

We tested nine cards, two AGP and seven PCI Express ones. Here are the links to the product summary charts.

• Albatron Trinity AGP6600GT (AGP), PC6600U (PCI), and PC6600GT (PCI) .
• Asus Extreme X6600GT (PCI) .
• Gainward Ultra/1960 PCX XP 128 MB Golden Sample GLH (PCI) .
• GigagByte GV-NX66T128VP (PCI) .
• Leadtek PX6600 GT TDH Extreme Version (PCI) .
• MSI NX6600 VDT128 Diamond (AGP) and NX6600 VDT128E Diamond (PCI) .