6600 GT vs. 6800 GT

[tak3shiro]

I'm going to build myself a nice gaming rig, and by nice I mean decently fast but not overly fancy (like water cooling and such)
My question is, is the extra 200 bucks really worth it? Will the 6600 have the usefull lifespan as the 6800? I'm just think that saving about 200 bucks is 2/3 of an iPod that I've been looking at...

 

[Schadenfroh]

with the 6800GT, you get the following over the 6600GT.

Double the pipelines
Double the memory bandwidth
Double the RAM

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

I think it's worth the money. The performance overhead exhibited by the 6800GT will give you perhaps 2-3 more years of solid gaming than the 6600GT, imo.

 

[lordtyranus]

6600 GT has 70% of the GT's fillrate, and performs at that level when ram and memory bandwidth is not an issue.

 

[railer]

I think it's worth the money. The performance overhead exhibited by the 6800GT will give you perhaps 2-3 more years of solid gaming than the 6600GT, imo.

Absolutely wrong. They use the same basic architecture. When games come out that cripple the 6600gt, these same games will also cripple the 6800gt. What's the performance difference, in percent, between these two cards, at normal resoutions without ridiculous aa/af settings? 30%?? Just a guess.
2 or 3 years from now, when cards are performing at 3 to 4 HUNDRED percent faster than the 6800gt, the 6600 and 6800 will look identical in the rear view mirror. Save yer damn money.....

 

[stardust]

I'm going for 2 6600GT's running SLI because I will be switching to pci-e soon. The 6800GT is a very solid AGP card..

 

[lordtyranus]

Originally posted by: railer

I think it's worth the money. The performance overhead exhibited by the 6800GT will give you perhaps 2-3 more years of solid gaming than the 6600GT, imo.

Absolutely wrong. They use the same basic architecture. When games come out that cripple the 6600gt, these same games will also cripple the 6800gt. What's the performance difference, in percent, between these two cards, at normal resoutions without ridiculous aa/af settings? 30%?? Just a guess.
2 or 3 years from now, when cards are performing at 3 to 4 HUNDRED percent faster than the 6800gt, the 6600 and 6800 will look identical in the rear view mirror. Save yer damn money.....

That's like saying the 9700 Pro and the 9600 Pro look the same today. They don't.

 

[kakarotxiv]

go for the 6600gt much better band for buck now

 

[Genx87]

Absolutely wrong. They use the same basic architecture. When games come out that cripple the 6600gt, these same games will also cripple the 6800gt. What's the performance difference, in percent, between these two cards, at normal resoutions without ridiculous aa/af settings? 30%?? Just a guess.
2 or 3 years from now, when cards are performing at 3 to 4 HUNDRED percent faster than the 6800gt, the 6600 and 6800 will look identical in the rear view mirror. Save yer damn money.....

While I usually agree with that sentiment. On this one I dont. The GT has twice the pipelines, twice the memory bandwidth, and twice the memory.

At 1024X768 without the goodies the 6800 is 20% faster than the 6600GT.
When you throw in 4XAA the 6800GTs lead grows to 60% faster.
They didnt even test the cards at 1600X1200 which would make the 6600GT crumble imo.

Below is a list of differences
Farcry 1600X1200 no aa\af = 6800GT is 99% faster
Farcry 1600X12004AA\4AF = 6800GT is 75% faster

Halo 1600X1200 0AA\8AF = 6800GT is 34% faster

Jedi Knight 1600X1200 no aa\af = 6800GT is 45% faster
Jedi Knight 1600X1200 4aa\8af = 6800GT is 377% faster

The list goes on an on. 6600GT is a great mid ranged card but if you are looking for a bit of longevity the 6800GT beats it pretty handily. Especially at high res with AA enabled.

 

[TStep]

You can't answer this until you answer "at what resolution?". If your a 16x12 guy, the answer is obvious. But if not, it becomes much harder to justify the extra expense.

 

[nitromullet]

tak3shiro, the best bang for the buck gaming rigs are those whose components are well balanced with each other. i.e. You wouldn't put a 6800GT in an Athlon XP 2000+ based rig, since it would be unbalanced and the money wasted on the GT. However, a buddy of mine has an Athlon XP 2000+ paired with a Radeon 9700 Pro, and it's a pretty nice match. We could probably give you better suggestions if we knew what other hardware you were planning on getting as well as your budget.

 

[Bateluer]

A 6800GT will have a much longer lifespan than the 6600GT, hands down. Its got double the pipelines, double the RAM, and double the memory bandwidth. This means that the its performance will not drop off as quickly as the 6600GT.

The 6800 GT in my system will likely reside there for a good 18 months at least. Darn video cards are getting very expensive.

 

[Avalon]

Originally posted by: TStep
You can't answer this until you answer "at what resolution?". If your a 16x12 guy, the answer is obvious. But if not, it becomes much harder to justify the extra expense.

I'm going to agree with this. If you're going to game at 10x7 with no/lite AA/AF...somewhere around there...the 6600GT will be much closer to the 6800GT in performance, depending on the game. I'd suppose you could probably squeak within 10% of the 6800GT at those resolutions, and for the $200 price premium, I doubt you'd agree that $200 = 10% more performance.

Now, on the other hand, if you're going to want to play the game at 12x10 with a large ammount of AA/AF or play at a higher resolution, you'll definitely find the 6800GT much more efficient, and would probably be worth the extra money.

 

[Acanthus]

This thread is pretty funny considering a play with a geforce FX5600, which has to be considered a terrible card.

Im playing on a crippled 6800U! OMG!

I must run everything at 640x480 @ 30fps.
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When considering "bang for the buck" you have to consider SLI capability down the road as well, 2 6600GTs will slaughter the fillrate of a single 6800U because each card only has to draw half the screen.

 

[billyjak]

When considering "bang for the buck" you have to consider SLI capability down the road as well, 2 6600GTs will slaughter the fillrate of a single 6800U because each card only has to draw half the screen.

That is only true if you buy a PCI express card.
You cannot do this with an AGP card.

 

[nRollo]

They offer comparable "bang for the buck", just different amounts of bucks.