ITS UP!

[nick1985]

Text

seems to hang with the vanilla 6800(in some cases beat it) fairly well. looks like a winner :thumbsup:

 

[Snoop]

Looks like my Ti4200 is going to be getting a rest soon, I just hope that Nvidia can get an Athlon 64 chipset out with native PCI express (and soundstorm2)

 

[Genx87]

Does anybody have transistor counts on the GPU? I have heard two different quotes. One at 143Million which makes more sense to me than the other which was 222Million.

 

[gururu]

performance seems pretty good. though faster than a 9800 and 5950 with AA/AF, it still seems to get crippled. I'd love to see some MOHPA numbers because this game looks like it is going to be a graphics card nightmare. should be great in HL2 though. 400 dollars for SL!i seems too good to be true unless it barely matches an x800xt.

 

[CU]

Why were the cards tested with different cpu's? An Intel cpu should have been used for all the test since they have agp and pci-e boards. I think that is what caused the 6800nu to lose to the 6600GT in some test. And why was the 6800nu left aff the Source stress test?

 

[darkswordsman17]

Well, they had to test the 6600 with Intel because they're the only ones with PCI-Express right now. Also, that makes the 6800NU look even worse, as Athlon 64 is better at gaming.

Either nVidia better hurry up and get nForce 4 out, or else get their AGP version out ASAP.

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: Genx87
Does anybody have transistor counts on the GPU? I have heard two different quotes. One at 143Million which makes more sense to me than the other which was 222Million.

222 is the count for the NV40.
143 is probably accurate.

It gets crippled on AA/AF due to 128-bit memory bus, vs 256-bit for 5900/9800's.

 

[spazo]

How much would perfromance improve if Nvidia decided to make it a 256bit piece? Just curious...

 

[Megatomic]

Yeah, that'd be nice. 256bit memory bus with 8 pipelines... I need a drool emoticon here.

 

[TheAudit]

When is it going to be on store shelves?

 

[Insomniak]

Wow.

For $200, that's a steal. If SLi really does almost double performance, the 6800GT is in trouble...

It is decided. My next system will be an A64 PCI-E system sporting Nvidia graphics, unless ATi pulls something amazing off in the next 2 or 3 months...

 

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
Yeah, that'd be nice. 256bit memory bus with 8 pipelines... I need a drool emoticon here.

Isn't that an OEM 6800le?

 

[CU]

Originally posted by: darkswordsman17
Well, they had to test the 6600 with Intel because they're the only ones with PCI-Express right now. Also, that makes the 6800NU look even worse, as Athlon 64 is better at gaming.

Either nVidia better hurry up and get nForce 4 out, or else get their AGP version out ASAP.

I know Intel is the only one with pci-e, but they could have used Intel with agp also. That would have avoided the difference the cpu's make. How can the 6600GT be better than the 6800nu? The 6800nu has better specs except for the core clock. Is that core clock that much more important than the 256bit memory the 6800nu has?

 

[Insomniak]

Originally posted by: CU
How can the 6600GT be better than the 6800nu? The 6800nu has better specs except for the core clock. Is that core clock that much more important than the 256bit memory the 6800nu has?

Who cares?

If you get for $200 very close to what you get for $300, don't complain.

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: Insomniak
If you get for $200 very close to what you get for $300, don't complain.

That's what I'm talking about.

rbV5, I don't know what the specs of the 6800 LE are so I can't answer that question entirely, but I can say that it won't have those clock/RAM speeds.

 

[DeathByDuke]

it definitely isnt acting memory starved by the 128 bit unlike the rad 9600 xt was, must be some more effective compression across the memory controller, and this is certainly a must get if you have a Rad 9600/GF FX 5700 or less. Then again, wait for X700, the ensuing price war and watch them 9800 Pros fall in price even more 8) win-win hehe

 

[Bateluer]

This is looks like the card for my bro to buy, once they have an AGP version that is.

 

[nRollo]

That is an odd review.

1. They only only have Far Cry benches for most cards at 16X12. That's well and good, but a guy looking at $200 6600GTs isn't buying one for 16X12 performance. 10X7 or 12X10 would have been more realistic for that card, as well as it's next up the line competitor, the 6800NU.

2. Source stress test omits the 6800 altogether, the card most people with $200 might consider upgrading to.

3. I would bet the 6600GT is a killer 10X7 4X8X card, but I guess I won't know until another review is done.

Things are looking bad for ATI at the $200 and $300 MSRP price point if they can get the AGP version of this out the door, pretty impressive performance, especially for $200..

 

[CU]

Originally posted by: Insomniak
Who cares?

If you get for $200 very close to what you get for $300, don't complain.

I wasn't complaining. I just find it strange that the 6600GT won much of anything over the 6800nu. Plus since it is a video card review it would make more since to stick to the same cpu type.

 

[stickybytes]

Mark me down for a 6600GT once nforce 4 comes out. In some benchmarks, the 6600gt performs very competively with the x800pro. If you don't turn on the AA/AF on those high resolutions, it performs excellent.

200 dollars hits the sweet spot, just about the amount of money i want to allocate to a video card.

 

[lordtyranus]

The 6800 nu is unofficially dead now. Heck, even the high end cards don't look great compared to this.

 

[CU]

Originally posted by: lordtyranus
The 6800 nu is unofficially dead now. Heck, even the high end cards don't look great compared to this.

Not until the 6600GT AGP comes out.

 

[eVaoVe]

AA/AF > 6600GT but for 200 it doesnt matter =D

 

[Pringleprime]

Ugh. Makes me want to wait until the AGP is released instead of ordering with a 9800pro in the next week or two..

 

[jiffylube1024]

Originally posted by: spazo
How much would perfromance improve if Nvidia decided to make it a 256bit piece? Just curious...

Performance would improve tremendously at high resolutions and with AA/AF due to the high core speed, which is exactly why Nvidia will not release a 256-bit 6600GT. Why would they, when it would compete with their own 6800/6800GT cards?

Heck, the 6600GT already equals the 6800 in situations when it's not memory bandwidth limited (looks to be 1280X1024 with no AA and below or 1024X768 4xAA/8xAF and below).


The 6600GT looks to be the mainstream card to get now; with it's very high core speed and adequate memory banwidth for medium res applications, it will give you great 1024 + AA/AF or 1280 gameplay.

Judging by performance previews of the X700, it doesn't look too impressive either; weak Doom performance, similar performance elsewhere to the 6600GT but still about 10% slower and no SM3.

As a side note, the 6600 definately looks to be a "meh" GPU. For $50 more, the 6600GT will trounce it.

The only thing which is bloody annoying is no AGP for now. Dammit, >90% people who want this card now have AGP slots in their computers!