Slashdot Mirror
Nvidia 6600 Series Examined
DrunkenTerror writes "Yesterday at QuakeCon, Nvidia debuted their new affordable GPU mentioned a few days ago on Slashdot. Dubbed the GeForce 6600 and 6600 GT, they differ from their higher-end brethren by having only 8 pixel pipes (unlike the 12 & 16 of the 6800 line), and appear to be limited to 128MB of RAM. Both GPUs support Shader Model 3.0. The 6600 GT sports fast GDDR3 RAM, while the 6600 appears to use plain-jane DDR. The GT also supports the oft-recently-discussed SLI, which could 'enable millions of users to experience the power of two GPUs in their system.' The best part, however, may be the price/performance. With a suggested street price of US$199, the 6600 GT runs at a steady 42 FPS in Doom 3, at high-quality 1600*1200." Reader aceh0 adds a few links: "Nvidia is announcing their NV4x Sub $200 Level graphics hardware today with the GeForce 6600 Series. The 6600 Series is feature complete with the 6800s and the differences come in the number of pipelines and memory configuration. SLI has trickled down to the 6600GT as well. Coverage is available at Neoseeker, Tech Report and PC Perspective as well as other sites."
I.E. I noticed a bigger jump in performance by upgrading my mainboard, cpu, and memory while retaining my relatively mediocre (but fully DirectX 9 compliant) graphics card, whereas my friend who had a similar configuration spent his cash on the latest Nvidia and didn't seem to come out significantly ahead.
If you can afford all of the above, I suppose this is the card for you (hell get two and run them together). But too often gamers focus on the graphics to the overall detriment of their performance.
US$199, the 6600 GT runs at a steady 42 FPS in Doom 3, at high-quality 1600*1200
In the end, regardless of what memory is being used, and what technologies, if I can play the newest game at its highest level of graphics at 42fps, then I'm a happy gamer, especially when the price is under $200 (USD).
As nifty as the card sounds, the hype of SLI might be just that - as the Tech Report preview points out, there aren't any sub-$500 motherboards currently the sport dual PCI-Express slots. For people looking to incrementally upgrade, they'll have to factor in needed a new motherboard as well. We can only hope an "nForce3.5" chipset with dual PCI-Express slots and a sane price point shows up in tandem with the new cards...
Wouldn't we -- and they -- have been better off if they just punched out larger quanitites of the higher-end chips at less cost?
No, neither you nor they would be better off. Companies like nVidia and ATI rely on the quick infusion of lots of cash from the early adopters to fund R&D on better GPU's. If they sold their best chips at the same cost as an FX5200, funding for innovating these great chips would dry up and you'd have to wait much longer for new designs and better performance.
The best way to get these companies to reduce their costs is simply not to buy their equipment. The laws of supply and demand will naturally produce an equilibrium in which they sell their products at a price point that maximizes their own profit. If their best cards are $500, then you can be assured that there are enough people out there willing to pay $500 to make it more profitable for them to sell it for that price than for $499, $250, $120, or $60. If you aren't one of those people willing to pay $500, then either (a) produce your own damn GPU or (b) wait for the prices to come down. Either way, stop whining.
[ home ]