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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."
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/2004080 6105201.html
"GeForce 6600 GT cards come with a 500 MHz clock and memory rate, 128-bit (GDDR3, 128 MB) and will cost $200-230, GeForce 6600 with 128-bit bus (GDDR, 128 MB) will cost $150. According to preliminary results and unconfirmed tests GeForce 6600 GT performs 20% better than RADEON 9800XT. "
TruePunk | Games
Now we just need a motherboard with 2 PCIe 16X slots. Some of Intel's new server-class motherboards have it but they cost around $500.
It is limited to 256MB, but most manufactures will be shipping 128mb versions.
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.
http://www.finclockers.com/uutiskuvat/GeForce6600. pdf
Just in case anyone wants to check it out.
TruePunk | Games
which will need to have a true GPU in order to run it's rendering engine much like Mac. If NVIDIA doesn't have a low end GPU it wouldn't get as big a part of the market.
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).
It should be noted that these cards will initially only arrive with PCI Express support. Given the fact that most people have only AGP ports, this is a barrier to adoption. It has been reported that AGP versions will follow.
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
This is going to be a very interesting comparison when the 6600 series comes out. Up until now, one could assume, at least in part, that a lot of the performance gains in the new NVidia 68xx series of hardware comes from the additional pipelines. I'd like very much to see how the 6600 series stack up against their older 8-pipeline brethren and ATI's 8-pipeline cards, such as the Radeon 97xx/98xx models.
Never look down your nose at others. Someday, someone is bound to see your boogers.
Faster cards for gamers may be nice, but what I'm really interested in is a better card for my MythTV box. My main concern is having MPEG decoding for HDTV output and minimal heat output (no fans).
I seem to recall nVidia promising better MPEG/HDTV support in there upcoming cards. Will the low-end of this generation be fanless?
2x6600 card: $400
New Pci express motherboard: $150
New case (cause you know your old pc will just be termed a "server"): $100
New faster 1GB ram: $200
New cpu because you're buying the other stuff anyway: $250
Bigger sata 300 GB HD because bittorents are all about sharing: $200
Wife cutting off your broadband connection: priceless
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
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...
Don't quote me on this, but from the way it sounds the technology involved has changed so much that the old drivers will not work properly (though they may function somewhat).... Waiting for new drivers would be the best idea, price will go down, and will save you some cash on aspirin.
TruePunk | Games
PCI Express is not PCI. The bandwidth is completely different. PCI is 133MB/s. PCI Express is 200MB/s per x1. PCI Express graphics cards can be x16. Check the ASUS P5AD4 Premium motherboard for a look at some of the new connectors. Thunder
No
Not to take points away from the article, but if you're looking to get a graphics card, take a peek at Nvidia's 6800 GT.
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16 pipelines AND it can *easily* be overclocked from it's 350Mhz core / 1000 Mhz memory to the 425/1100 speeds of a 6800 Ultra (which is $150 more).
Compare benchmarks: http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_doom3_benchmark
ATI's X800 Pro has 12 pipelines.
I dunno, if you're gonna spend money on a graphics card, might as well go balls-out with this one. Best deal I've seen on a card in quite some time.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
And I'll bet they cost pennies less to make than the higher-end chips. Translation: the higher-end chips should cost pennies -- not hundreds of $$$s -- more to buy.
Think about it. How much has it cost Nvidia to engineer this new chip? Either it is a crippled version of their existing chip, or they had to re-engineer it, make new masks, and setup a new, qualified production line at quite high costs.
Wouldn't we -- and they -- have been better off if they just punched out larger quanitites of the higher-end chips at less cost?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
It may seem absurd, but there are legitimate reasons why 3D cards need a higher framerate to represent the same smooth motion of 24fps movies.
I've explained this before, and I'll do it again. Television and video have motion blur-- the effect of the capture device essentially "averaging" the motion that occurred across the duration of capturing that frame.
Video cards generate a crisp, instantaneous frame that represents only the precise instant the frame was rendered, not the whole time the "shutter" was open.
At a *bare minimum* producing motion that looks as smooth as blurred 24fps requires double that. (You have to have two frames for your eye to blur between) To do it as well as a film camera requires even more, since their motion blur is effectively an infinite number of samples averaged together over the duration the shutter was open. I'd guess you could get a reasonable approximation at 3x the framerate.
TV and Movies are also filmed with the 24fps limitation in mind-- good cinematographers are well aware of the limits and know how to avoid situations that would result in jerky movement.