Board analysis

XFX is NVIDIA’s first board partner to hit retail with the GeForce 6600 DDR2. Based on pictures we’ve seen of the GeForce 6600 DDR2 reference board (we don’t have an NVIDIA reference card to make direct physical comparisons), XFX appears to follow NVIDIA’s reference board design to the letter. Board components used and their placement look identical, right down to the board’s heatsink/fan unit. The only difference that we can spot is the board’s blue PCB (NVIDIA’s reference 6600 DDR2 board sports a green PCB), and of course, the all important XFX sticker on the card’s fan.

Clock speeds

XFX clocks their GeForce 6600 DDR2 board at 400MHz on the graphics core, which is an improvement of 50MHz over NVIDIA’s reference specifications. This improves fill rate 400Mtexels/sec (12%), from 2.8 Gigatexels/second on the original GeForce 6600 DDR2 to 3.2 Gigatexels/second on XFX’s board. Meanwhile, on the memory side XFX clocks their board’s memory subsystem at 400MHz, the same speed as NVIDIA’s reference clocks.

While this doesn’t encroach too much into GeForce 6600 GT territory, this is still a notable improvement over the standard GeForce 6600 DDR2 specifications. And with a little bit of overclocking (which we certainly did over the course of our testing) we were quite hopeful that we could achieve near GeForce 6600 GT speeds. After all, the GeForce 6600 DDR2 is built on the same manufacturing line as the 6600 GT. XFX uses 2.5ns Infineon modules on their GeForce 6600 DDR2 board, (Part number HYB18T256161AF-25), which are good for up to 400MHz, but we were hopeful for a high overclock anyway, especially once we saw how cool the board’s DDR2 memory modules ran.

Unlike first-gen DDR2 boards like the GeForce FX 5800 Ultra and RADEON 9800 PRO 256MB, the memory modules on XFX’s GeForce 6600 DDR2 ran surprisingly cool. Even when overclocking, the modules never got hot over the course of our testing. In fact, we should also note that XFX’s GeForce 6600 DDR2 ran quieter than the RADEON X1300 PRO. ATI’s reference X1300 PRO board ships with a small, high-RPM fan that can get a little noisy at times. The fan on XFX’s card on the other hand is the complete opposite, it’s by no means silent, but it runs just under 30 decibels, making it perfect for HTPC applications.

Software and accessories

Besides the graphics card and driver, XFX sweetens the package by including a copy of CryTek’s hit shooter Far Cry, which ships on DVD-ROM. Also included with the card are two DVI adapters and an S-Video cable, for hooking the board up to a TV.