 | |||
|
|
|
|
|
 |
NVIDIA's GeForce 6600 GT AGP Overclocked December 09, 2004 Brandon Sandman Bell |
|
 |
|
| |
Summary: With its 8-pixel pipeline architecture and 500MHz core, the GeForce 6600 GT is turning lots of heads in the mainstream price segment, but what happens when you overclock the 6600 GT AGP? How much of a performance improvement do you get, and is the overclocked card able to outgun a $300 GeForce 6800? Find out, as we run an overclocked 6600 GT through a wide variety of benchmarks (including DOOM 3 and Half-Life 2) against the GeForce 6800, RADEON 9800 XT, and RADEON 9800 PRO in this article!
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 20 ) |
We’ve begun gathering up GeForce 6600 GT AGP cards from Leadtek, XFX, and others, but what we’ve decided to do today was take a closer look at overclocking the GeForce 6600 GT AGP, to see what kind of extra performance we can extract in a variety of games. To see how the GeForce 6600 GT AGP fared against other popular AGP cards out there, we’ve also included the RADEON 9800 PRO 128MB, as well as the RADEON 9800 XT and GeForce 6800. We were particularly curious to see how close our overclocked GeForce 6600 GT could come to the $300 GeForce 6800. If the 6600 GT AGP can come within a few percentage points of the more expensive GeForce 6800, it would be an even more enticing upgrade option for consumers.
The GeForce 6600 GT core has proven to be an excellent overclocker, we hit a core clock speed of 558MHz and memory clock of 515MHz (1.03GHz effective), so we’re hoping for positive results. Let’s take a look at the results!
System Setup
Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz
ABIT IC7-G MAX 2 Advance
1GB OCZ EL DDR400 Platinum Edition Rev 2
ATI RADEON 9800 XT
ATI RADEON 9800 PRO 128MB
Driver version CAT 4.12 beta
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT reference card
Leadtek WinFast A400 GeForce 6800 card
Driver version 67.02
250GB Maxtor Hard Drive Maxline III SATA Hard Drive w/16MB Cache
Windows XP Professional SP1
DirectX 9.0c
Benchmarks
Lock On: Modern Air Combat (Mig-29 custom demo)
IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles (The Black Death track)
Splinter Cell (FS custom demo)
Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness (Beyond3D custom demo)
Halo: Combat Evolved (stock benchmark)
Far Cry 1.2 (custom demo for mp_jungle, SM2.0b and SM3.0 paths used)
DOOM 3 (gameplay custom demo)
| Tomb Raider | Page:: ( 2 / 20 ) |
Tomb Raider – Direct3D
| Tomb Raider 4xAA | Page:: ( 3 / 20 ) |
Tomb Raider – Direct3D
| Lock On: Modern Air Combat | Page:: ( 4 / 20 ) |
Lock On: Modern Air Combat – Direct3D
| IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles | Page:: ( 5 / 20 ) |
IL-2 Sturmovik: FB - OpenGL
| Halo | Page:: ( 6 / 20 ) |
Halo – Direct3D
| Far Cry Volcano | Page:: ( 7 / 20 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| Volcano 2xAA/8xAF | Page:: ( 8 / 20 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| Volcano 4xAA | Page:: ( 9 / 20 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| Volcano 4xAA/8xAF | Page:: ( 10 / 20 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| Far Cry Training | Page:: ( 11 / 20 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| Training 2xAA/8xAF | Page:: ( 12 / 20 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| Training 4xAA | Page:: ( 13 / 20 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| Training 4xAA/8xAF | Page:: ( 14 / 20 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| DOOM 3 Medium Quality | Page:: ( 15 / 20 ) |
DOOM 3 – OpenGL
| DOOM 3 Med Quality 4xAA/8xAF | Page:: ( 16 / 20 ) |
DOOM 3 – OpenGL
| Half-Life 2 | Page:: ( 17 / 20 ) |
Half-Life 2 – Direct3D
| Half-Life 2 2xAA/8xAF | Page:: ( 18 / 20 ) |
Half-Life 2 – Direct3D
| Splinter Cell | Page:: ( 19 / 20 ) |
Splinter Cell – Direct3D
| Summary | Page:: ( 20 / 20 ) |
In Half-Life 2 the overclocked GeForce 6600 GT finishes behind the GeForce 6800 by only 8% at 1600x1200 with 2xAA/8xAF. This isn’t bad considering the price difference separating the two cards and is considerably slimmer than the margin we saw in IL-2. In Splinter Cell, the GeForce 6800 finishes ahead by a little more at 16x12, the difference between the two cards opens up to 14%. The GeForce 6800 opens up an even greater lead in Far Cry once the settings are cranked up to 4xAA/8xAF at 1600x1200, 20% in our training demo and 21% in volcano. However, when we dial the settings back to the same 2xAA/8xAF as in Half-Life 2, the cards are only separated by about 15% in training and 10% in volcano.
Based on these results, it’s no surprise to see why the GeForce 6600 GT AGP is such a popular upgrade right now. Its 8 pixel pipeline architecture running at 500MHz gives it enough pixel pushing power to remain fairly competitive with today’s $300 cards, especially when overclocked. Its 128-bit memory interface is the only thing holding it back, this is most evident once 4xAA is turned on. For this reason the GeForce 6800 should be your top choice if you can afford to splurge a little, and don’t forget that it can be overclocked also.
But if you’re looking for the most performance your $200 can buy for an upgrade, the GeForce 6600 GT AGP is the best solution currently available on the market. As you saw in our performance results, it’s a more than capable performer, and leaves last year’s high-end RADEON 9800 XT in the dust for the most part.