NVIDIA's GeForce 6600GT AGP: The Little Bridge that Could
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 16, 2004 12:15 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Head to Head: NVIDIA GeForce 5900XT vs. NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT
If we take a look at the price of the GeForce FX 5900XT in our RealTime Pricing Engine, we see a card that hovers somewhere around $185. The 5900XT is the lower rung of the high end graphics cards from NVIDIA at the end of the year in 2003.
Under Doom 3, the 5900XT just can't keep up with the 6600GT, especially at higher resolutions. We are seeing the same type of pattern we saw with the 9800 Pro head to head: as resolution increases, so does the 6600GT's lead.
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Doom 3 Performance |
|||
|
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NVIDIA GeForce 5900XT |
NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT |
Performance Advantage |
|
640 x 480 |
65.6 |
105.9 |
61.4% |
|
800 x 600 |
50.2 |
100.3 |
99.8% |
|
1024 x 768 |
36.3 |
82 |
125.9% |
|
1280 x 1024 |
25.4 |
58.7 |
131.1% |
|
1600 x 1200 |
18.9 |
43.4 |
129.6% |
|
Winner |
|
- |
6600GT |
This test isn't even a contest. The 6600GT makes short work of the 5900XT under valve's VST test. Though, with Half-Life two finally released, we'll have to see just how good a predictor of performance the VST is.
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Counterstrike: Source Visual Stress Test Performance |
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|
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NVIDIA GeForce 5900XT |
NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT |
Performance Advantage |
|
640 x 480 |
81.8 |
191.8 |
134.5% |
|
800 x 600 |
60.6 |
175.3 |
189.3% |
|
1024 x 768 |
40.2 |
133.3 |
231.6% |
|
1280 x 1024 |
24.8 |
83.3 |
235.9% |
|
1600 x 1200 |
18.9 |
68 |
259.8% |
|
Winner |
|
- |
6800GT |
|
Unreal Tournament 2004 |
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|
|
NVIDIA GeForce 5900XT |
NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT |
Performance Advantage |
|
640 x 480 |
72.7 |
72.3 |
0.6% |
|
800 x 600 |
71.4 |
71.4 |
0.0% |
|
1024 x 768 |
67.2 |
70.5 |
4.9% |
|
1280 x 1024 |
51.9 |
62.8 |
21.0% |
|
1600 x 1200 |
39.1 |
50.2 |
28.4% |
|
Winner |
|
- |
6600GT |
The 5900XT is not playable at anything above 1024x768 in FarCry, but the 6600GT holds on and manages over a 100% performance advantage at the higher resolutions.
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Far Cry 1.3 Performance |
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|
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NVIDIA GeForce 5900XT |
NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT |
Performance Advantage |
|
640 x 480 |
60.2 |
86.3 |
43.4% |
|
800 x 600 |
45.7 |
80.8 |
76.8% |
|
1024 x 768 |
33.3 |
67.9 |
103.9% |
|
1280 x 10 24 |
23 |
48.7 |
111.7% |
|
1600 x 1200 |
16.4 |
37.1 |
126.2% |
|
Winner |
|
- |
6600GT |
Halo continues the 6600GT reign with almost double the performance across the board.
|
Halo 1.05 Performance |
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|
|
NVIDIA GeForce 5900XT |
NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT |
Performance Advantage |
|
640 x 480 |
71.4 |
131.7 |
84.5% |
|
800 x 600 |
55.1 |
111.7 |
102.7% |
|
1024 x 768 |
39.7 |
82.4 |
107.6% |
|
1280 x 1024 |
26.5 |
56.9 |
114.7% |
|
1600 x 1200 |
19.2 |
41.3 |
115.1% |
|
Winner |
|
- |
6600GT |
This OpenGL benchmark shows a tie between the two boards, and at lower resolutions the 5900XT board is acutally leading the 6600GT here. This older quake III engine based game definitely shows a side we haven't seen, but so far the 5900XT has tied one benchmark while the 6600GT has won all the rest. Let's contine on and see what the rest stack up like.
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Wolfenstein: |
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NVIDIA GeForce 5900XT |
NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT |
Performance Advantage |
|
640 x 480 |
111.8 |
107.6 |
3.8% |
|
800 x 600 |
110.3 |
107.5 |
2.5% |
|
1024 x 768 |
103.7 |
104.2 |
0.5% |
|
1280 x 1024 |
84 |
88 |
4.8% |
|
1600 x 1200 |
64 |
68 |
6.3% |
|
Winner |
|
- |
Tie |
In Battlefield vietnam, the results are pretty steadily in favor of the 6600GT: it wins with over a 50% performance advantage every time.
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Battlefield - |
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NVIDIA GeForce 5900XT |
NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT |
Performance Advantage |
|
640 x 480 |
139 |
217 |
56.1% |
|
800 x 600 |
106 |
180 |
69.8% |
|
1024 x 768 |
76 |
134 |
76.3% |
|
1280 x 1024 |
53 |
97 |
83.0% |
|
1600 x 1200 |
36 |
68 |
88.9% |
|
Winner |
|
- |
6600GT |
Running with 78% higher fps at 1600x1200, the 6600GT closes out its victory against the 5900XT.
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The Sims 2 Performance |
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NVIDIA GeForce 5900XT |
NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT |
Performance Advantage |
|
800 x 600 |
33.4 |
50.3 |
50.6% |
|
1024 x 768 |
29 |
42.1 |
45.2% |
|
1280 x 1024 |
20.3 |
32.6 |
60.6% |
|
1600 x 1200 |
15.6 |
27.8 |
78.2% |
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Winner |
|
- |
6600GT |
In every test but one the 6600GT dominated the 5900XT in performance and value. In our head to head battles, price was a key factor. Now that the 6600GT has entered the AGP market, there is no reason to look at either of these other two AGP based products.
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66 Comments
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Pete - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
Great article, Anand. Are you sure about your 9700P numbers for Far Cry, though? They seem awfully low, especially in relation to a 5900XT.SlinkyDink - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
/*The AGP version of the 6600GT obviously lacks SLI support given that you can only have a single AGP slot on a motherboard.*/Actually I believe that AGP 3.0 specs allow up two AGP slots (and both could be used used at once), but nobody ever decided to implement it :P
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
I am not treating NVIDIA's Video Processor as a feature of any NV4x GPU until NVIDIA provides a working driver and commits to a public release date. The 6600GT AGP supposedly has the same video processor that the PCI Express version has (since they are the same GPU), but to this date NVIDIA has failed to deliver a working driver set to take advantage of it.Take care,
Anand
slurmsmackenzie - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
#28....remember, the point is that ati didn't have a bridge in the works at the release of the x700, so now that it has become apparent that agp is still the front running solution, they're behind it it's agp equivelant releases. so, as far as agp interface is concerned, the closest ati comparison is the 9800.
vailr - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
Any comments on: comparing the hardware video decoding, of the 6600 vs. the (reportedly faulty)6800; and overall video quality, in comparison with ATI's offerings?For those people interested in the best cost-to-performance video solution, for Home Theater PC use.
Thanks.
Cybercat - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
They couldn't have been using the NF4 reference motherboard, these are all AGP cards. Also, why is it that the 9800 Pro does 63% better than the 9700 Pro in FarCry? At most that card is around 30% better. Did you guys really rerun the tests with the 9700 Pro using the latest drivers, or did you merely recycle some of the numbers?marcnakm - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
The card I was waiting for.Good review, just missing the comparison with the regular 6800 which is very important.
Regs - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
This review shows a lot of things. One of them was how the FX series was a horrible failure.draazeejs - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
Did nVidia pay for this article? Is it really fair to put up this card against a 2-years old card, like R9800Pro? As far as I understood, the X700 should be the real competitor for 6600GT, because the X700 is supposed to be in the same price cathegory, no? There have been numerous reviews of the X700 on the net, why not include it here???Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - link
The impact of the bridge, as I mentioned in the review, is negligible. The bridge + slower memory results in a 0 - 5% performance difference between the PCI Express and AGP versions of the 6600GT (the 5% figure being because of the additional memory bandwidth courtesy of the 500/1000 clock vs. 500/900).Just so you guys know, I went out and picked up a vanilla 6800 for inclusion in my upcoming Half Life 2 GPU comparison. Know that your voice has been heard :)
Take care,
Anand