Sparkle
Sparkle is using the reference NVIDIA HSF, which in this case, wins a great deal of points. The NVIDIA reference cooling solution has rubber nubs around all four corners of the HSF solution. This adds stability to the part that many other cards in this review lack. Unfortunately, the spring tension isn't wonderfully high, so cooling is a little lower than what might be desired. The spacers may add stability, but they also make it so that in order to get really good contact for cooling, the part would need to be pressed down harder than it currently is.
There were a couple of vendors who sent us "press samples" that were clocked at non-shipping clock speeds. Sparkle is included in this group, but we've asked them to only send us products that we can buy on the shelves. The part that we have in our labs boots up at 507/550, but we clocked it higher than that, easily.
You have to wonder who made the decision that seven MHz and a tiny bit of memory bandwidth was really worth sending us a press sample when we asked them not to do so. Because of that, we also can't be sure that the components that went into the part weren't binned beforehand - the 2ns DDR3 memory easily hit 610MHz.
Getting 2ns memory to clock that high is obviously not impossible. It can happen by chance (we've seen it before on earlier parts that used it), but we'd rather have no doubts.
At the same time, we asked for shipping parts and this is what we received. We'll report all the information that we have along with the numbers that we get and let the readers make the call.
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princethorpe - Wednesday, May 4, 2005 - link
I've been checking the various forums and found thisone on the 6600gt's excellent. I don't know if anyone else has found them but Asus are making these cards and do a faster than standard model by using faster memory they recon according to their site they run 10% faster than the standard. I've ordered the Asus board by preference because of the build qualityGollumSmeagol - Monday, May 2, 2005 - link
I came across a forum a few months ago here in Hungary, and the people were talking about Leadtek's 6600GTs being faulty/freezing. Strange enough, a few weeks later, the main distributor of Leadtek, took off 6600GTs from their pricelists on the web. Wonder if they are waiting for a bugfix, or simply ran out of stock and wait for the next shipment.Another beauty I've just came across, is Gigabyte's TurboForce edition, which is a slightly overclocked version of the 6600 series (both PCI-Ex and AGP 8x). I'm shopping for a SILENT AGP one, (that's where I came across this review), and found this beauty
http://www.giga-byte.com/VGA/Products/Products_GV-...
This one has sg. they call Silent-Pipe as a cooler. Not much specs on Gigabyte's page, but from the picture, it looks like there is no fan at all, just a huge copper(-colored?) heatsink, that covers about 2/3rd of the card. (Well, a Zalman FB123 could still be used to move some air)
The memory clock is wrote to be 1120MHz (remember, TurboForce), plus when I zoomed in on to the box picture, I could spot "VIVO" written on the box. This is also supported by the info on the local dealer's page, where they say "Y" to the TV-OUT of the regular GV-N66T128D, but they say "IN/OUT" for the GV-N66T128VP. All this for roughly 20 USD extra (local price).
dpp - Saturday, November 19, 2005 - link
I've bought http://www.giga-byte.com/VGA/Products/Products_GV-...">Gigabyte GV-NX66T128VP (TurboForce, no fan at all)Start up temperature 52C, maximum 65C.
Is that normal?
ylp88 - Monday, April 18, 2005 - link
I found the article quite informative. Thank you. I purchased two Palit 6600GT cards a week ago and have put them in SLI mode.I have a few questions/comments:
1) The Palit overview is rather short compared to the others. The Palit card is also never mentioned on the last page. Is there a reason for this?
2) The Palit cards I got DO NOT have memory heatsinks as indicted on the photo for the Palit card. The memory remins cool, however.
Thanks again for the article.
ylp88
zexe - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
Do not go for XFX 6600GT !!!!The card is NOT longer equipped with 1.6ns
The chips on my card are Samsung K4J55323QF-GC20
THAT MEANS 2.ms !!!
zexe - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
marketmuse - Friday, April 1, 2005 - link
does anyone know the difference between the Leadtek A6600GT and PX6600GT, besides the PCI-E and AGP?I'm looking to purchase a A6600GT, but I don't know if it will have the same performance as the PX version.
Thanks
MM
Monypennyuk - Monday, March 14, 2005 - link
Hello all.WOW a great review site.:)
Just one problem. I was having problems deciding between two of these cards on the ebuyer.co.uk site.
PNY Verto GeForce 6 6600GT AGP8x £119
or
Inno 3D 128MB GeForce 6600 GT 8xAGP TV-Out DVI DirectX9 £116
This review does not mention the PNY version. although i now notice that they have the LEADTEK at about the same price. Going by these comments i GUESS i should get the LEADTEk??? Anyone know about the PNY cos my mate rekons thats the better one...
Leadtek Winfast Geforce 6600 Gt128mb Ddr3 Agp Dvi-i Tv-out £117.
Any help much appreciated.
A
BlackMamba - Tuesday, March 8, 2005 - link
#75: That link to MSI is for the AGP version (note the sink for the bridge chip).Not sure if they've fixed the problems with the PCI-E version, and would also like to know.
JensErik - Tuesday, March 1, 2005 - link
Looking at the pictures of the MSI card in the review and the pics at MSI's page it seems that MSI has changed the a lot on their card, including the HSF.(Check it out here: http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/vga/vga/pro...
Does anyone know if this has solved the HSF mounting problem encountered in the test??