NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT and 6600 (NV43): Part 1

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GeForce 6600GT vs. OTHER CARDS	GeForce 6600GT vs. GeForce 6800/6800GT	GeForce 6600

The easiest modes without AA and anisotropy: 6600GT demonstrates brilliant results in all respects, and, as you can see, there is practically no difference between this card and the "emulators". Why? But in Q3 (RtCW is built on the Q3 engine) it was heavily defeated... The answer is obvious: the texturing system is modified, and there appeared an "opening" to manage to write both the first and the second four pixels. And you can see that the same cores and the equal memory bandwidth do their part. 6600 lost a little to a more expensive PCX5900 (which is not that tragic), got on the level with X600XT, and, of course, defeated PCX5750.

With enabled AA: 256-bit video cards, as usual, scored off GeForce 6600GT (the bus!), approximately the same outcome is for the battle with the "emulators", but X600XT and PCX5900 (except for 1600x1200) were defeated. What concerns X600XT, it's quite explainable, but why was PCX5900 defeated with its 256-bit bus... I don't understand. By the way, 6600 also lost all the battles.

With enabled anisotropy: it's brief and clear here: 6600GT/6600 wins in all tests! Interestingly, it has a little advantage over the "emulators": the power of the core figures (if in "pure speed" the memory bandwidth did not have considerable influence, then in this test... approximate equality, but still one can say that, discarding the peculiarities of the write mechanism, NV43 is an exact copy of NV40).

The final heaviest mode with AA and anisotropy: the picture is ambiguous, AA causes both defeats and victories in various conditions. Discarding 1600x1200, it's approximately on the level with R9800PRO and it greatly outscores X600XT and PCX5900. 6600 is defeated because of AA. But still you should take into account higher prices of the competitors. No one doubts that PCX5750 is heavily outscored.

Thus, on the whole:

GeForce 6600GT versus RADEON 9800 PRO (ATHLON64 3400+) – approximate parity
GeForce 6600GT versus GeForce PCX5900 – victory
GeForce 6600GT versus RADEON X600XT – victory
GeForce 6600GT versus GeForce 6800LE (ATHLON64 3400+) – defeat
GeForce 6600GT 325/700 MHz versus GeForce 6800 (8/3) 325/350 MHz (ATHLON64 3400+) – defeat (again AA!)
GeForce 6600GT 350/1000 MHz versus GeForce 6800GT PCX (8/3) 350/500 MHz – the same picture
GeForce 6600 300/600 MHz versus GeForce PCX5900 – defeat (there is nothing tragic about it)
GeForce 6600 300/600 MHz versus GeForce PCX5750 – victory!
GeForce 6600 300/600 MHz versus RADEON X600XT – defeat (the issue is ambiguous)

Pay attention to mighty performance gains in 6600GT after its overclocking, which are even greater percentagewise than the difference in frequencies (18%).

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Andrey Vorobiev (anvakams@ixbt.com)
Alexander Medvedev (unclesam@ixbt.com)

07 September, 2004

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