Question about the 6600 GT AGP card

[JoeMan05]

Hello, I am asking for a new video card for christmas because i have been playing with my good ole' 64mb geforce4 mx420 for 2 years now I was wondering if my computer would bottle neck the cards full potential very much, here are my specs:

Dell Dimension 4550
P4 2.0ghz
512 mb ddr ram
60gb hard drive
onboard sound and lan
agp 4x slot

I got it 2 years ago for christmas, and it actually runs hl2 quite well on 1024x768 setting, but the water, textures and jagged edges look like poo poo. So i was just curious before I ask for it, since I am going to pay half. That way I can have a little more of a surprise for christmas than just a vid card.

 

[[Matt]]

It would bottleneck the card although not greatly. A 6600GT would be a good investment as it fully supports DX9 with shader model 3.0 which means the card is simply a slower version of a 6800 ultra. The geforce 4 MX upon its release however wasn't even a cut down geforce 4 ti card. It was simply a geforce 2 card with a few shader extensions built into it which means the card only supports DX7 mode whilst the geforce 4 supports DX8 mode. As both the 6600GT and the high end 6800 ultra support DX9 with shader model 3.0 the 6600GT would be a sound investment for a mid range card.

Expect a huge improvement over your current set up!

 

[JoeMan05]

Well I got it for christmas and installation was a breeze! I am definetly impressed with it over my old card! But I was wondering if the frame rates I am getting with half-life are normal. On the overwatch deathmatch level, when I am outdoors I only get about 20-30 fps max. Then inside the building its around 40-50. I was just wondering if that is normal for my current set up. I have aa 2x no af, no vertcal sync, 1024x768 res, and everything else on high. Also, I scored a 3000 on 3dmark05 with default settings at 102x768 res. I was wondering how good that was too. Thanks!

P.S. I did connect the power connecter.

 

[[Matt]]

Well I got it for christmas and installation was a breeze! I am definetly impressed with it over my old card! But I was wondering if the frame rates I am getting with half-life are normal. On the overwatch deathmatch level, when I am outdoors I only get about 20-30 fps max. Then inside the building its around 40-50. I was just wondering if that is normal for my current set up. I have aa 2x no af, no vertcal sync, 1024x768 res, and everything else on high. Also, I scored a 3000 on 3dmark05 with default settings at 102x768 res. I was wondering how good that was too. Thanks!

P.S. I did connect the power connecter.

yes thats quite normal. The rest of your system is holding the card back. If you were to upgrade to an athlon 3000+ based system with 1gb you would probably see fps figures at around the 40-80 range depending on where you are.

 

[bryanf445]

Well I got it for christmas and installation was a breeze! I am definetly impressed with it over my old card! But I was wondering if the frame rates I am getting with half-life are normal. On the overwatch deathmatch level, when I am outdoors I only get about 20-30 fps max. Then inside the building its around 40-50. I was just wondering if that is normal for my current set up. I have aa 2x no af, no vertcal sync, 1024x768 res, and everything else on high. Also, I scored a 3000 on 3dmark05 with default settings at 102x768 res. I was wondering how good that was too. Thanks!

P.S. I did connect the power connecter.

try turnign off the aa...you might not even notice a difference in looks, but youll see a diff. in fps

 

[holydeadpenguins]

The 6600 is not a slower version of the 6800 ultra, it is a completely different core. The 6800nu and gt are just handicapped versions of the ultra.

 

[JoeMan05]

Well, I decided to test hl2 to see how much difference it made putting it on all low settings with no aa/af vs. putting it on everything high with 2xaa/8xaf. No difference in fps! Each part of the level has basically the same average fps give or take 5 frames. So Im thinking maybe its just my processor? I dunno! Any help?

 

[Dumb Dude]

Yikes, now I'm scared about my 6600 GT. I ordered one and I'm probobly going to get it next week but my specs are a little bit higher.

AMD Athlon 2400+
512 RAM
AGP 8x slot

Will I be seeing the same FPS as him? I sure hope not. Well, I'm fine as long as there is a playable lag, not like 10 fps and stuff.

 

[[Matt]]

The 6600 is not a slower version of the 6800 ultra, it is a completely different core. The 6800nu and gt are just handicapped versions of the ultra.

Yes but by cut down versions i mean it still supports the full 6800 feature set. The only real difference between the 6600GT and 6800 is the memory interface and the lack of pixel pipelines. Nvidia have changed policy recently with thier mid and budget range cards. In the past they took what were once high end cores from previous generations and cut them down to rebadge them as new chipsets as in the case of the geforce 4 MX which in reality was a DX7 geforce 2 based chipset as opposed to the Geforce4 ti core which was a DX8 chipset. This saves on research and production costs for designing a new core. However with the geforce 6 generation Nvidia has changed tactics and is now designing totally new cores for the mid range and budget markets which are in essence based on 6800 core technology. Even the Geforce 6200 supports full DirectX 9.0c with SM3.0 albeit at a much slower frame rate...

 

[sinkoman]

The 6600 is not a slower version of the 6800 ultra, it is a completely different core. The 6800nu and gt are just handicapped versions of the ultra.

Actually, the Vanilla 6800 uses a very different core from teh GT and ULTRA. The GT is really just a lower clocked version of the ultra.

 

[[Matt]]

Actually, the Vanilla 6800 uses a very different core from teh GT and ULTRA. The GT is really just a lower clocked version of the ultra.

Wrong again... the 6800 core is the same core but one that isnt deemed good enough for the higher end ultra and GT so they simply disable 4 pixel pipelines and lower the clock speeds on the core. The chipset however makes use of DDR ram instead of GDDR3 which is basically the same but GDDR3 can attain higher clock rates...