6600 Gt V 6800

[Belloni]

Heya everyone. I am just wondering which card is better ?! I have ordered the GAINWARD ULTRA 6600 GT GOLDEN SAMPLE and i was just wondering would it be better to get the 6800 ?

And i don't really want to wait atleast 2 weeks for the GAINWARD, it's a bit keen i know, bt i really want a new one, since i had to pre-order it, and the others are in stock now, so get it by wednesday, but is the GAINWARD worth the wait ?!

Here's the gainward : http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/copy_of_6600_GT.html
(third one down)

Here's the 6800 i was looking at : http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/GeForce_6800.html (maybe the bottom one)

I havn't really looked into the overclocking ability of the 6800 yet. But the gainward does seem VERY good, but i can't WAIT ! Reef and chris recommended it

P.S if you can find me one like the gainward instock... I would be VERY, VERY grateful !!!

Thanx guys

 

[Kenny]

The 6600GT is probably better value for money, but the 6800 is a faster card. I`ve been keeping an eye on ebay, waiting for a 6800LE to come up at a decent price.
The one thing about the AGP version of the 6600 is that because its a PCI-E card thats been adapted to fit AGP slots, theres another chip on it that needs a heatsink. Because of it the Arctic cooling Heatsink/ fan assemblies cannot be used on them. Which is bad because NVidia stock coolers are noisy.

 

[ChristopherP]

Belloni: While the Stock Vanilla 6800 is faster than the Stock 6600GT, the **GOES LIKE HELL** 6600GT is faster than the Vanilla 6800 due to it's extreme clock speeds!

Kenny: DON'T buy a 6800LE - the 9800pro is actually faster than one of these!! it's a VERY cut down version of the card...

And the Gainward 6600GT GLH fan is actually VERY quiet

Hope that all helps

Chris

 

[Belloni]

oh right kool. So it's worth waitinf the 2 weeks, that they said would be about or it lol

I am getting me 1GB RAM on wednesday hopefully ! Fingers cross ! I will have to play with that until the graphics card comes lol

Thanx for all ya help guys especially, Chris, Reef and flops

 

[Kenny]

Chris- Obviously its not the only way of testing a card, but on 3DMark05, out of the 6600GT, 6800LE and 9800 PRO, the 9800 comes out last. 6800LE comes out on top (not including SLI results)

My opinion between the 6800LE and 6600GT is partially based on price- the 6800LE is more expensive, but if one looks to be going on ebay for £100-ish, thats much better value than a 6600GT, no matter what speeds the 6600GT is at- the 6800 series has more pixel pipelines and (I think) more vertex shaders. the 6800LE cards often have the full 16 pixel pipelines, they`re just disabled in the BIOS because maybe 1 or 2 are dodgy, or cant run at full speed.

 

[Reefsmoka]

I wouldnt go near an LE with a 20 foot barge pole. Limited Edition for Nvidia means "slower". The 6600GT would definatly be the better card in my opinion, even at stock speeds. Its also a little risky buying an LE card and hoping to be able to unlock those extra pipelines and vertex shaders, if you browse through a few forums you will see the problems, the card becomming unstable and displaying artifacts like crazy. Its best to steer clear of "LE" and "SE" cards. Go for the Pro or XT if your going with Ati, GT or Ultra for Nvidia.

 

[ChristopherP]

I fail to see how that would be Kenny, i really do. Take the above benchmark for instance, Most of the other games look just like this, with the 6600GT roughly between 1 and 8 fps behind the vanilla 6800.​

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You mustn't forget, that the card we are talking about here is not any old 6600GT (as in the above benchmark) - its the **GOES LIKE HELL** Golden Sample one with memory speeds in excess of 200MHz faster than stock 6600GT speeds. The memory is 1.6ns GDDR, not 2.0ns and the core is overclocked 50MHz from stock, and is able to be pushed more.​

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The 6800LE is a VERY cut down card - and because the pipelines are physically disabled, not just locked in BIOS, any attempt to unlock them and use them could mean your card artefacts all over the place.​

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Look for a comparison between the Vanilla 6800 and the 6800LE and you will see how much better the 6800 is. And then look at the **GOES LIKE HELL** 6600GT and you will see that it urinates all over the both of them, straight out of the box. Sure it's only 128bit whereas even the 9800pro is 256bit bit the blisteringly fast pipelines make it alot faster.​

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Chris.​

 

[Kenny]

True, enabling any extra pixel pipelines or vertex shaders could be dodgy- obviously they`ve been disabled for a reason. I`m guessing you`ve been to Futuremark and you`ll see what I mean about the scores though. In fairness I think 3Dmark05 is slightly biased towards NVidia cards, that could account for some of the difference.
I dont know enough about graphics cards and the effect of pixel pipelines or vertex shaders, but even with 12 pipelines and 6 shaders, the 6800LE is better specced than the 6600GT (assuming the 6800LE has the same number as a normal 6800.) I didnt look at the "GLH" version- most of Nvidias cards these days come in more than one speed. The "GLH" is cheaper than any 6800, but my "evaluation" was between a normal 6600GT (£150-ish) and a 6800LE on ebay (£100-ish.)
The only difference in all these cards (of the same model) is the guarantee of a higher clock speed. Most of us are overclockers... I`m happier buying something cheaper then pushing it. Chris- you know that from the thread on the 5700LE you reviewed...

 

[Moco]

ok, well for starters, Belloni didnt say anything abouyt the LE, it says (maybe the bottom one). and its 256-bit memory arch, 128mb, 12Pixel pipeline instead of the 8 at most comming on any 6600. while the core is slower, the pipeline makes up the diff. even witht he 1.6ns memory. which may is also probly only 128-bit memory arch. just in my opinion. I'd go with the 6800 Extreme edition (as first asked about in original post). not sure what prices that is for you since I'm in the U.S. and dont know the exchange rate at the moment. imo- if your sticking with agp. which it would be about the same price to switch out your processor and a mobo with gfx card to pci-express then it would be to buy a 6XXX line agp card. not sure what diff diff is for you though. it may or may not be worth the extra money for you. the 6600 will run all the latest games. you just cant turn on highestr gfx with full AA and FSAA on. have fun shopping. (and to run maxed out you will need that other 512 stick.) hope this helps.

 

[ChristopherP]

the 6800 ultra is 400 bucks more!!

Moco, the bench's show that the 6600GT GLH is MUCH faster than the 6800LE AND the 6800 leaving only the 6600GT and the 6600 Ultra faster than it, and also a hell of lot more expensive.

 

[Belloni]

He he ! You to arguing lol

Thanx Moco, i think i will stick with the *GLH* 6600 GT though one m8, since it's much cheaper, and it's a golden sample one, and chris and reef recommended it lol So that's good for me !

And i have bought more RAM< i had to buy 2 x 512MB seeing as i thought i had 1 stick of 212MB but i have 2, so i have to obviously replace them both. These should arrive tomorow !

The graphics card, on the other hand, i had to re-order, and they said about 2 weeks :S lol Long time i know, but i have been told it's worth the wait and the extra money

 

[Belloni]

He he ! You to arguing lol

Thanx Moco, i think i will stick with the *GLH* 6600 GT though one m8, since it's much cheaper, and it's a golden sample one, and chris and reef recommended it lol So that's good for me !

And i have bought more RAM< i had to buy 2 x 512MB seeing as i thought i had 1 stick of 512MB but i have 2, so i have to obviously replace them both. These should arrive tomorow !

The graphics card, on the other hand, i had to pre-order,( Latest one out i guess ) and they said about 2 weeks :S lol Long time i know, but i have been told it's worth the wait and the extra money

 

[Moco]

right on, just making the point that ben ased about the one at the bottom, which wasnt an LE. and yes I am well aware that the glh is much faster then a 6800 le, just not the card he was talking about.
but for the money, i would go with the 6600 too. which is my next upgrade.