Albatron
Albatron has a great design with their Trinity board. The top overclocker in our tests, with a 590 MHz core clock speed, the Albatron was also able to maintain the second lowest load temperature even at the highest clock speed that we ran.The fatal flaw with this card is the same problem that we had mentioned on the first page. The rectangular HSF is only attached to the board at two diagonals with the GPU somewhere underneath. This can and will cause contact problems if the heatsink is nudged or bumped too hard.
This really is a nice, solid board. It's equipped with a powerful (if not loud) HSF that keeps it cool even under the most averse conditions. GDDR3 doesn't usually get that hot, so ramsinks are just a little icing on the cake. And they might help out a little for the occasional overclock.
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geogecko - Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - link
Well, two e-mails later to XFX, without an answer to my questions, and now I see this PNY PCI-E card with dual dvi and hdtv out pod...guess who's going to get my money?Beatnik - Tuesday, December 28, 2004 - link
Two links of interest:
http://www.xfxforce.com/pinetechnotes/Fan%20Update...
http://www.pny.com/products/verto/performance/6600...
Nice article folks!
Beatnik - Tuesday, December 28, 2004 - link
Seems pretty clear that a lot of people are waiting on their next upgrade, hence the continued heavy AGP interest. w.r.t. the XFX, it looks like they have a online store, and now have a pretty cool looking heatsink on the AGP card:
http://www.xfxforce.com/pinetechnotes/Fan%20Update...
The PNY 6600GT AGP product looks interesting also: http://www.pny.com/products/verto/performance/6600...
Might be the only DVI+DVI+component video out.
(Outstanding article guys!)
Rekonn - Monday, December 27, 2004 - link
I too would really like to see a roundup like this one done for 6600GT AGP cards.zoros - Sunday, December 26, 2004 - link
Anyone know how well PNY 6600GT is doing in there tests.. I have tried to find information everywhere, but with no sucess.. :-(geogecko - Monday, December 20, 2004 - link
I agree. PC's have started to move into the home theater more than ever now, and people (me included) are reading your articles to obtain knowledge when building home theater PC's. This information is not there, and thus still leaves me in the dark as to which video card to purchase for my HTPC.No word from XFX on their HDTV Output compatibility, so I must assume they don't support it, which stinks, considering they have the only card with dual DVI connectors, and a decent HSF design.
I realize this was a quick review, but video cards are now being required to have HD compatibility since so many people are interested in HTPC's these days. No one wants a DVR that forces advertising on them when they fast forward past commercials...so why not build a DVR that does more than TiVo intead...
How about an update with HDTV Output compatibility, along with who includes the cables?
nvdm24 - Sunday, December 19, 2004 - link
How much longer will us readers allow these ridiculous reviews to go on? Many of the readers of these tech sites want to know the FULL capabilities of these cards, not just how they run doom 3 and other 3d games. Sadly, reviewers at anandtech and every other tech site ignore the VIDEO capabilities of VIDEO cards. Even this review of the new 6600 agp ignores the video aspect of the 6600, despite the problems of the 6800, that weren't discovered by any reviewer, since none of them tested it for video. Not testing the video aspect does a HUGE disservice to readers. It's quite simple, just test a dvd movie and make sure the video aspect works and let readers know. If you feel particularly energetic, you could also test how fast it renders home movies, etc. You may think this is the job of a VIDEO site or PC site, but you are a PC site, a tech site. You would be surprised at the people who read your reviews. Others are going to start doing the job better, thus pull away readers if you don't get it together.ChineseDemocracyGNR - Friday, December 17, 2004 - link
Hi Derek,any word from the manufactures that had problems, are they sending you new cards?
I was reading some user reviews for the MSI 6600GT _AGP_ at gameve.com and it also has heating problems, which is disapointing. Do you plan a similar article on the 6600GT AGP cards?
1q3er5 - Friday, December 17, 2004 - link
ouch u got me good there :( im never posting again :o lolDerekWilson - Friday, December 17, 2004 - link
#54 We scored cards more on construction, cooling, and noise, rather than on overclockability. thus the Albatron didn't get an award.Also, the leadtek card you liked to is the AGP version. We tested PCI Express parts only. The heatsink you mention is not cooling RAM, but the HSI (PCIe to AGP bridge).