XFX
This card is the beast of our roundup: The XFX 6600GT Extreme Gamer Edition. XFX is the only vendor that we've seen take a stand and do something different. The first thing to notice is the dual DVI connectors on the board. This isn't normally something one would need on a mid-range solution, but having just come from newegg.com and noticed that the standard XFX card with dual DVI costs less than some PCIe 6600 GT parts without dual DVI, there's no reason to start talking about cost being a huge issue, and thus, no good argument for why dual DVI isn't on these cards.There is something that this card has for which a premium may be charged: 1.6ns GDDR3 running at 600MHz. We haven't seen pricing yet, but this part is obviously not going to be the "be all, end all" value of graphics cards. Adding memory bandwidth is a good thing for the 6600 GT, considering the 128-bit bus. The problem is that the performance benefit is maybe half the increase in memory bandwidth, if we are lucky. And we might see better scaling with AA enabled, but on a mainstream part, that's pushing the limits.
Anyway, modifying the stock HSF, XFX placed a copper plate between the die and heatsink in order to increase the tension in the spring pegs and keep harder pressure on the GPU. Also, they are doing the same thing that we saw Leadtek do - there is a bit of material around the silicon that acts as a spacer between the rest of the GPU and the heatsink. This is necessary because the copper plate lifted the rubber nubs off the PCB making them ineffective stabilizers.
This card was loud, but cooled well due to their innovative adaptation of the stock cooling solution. The inclusion of 1.6ns GDDR3 will also be very attractive at a default clock speed of 600MHz. But this will not be appealing if it is incredibly higher priced than the current round of 6600 GT products, especially since (whether by design or chance) Sparkle's 6600 GT had 2ns RAM that overclocked to 610MHz as well.
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geogecko - Friday, December 10, 2004 - link
#33. I agree completely. That's why I'm curious about the HDTV output. I want to build an HTPC that is somewhat future-proof, and if that is the case, then I need the HDTV Out feature to work. From a review on newegg.com's web site on the XFX card, he couldn't seem to get and HDTV Out to work with the card.NVDVD would also be a plus if it was included, but I doubt it. I sent an e-mail to tech support over at XFX, asking these particular questions. Hopefully, I'll get an answer.
jamawass - Friday, December 10, 2004 - link
Well there's more to a graphics card than gaming. The 6600 series is causing quite a stir in the htpc community because of the video decoding capabilites and hdtv output. It would've been helpful if the reviewer had mentioned the various manufacturers' suppport for HDTV output out of the box, which cards come with the NDVD codec, component adapter etc.bigpow - Friday, December 10, 2004 - link
-> hex value 3 = decimal value 3geogecko - Friday, December 10, 2004 - link
Great article Derek. Been looking for a 6600GT round up article for a while now.Question though. A few of these cards come with an HDTV cable, which, I guess I'm a little confused to what this actually is. I prefer the XFX card, because of the dual DVI outputs (and no need to overclock the card). It doesn't list as coming with an HDTV cable, so I'm wondering, what is the impact on not having this cable? What is the cable? Can't one usually just hook up a DVI cable to an HDTV?
Spacecomber - Friday, December 10, 2004 - link
Nice round-up, and your bringing attention to the potential problems with some of the heatsinks is very much appreciated.Maybe as a follow up we need a round-up of some after-market heatsinks for the 6600GT.
Any reason to assume that these conclusions reached for the PCIe cards do or do not apply to the AGP versions? I know the AGP versions typically have their heatsinks set on a diagonal in order to accomodate the bridge chip.
Space
arswihart - Friday, December 10, 2004 - link
my last comment was in response to #25#27 - Derek is talking about his "IT friendly" list, those cards he felt had the most reliable hsf implementation
arswihart - Friday, December 10, 2004 - link
it does consistently lead in performance, worth noting by all means, but also, as it was mentioned in the review, these cards probably all perform even better on an nforce4, and the rank and file in performance among these cards might be a little different on an nforce4but I would definitely get an arctic cooler for the albatron anyways (if a compatible one is released) to quiet it down, that fan on it is tiny, thin, and loud
Houdani - Friday, December 10, 2004 - link
On the last page [Final Words] you are listing why some cards aren't worthy of an Editor's Choice award. The next to last paragraph states:"XFX doesn't make the list because..."
But, ummm, isn't XFX the Silver choice?
Aquila76 - Friday, December 10, 2004 - link
I know the Albatron didn't have a great mounting mechanism, but it was better than many of the othersAquila76 - Friday, December 10, 2004 - link
Why wasn't the Albatron given any medal? It has the best OC, best or near best performance in all the tests, and great temps even under load with the high OC. So the fan is a little noisier than the rest, is that any reason to dirt on this card?