NVIDIA's GeForce 6200 & 6600 non-GT: Affordable Gaming
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 11, 2004 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Power Consumption
A new and much needed addition to our GPU review is tracking power consumption. Here, we're using a simple meter to track the power consumption at the power supply level, so what we're left with is total system power consumption. But with the rest of the components in the test system remaining the same and the only variable being the video card, we're able to get a reasonably accurate estimate of peak power usage here.At idle, all of the graphics cards pretty much perform the same, with the integrated graphics solution eating up the least amount of power at 106W for the entire system:
Then, we fired up Doom 3 and ran it at 800x600 (High Quality) in order to get a peak power reading for the system.
Interestingly enough, other than the integrated graphics solution, the 6200 is the lowest power card here - drawing even less power than the X300, but that is to be expected given that the X300 runs at a 25MHz higher clock speed.
It's also interesting to note that there's no difference in power consumption between the 128-bit and 64-bit X300 cards. The performance comparison is a completely different story, however.
In the end, none of these cards eat up too much power, with the X700 clearly leading the pack at 10% greater system power consumption than the 6600. It will be interesting to find out if there's any correlation here between power consumption and performance.
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nvdm24 - Sunday, December 19, 2004 - link
Many of the readers of these tech sites want to know the full capabilities of the cards, yet, sadly, reviewers at anandtech and every other tech site ignore the video capabilities of video cards. Even in the reviews for the new 6600 agp, the video aspect has not been tested by any reviewer despite the problems of the 6800. Never mind the fact that EVERY review of these cards is about the 3d aspect and is nearly the exact same - run halo, doom 3, hl 2, etc. and list the performance, yet no tests of dvd movies or the video aspect are conducted, thus doing a HUGE disservice to readers.nserra - Thursday, December 16, 2004 - link
I dont understand why on you previous 6200 review the X300 wins, loses (Doom3), and keep up, but now a much worst 6200 wins over X300. How the hell did that hapen, new nvidia drivers?nserra - Thursday, December 16, 2004 - link
I dont understand why on you previous 6200 review the X300 wins, loses (Doom3), and keep up, but now a much worst 6200 wins over X300. How the hell did that hapen, new nvidia drivers?IntelUser2000 - Thursday, October 14, 2004 - link
Surprisingly, my 865G with Intel Extreme Graphics 2 can run Doom 3 beta at default, it still crashes, but when I run it, I get barely playable frames, I say around 20 at the highest and less than 10. I think the GMA900 should be much better, but maybe the DX9 support in it really sucks.nserra - Wednesday, October 13, 2004 - link
#39 Thanks to the answer, but...Doesnt 2 cards cost more then one?
And whats the difference between having two 6600GT vs 6800GT? in price and performance?
I think this kind of "edge" could come in the future like the voodoo2 did, the card was getting old, people getting rid of it and "some" get them cheap just to keep their PC the longger time they could.
Confusednewbie1552 - Tuesday, October 12, 2004 - link
#30Everyone wants 660GT because they are cheap and two of them can be put into SLI mode (once Nforce 4 comes out) which could mean better performance than the X700, and maybe even the X800.
PrinceGaz - Tuesday, October 12, 2004 - link
I'm sure the core of the 6600 will overclock very well, but the memory all depends on the particular chips used and might not have any real headroom. That could be its main problem as its an 8-pipe 300MHz core so theres plenty of power there, but only 128-bit 500MHz (effective) memory which is what is probably holding it back. If thats the case then overclocking the core may not help very much.Its a pity no attempt to overclock was performed in the review, but then again the results from overclocking cards sent out by the manufacturer are always suspect as they could have hand-picked the best.
thebluesgnr - Tuesday, October 12, 2004 - link
" I can't see how the 6200 could have a street-price of $149 (128-bit) and $129 (64-bit). "It's actually $129 for the 128MB 128-bit version and $149 for the 256MB 128-bit version. The 64-bit version (only 128MB) should have an MSRP of $100, according to the Inquirer.
So nVidia has:
$100 6200 128MB 64-bit
$130 6200 128MB 128-bit
$150 6200 256MB 128-bit
$150 6600 128MB 128-bit
$200 6600GT 128MB 128-bit
In my opinion ATI beats all nVidia cards except for their $200, where the 6600GT wins. But we can't forget the 6600 has a great overclocking potential, and street prices should be lower than the X700's, because of the slower memory.
Like already mentioned, you can find the 6600 for $135 already.
mkruer - Tuesday, October 12, 2004 - link
To X700 XT or to 9800 Pro, that is the questionneo229 - Tuesday, October 12, 2004 - link
I also wish to thank you for keeping up the fight to unravel the mystery behind the mysterious video processor. That notion of that feature really got me excited when I first heard about it, yet site after site after site reviewed these cards without even touching on the subject.