Galaxy
We haven't had a Galaxy card in our labs before, and we were happy to see a card with a custom-round HSF attached very firmly after all the loosely attached rectangular solutions that we had the pleasure of handling. The springs on the hardware are much tighter than on the other solutions that we've seen, and the shape of the heatsink doesn't give us enough leverage when we press on it to pop it off the GPU. Though it is still possible to twist the HSF around the axis created by the two spring pin mounts, it is something that a consumer would have to try to do.Since this card has no shroud on its fan, this will also sound different than some of the other solutions that we've seen. Shrouds can help to direct airflow on larger heatsinks, but since this cooling solution doesn't try to cool the RAM as well as the core, a small circular design is fine.
We were happy with this card's ability to stay cool at idle and load. The only downside that we saw was the board's overclocking performance. Galaxy sent us this part at a pre-overclocked 525/550. We originally thought this was a press sample card, as the packaging materials that came with the box indicated a 500/500 clock speed. On the contrary, Galaxy has informed us that all of their 6600 GT products are shipping at 525/550 clock speeds. In the end, this part was our worst overclocker, which is a surprising combination when talking about our coolest part. It really could have been luck of the draw as the worst case GPU and worst case RAM configuration of the bunch, but that does seem like an awful bit of luck.
If you aren't planning to overclock from stock, this is absolutely a wonderful 6600 GT option. For someone who needs good cooling and low noise in their case, Galaxy is top notch. Since this product comes with added performance at no extra hassle, it's definitely a top pick in our books.
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princethorpe - Wednesday, May 4, 2005 - link
I've been checking the various forums and found thisone on the 6600gt's excellent. I don't know if anyone else has found them but Asus are making these cards and do a faster than standard model by using faster memory they recon according to their site they run 10% faster than the standard. I've ordered the Asus board by preference because of the build qualityGollumSmeagol - Monday, May 2, 2005 - link
I came across a forum a few months ago here in Hungary, and the people were talking about Leadtek's 6600GTs being faulty/freezing. Strange enough, a few weeks later, the main distributor of Leadtek, took off 6600GTs from their pricelists on the web. Wonder if they are waiting for a bugfix, or simply ran out of stock and wait for the next shipment.Another beauty I've just came across, is Gigabyte's TurboForce edition, which is a slightly overclocked version of the 6600 series (both PCI-Ex and AGP 8x). I'm shopping for a SILENT AGP one, (that's where I came across this review), and found this beauty
http://www.giga-byte.com/VGA/Products/Products_GV-...
This one has sg. they call Silent-Pipe as a cooler. Not much specs on Gigabyte's page, but from the picture, it looks like there is no fan at all, just a huge copper(-colored?) heatsink, that covers about 2/3rd of the card. (Well, a Zalman FB123 could still be used to move some air)
The memory clock is wrote to be 1120MHz (remember, TurboForce), plus when I zoomed in on to the box picture, I could spot "VIVO" written on the box. This is also supported by the info on the local dealer's page, where they say "Y" to the TV-OUT of the regular GV-N66T128D, but they say "IN/OUT" for the GV-N66T128VP. All this for roughly 20 USD extra (local price).
dpp - Saturday, November 19, 2005 - link
I've bought http://www.giga-byte.com/VGA/Products/Products_GV-...">Gigabyte GV-NX66T128VP (TurboForce, no fan at all)Start up temperature 52C, maximum 65C.
Is that normal?
ylp88 - Monday, April 18, 2005 - link
I found the article quite informative. Thank you. I purchased two Palit 6600GT cards a week ago and have put them in SLI mode.I have a few questions/comments:
1) The Palit overview is rather short compared to the others. The Palit card is also never mentioned on the last page. Is there a reason for this?
2) The Palit cards I got DO NOT have memory heatsinks as indicted on the photo for the Palit card. The memory remins cool, however.
Thanks again for the article.
ylp88
zexe - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
Do not go for XFX 6600GT !!!!The card is NOT longer equipped with 1.6ns
The chips on my card are Samsung K4J55323QF-GC20
THAT MEANS 2.ms !!!
zexe - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
marketmuse - Friday, April 1, 2005 - link
does anyone know the difference between the Leadtek A6600GT and PX6600GT, besides the PCI-E and AGP?I'm looking to purchase a A6600GT, but I don't know if it will have the same performance as the PX version.
Thanks
MM
Monypennyuk - Monday, March 14, 2005 - link
Hello all.WOW a great review site.:)
Just one problem. I was having problems deciding between two of these cards on the ebuyer.co.uk site.
PNY Verto GeForce 6 6600GT AGP8x £119
or
Inno 3D 128MB GeForce 6600 GT 8xAGP TV-Out DVI DirectX9 £116
This review does not mention the PNY version. although i now notice that they have the LEADTEK at about the same price. Going by these comments i GUESS i should get the LEADTEk??? Anyone know about the PNY cos my mate rekons thats the better one...
Leadtek Winfast Geforce 6600 Gt128mb Ddr3 Agp Dvi-i Tv-out £117.
Any help much appreciated.
A
BlackMamba - Tuesday, March 8, 2005 - link
#75: That link to MSI is for the AGP version (note the sink for the bridge chip).Not sure if they've fixed the problems with the PCI-E version, and would also like to know.
JensErik - Tuesday, March 1, 2005 - link
Looking at the pictures of the MSI card in the review and the pics at MSI's page it seems that MSI has changed the a lot on their card, including the HSF.(Check it out here: http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/vga/vga/pro...
Does anyone know if this has solved the HSF mounting problem encountered in the test??