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| eVGA GeForce 6600 GT and SLI against the rest of the world | |
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(Review by MS, Jan. 25, 2005) |
| GeForce 6800GT At: |
eVGA GeForce 6600GT
eVGA is often called nVidia's retail outlet and we have no information pertaining to the opposite so we leave it at that. We received the two eVGA GeForce 6600GT traphics adapters courtesy of nVidia in a standard brown box with some extra cables and a driver CD but that's about all we can say about the bundle. The card itself features 128 MB local frame buffer, running at 1000 MHz data rate in DDR mode. The core, running at 500 MHz, features eight pixel pipelines with one texturing unit per pipeline.
The two GeForce 6600 GT cards used for SLI next to each other. Note the PCIe interface and the "Gold Fingers" at the bottom and top of the PCB, respectively. Interestingly, the GeForce 6600GT does not use an auxiliary power connector, however, if two graphics cards are plugged in, the system requires an extra Molex connector to be connected to the mainboard to povide enough power for dual graphics card operation.
Some technical specs in comparison to other current graphics cards
| Core Clock [MHz] | Pixel Pipelines | Texture Units/Pixel Pipeline | Fill Rate (Single) [MPixels/sec] | Fill Rate (Multi) [MTexels/sec] | Memory Clock [Mbps] | Memory Bus Width | Memory Bandwidth [GB/s] | |
| GeForce 6600GT | 500 | 8 | 1 | 4000 | 4000 | 1000 | 128 | 16.0 |
| RADEON 9600 XT | 500 | 4 | 1 | 2000 | 2000 | 600 | 128 | 9.6 |
| RADEON 9800 | 380 | 8 | 1 | 3040 | 3040 | 680 | 256 | 21.8 |
| RADEON X700XT | 475 | 8 | 1 | 3800 | 3800 | 1050 | 128 | 26.8 |
| ASUS RADEON 9800 XT | 410 | 8 | 1 | 3280 | 3280 | 730 | 256 | 23.36 |
| GeForce 6800GT | 350 | 16 | 1 | 5600 | 5600 | 1000 | 256 | 35.2 |
| GeForce 6800 Ultra Extreme | 450 | 16 | 1 | 7200 | 7200 | 1100 | 256 | 35.2 |
| ASUS RADEON X800Pro | 475 | 12 | 1 | 5700 | 5700 | 900 | 256 | 28.8 |
| Sapphire RADEON X800XT | 500 | 16 | 1 | 8000 | 8000 | 1000 | 256 | 32.0 |
| RADEON X800XT Platinum Edition | 520 | 16 | 1 | 8320 | 8320 | 1120 | 256 | 35.4 |
System Configuration
All benchmarks shown in the rest of this review were generated using the following system configuration:
General Hardware:
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Graphics Adapters:
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Software:
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We originally used the "66.93" WHQL certified drivers posted on the nVidia website. However, we found that the 71.24 drivers noticeably increased SLI performance (e.g. ~5700 => 6300 in 3DMark'05) without compromising stability or image quality - at least as far as we were able to tell.
A Short Word About Monitors
One issue we found with the SLI configuration used relates to the monitor used. Using a professional Acer P911 monitor, there were no glitches whatsoever, the system was rock-solid under all circumstances in all benchmarks. This monitor, however, is capable of sustaining 140 + HZ vertical refresh rate at 1024 x 768 MHz. When switching to another monitor (older Vision Graphics) applications tended to lock up or give a blank screen without possibility for recovery, even at resolutions that are supported by the monitor. Since there are some mystery issues regarding stability of SLI systems floating around, we thought it might be worth mentioning that there could be an issue with the VSync rate of the monitor used in one or the other configuration (even if VSync is disabled) which could cause system lockups. Just an FYI for those who have problems.
| eVGA GeForce 6600GT: |
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