6600GT or 6800?

[imipenem]

Is the 6600GT's GDDR3 and the $30 I'd save worth it, or is the vanilla 6800 an overall better buy? 6800GT is way out of my pricerange...

 

[Mrvile]

The 6800 is better than the 6600GT, if you can afford it I'd say get the 6800.

 

[HDTVMan]

I dont think you can go wrong with either and life span might be just a little longer since it is a good performance increase because of the 256bit bus.

You should browse the Refurbished section of NewEgg. They are guaranteed and newegg has the best and easiest return policy.

I am personally going to go with a 6600GT but if I can budget a 6800 then Of couse I will. But I am cheap so the 6600GT seems my next step. But the game must exist first and my current sytem must not be able to cut the mustard before I update the video card. That is me and I am cheap. I wouldnt upgrade until you decide the game just wont run fast enough on your current config.

I didnt see any realy gains from SLI if your thinking about that in fact a lot of games were faster in single card mode than SLI. Only a few improved but different drivers may change that in the future. For double the cost of 2 cards I feel that one should get at least some improvement in EVERY game. I would rather have a single card solution that costs more but gives improvement in EVERY game.

Thats just me the decision is really you and your budget.

 

[qbackin]

Ihave had more than 1 of both cards and the 6800 is better

 

[SneakyStuff]

the 6800 and 6600GT are very similar at lower resolutions, but the 6800 will pull ahead at higher resolutions, and the 6800 has 12 pipes, versus the 6600GT's 8, keep in mind however that the 6800 can be soft-modded through the riva tuner program to unlock 4 additional pipes, giving it a total of 16 functional pipes I'd say go with the 6800, that's my opinion, I believe newegg has an evga model 6800 for about $195 now, not a bad deal at all.

 

[johnnqq]

the 6600gt can do aa better, but the 6800 can do higher resolutions better. (maybe the opposite...) i'm getting the 6600gt for pci express. it doesnt make sense to spend 50 extra for a card that's really not that much better. besides, the cheaper i spend, the easier it is to convince myself that i need a new graphics card sooner

 

[SneakyStuff]

Originally posted by: johnnqq
the 6600gt can do aa better, but the 6800 can do higher resolutions better. (maybe the opposite...) i'm getting the 6600gt for pci express. it doesnt make sense to spend 50 extra for a card that's really not that much better. besides, the cheaper i spend, the easier it is to convince myself that i need a new graphics card sooner

but the more powerful the card, the more you can resell it for LATER

 

[BillyBobJoel71]

the higher resolution will make the 6800 better, and also the 6800 has a 16 pipe superscalar architecture, and 6 vertex engines. the 6600gt has an 8 pipelined architecture and 3 vertex engines. plus it has a 256 memory bus, which is what makes the 6600gt fall behind and earn its very low price. if only the 6800 had ddr3 memory it would clearly be a winner. to be safe get it because it will last you longer. awesome card 9.5/10

 

[ponyo]

It's not the lack of ddr3 memory that limits the 6800. It's the 128meg memory instead of the 256 on the 6800GT. I find the core OC gives the highest increase in performance on the 6800 series.

 

[johnnqq]

the ddr3 memory would allow more aa and af.

 

[dguy6789]

Originally posted by: johnnqq
the 6600gt can do aa better, but the 6800 can do higher resolutions better. (maybe the opposite...) i'm getting the 6600gt for pci express. it doesnt make sense to spend 50 extra for a card that's really not that much better. besides, the cheaper i spend, the easier it is to convince myself that i need a new graphics card sooner

Actually, the 6800 is faster with either aa, higher res, or both.

Go for the 6800 over the 6600gt. You will be glad you did. By buying the 6800, you already have a card that is a good bit faster than the 6600gt. But with the 6800, you have the ability to unlock 4 pixel pipelines, as well as vertex shaders. If your 6800 was successfully modded all the way, it would be substantially faster than anything you could have overclocked the 6600gt to. Even if the unlocking of the pipes doesn't work, you still have a card that is faster at stock than the 6600gt.

 

[MadMax]

Wow, there is so much misinformation in the above posts. Mostly because imipenem didn't say if he needed a PCI-E or an AGP card.

First off, the 6800NU has only 12 pixel pipes and 5 vertex pipes, NOT 16/6!
The 6600GT has 8 pixel pipes and 3 vertex pipes.

Second, only the AGP version has the extra pipes to unlock. You should know that if you need the PCI-E version, you cannot unlock the extra pipes because they are not physically there, as it uses a different chip than the AGP card. As a bonus, though, the PCI-E version has a fully functional PureVideo unit. The AGP PureVideo is only partially functional (as is all 6800GT and Ultra) as they will not hardware accelerate WMV-9 HD video streams. The 6600GT and PCI-E 6800NU supports the hardware decode, the AGP 6800NU, does not. Check-out NVIDIA's website.

Third, only the AGP cards have only 128MB. Many of the PCI-E cards have 256MB. They all use the slower DDR though. Also, be aware that the AGP cards use faster 700MHz DDR ram, while the PCI-E cards use slower 600MHz DDR ram.

MadMax

 

[majmera]

Hmm,
The nVidia website seems to suggest that 6800 AGP also supports PureVideo

http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_support.html

 

[dug777]

personally i strongly suggest the 6800.

 

[MadMax]

This is where it gets tricky. If you read any NVIDIA documentation or specifications, it will say it supports PureVideo. And they do! All 6800 series GPU's do support PureVideo, but not all of its features. Only the GeForce 6800 and 6800LE PCI-E parts support all PureVideo functions. As do the 6600 series.

PureVideo consists of hardware accelerated MPEG-2 (DVD) playback and processing, hardware accelerated WMV-9 playback and processing, and other video processing features like de-interlacing and resizing.

If you click on the link you supplied, you will see 2 tables. The top table is labeled PCI EXPRESS GPUS. Look at the "GeForce 6800" row, and you will see that "SD/HD hardware accelerated decode" is listed under BOTH the MPEG-2 and WMV9 coumns.
Now look at both the "6800 Ultra" and "6800 GT" rows. Both support hardware accelerated decode for MPEG-2. But if you look under the WMV9 column, you will not see "hardware accelerated decode" listed because they don't support it. They support the display processing only.

Now scroll down and look at the bottom table, labeled AGP GPUS. You will see that "SD/HD hardware accelerated decode" is not listed under WMV9 for ANY of the 6800 series GPUs. But it IS listed for both the 6600GT and the vanilla 6600.

There is a reason for this. All 6800 series AGP cards are based on the NV40 GPU. The NV40 GPU is also still used for the PCI-E versions of the 6800 Ultra and 6800 GT. However, the PCI-E versions of the GeForce 6800 and the 6800LE use a newer NV41 GPU.

The NV40 GPU does not support hardware accelerated WMV9 (Windows Media Video 9) video playback. But the NV41 does.

Does this matter to you? Maybe not. They all accelerate DVD playback. But if you want to watch HD (High Def) video recorded with WMV9, then your CPU will be working around 75-90% utilization without the hardware decode.


MadMax

 

[majmera]

Originally posted by: MadMax
This is where it gets tricky. If you read any NVIDIA documentation or specifications, it will say it supports PureVideo. And they do! All 6800 series GPU's do support PureVideo, but not all of its features. Only the GeForce 6800 and 6800LE PCI-E parts support all PureVideo functions. As do the 6600 series.

PureVideo consists of hardware accelerated MPEG-2 (DVD) playback and processing, hardware accelerated WMV-9 playback and processing, and other video processing features like de-interlacing and resizing.

If you click on the link you supplied, you will see 2 tables. The top table is labeled PCI EXPRESS GPUS. Look at the "GeForce 6800" row, and you will see that "SD/HD hardware accelerated decode" is listed under BOTH the MPEG-2 and WMV9 coumns.
Now look at both the "6800 Ultra" and "6800 GT" rows. Both support hardware accelerated decode for MPEG-2. But if you look under the WMV9 column, you will not see "hardware accelerated decode" listed because they don't support it. They support the display processing only.

Now scroll down and look at the bottom table, labeled AGP GPUS. You will see that "SD/HD hardware accelerated decode" is not listed under WMV9 for ANY of the 6800 series GPUs. But it IS listed for both the 6600GT and the vanilla 6600.

There is a reason for this. All 6800 series AGP cards are based on the NV40 GPU. The NV40 GPU is also still used for the PCI-E versions of the 6800 Ultra and 6800 GT. However, the PCI-E versions of the GeForce 6800 and the 6800LE use a newer NV41 GPU.

The NV40 GPU does not support hardware accelerated WMV9 (Windows Media Video 9) video playback. But the NV41 does.

Does this matter to you? Maybe not. They all accelerate DVD playback. But if you want to watch HD (High Def) video recorded with WMV9, then your CPU will be working around 75-90% utilization without the hardware decode.


MadMax

Thanks for clarifying, that helped a lot.

 

[imipenem]

Thanks for all the great replies....

My question is in regards to the AGP versions.

It would take me for ever to save up for a PCI-E system, so I need an AGP card now...

 

[Avalon]

You can pick up a PNY 6800NU for $159 at Newegg. I'd suggest you grab that over a $10 cheaper 6600GT.

 

[JBT]

Originally posted by: Avalon
You can pick up a PNY 6800NU for $159 at Newegg. I'd suggest you grab that over a $10 cheaper 6600GT.

couldn't agree more I was about to say the same thing.