Comparison of 6600GT and FX5950. Which is faster?

[VirtualLarry]

Since the 5950 doesn't show up on the newest "Tom's VGA charts", I have to inquire as to relative performance levels. I've got a friend with a stuffed-up 5950 (Artic Cooler HSF is full of dust and fan failed), and I've got a spare 6600GT that I could sell him. That is, if it would even be a worthwhile upgrade.

He mostly plays WoW and watches YouTube videos.

Amazingly, his card doesn't crash windows nor display artifacts playing the game or viewing videos, even though the fan is moving (when it moves) at about 60rpm. I guess the massive heatsink is doing some sort of job there. I was wondering, if I take his card in trade, if it would be safe to use it for just desktop duty in one of my boxes. I was going to give him $20 for it.

Edit: I found something on TR: "At these speeds, this eight-pipe wonder has more pixel-pushing power than a GeForce FX 5950 Ultra or Radeon 9800 XT. That might be your first hint that the 6600 GT is something special." So apparently the 6600GT is faster, that's good news. Still wondering, how much faster is it?

Edit: A second question. I have a 6200 PCI-E that will unlock to a 6600 and overclock pretty high. I don't think it's as fast as the gddr3-power 6600GT, but would a regular DDR(2?)-powered 6600 card be faster than the 5950?

 

[ViRGE]

The 5950(and all the FX cards) are dog slow. Even your unlocked 6600 will be faster without a doubt. nig great person bitch wise and beautiful woman fuck

 

[Stumps]

Originally posted by: ViRGE
The 5950(and all the FX cards) are dog slow. Even your unlocked 6600 will be faster without a doubt.

what he said.

when the FX series were first released they were considered crap compared to ATI's (9700/9800 series) hardware at the time and a 6600GT (and possibly your unlocked 6600) is faster than the ATI cards.

Stick with the 6600 series cards.

 

[RussianSensation]

FX 5900 series were not too bad in DX8 at the time. However, once DX9 games came out, the true flaws in the card's design lit through like a bonfire. Just how significant were they?

"There are some issues with forcing NV3x GPUs to run in DX9 mode mainly involving the water, but as you will see on the coming pages, if you've got a NV3x you're not going to want to play in DX9 mode."

The performance drop from that point on in DX9 games was so drastic, 5900 series was outperformed by cards from practically all classes. 9800Pro 3x faster than FX5900XT in DX9 HL2 You know things are awful when X300SE with its 64-bit memory interface and 4 texture units with 325mhz gpu speed was outperforming your top line 256-bit memory gpu with 8 texture units...

However, at the time 6600GT came out and everyone forgot about 5900 for good. For today's games even 6600GT is slow but for WOW, it is sufficient

 

[BFG10K]

The 6600 GT will kill it, especially in DX9.

 

[Noema]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
The 6600 GT will kill it, especially in DX9.

 

[hans030390]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
The 6600 GT will kill it, especially in DX9.

I like killing. And the above is so true.

 

[evolucion8]

The 660GT is slighly faster than a 9800PRO, and if the 9800PRO can kill any FX, the 600GT can do it without a sweat.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Thanks for all of the replies. Now I just need to convince my friend that it will be a worthwhile upgrade. He just told me today that he wants to play Unreal Tournament (3) when that comes out. I see here: http://unreal.freakygaming.com...stem_requirements.html that UT3 needs a 6-series card as a bare minimum. I'm guessing that it would run at 800x600 at least on a 6600GT. Hopefully. So I'm wondering how good of a friend I would be, if I convinced him to upgrade now, to replace his failing 5950, or whether I should attempt to help him get a more future-proof video card. He has a 1280x1024 19" LCD (non-WS). The problem is that he doesn't have a budget. Any budget. So dropping $$$ on a 8800GTS isn't really a viable option right now, although that would likely be his best bet overall right now. He's not a fan of ATI either. (Although I don't have a problem with them, and I actually prefer ATI personally.)

I might just buy this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16835119064
and try to fix his existing card, if he can't even afford the 6200. I think that would be a viable replacement for his artic cooler, a model that seemingly cannot be found anymore. (Bought an NV silencer 4 artic cooler, claimed that it would fit his card but it did not.)

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation
The performance drop from that point on in DX9 games was so drastic, 5900 series was outperformed by cards from practically all classes. 9800Pro 3x faster than FX5900XT in DX9 HL2 You know things are awful when X300SE with its 64-bit memory interface and 4 texture units with 325mhz gpu speed was outperforming your top line 256-bit memory gpu with 8 texture units...

Not that I really want to defend the FX series, but Valve did eventually fix the issue with the FX series in Dx9 for HL2 and dramatically increased performance. The higher-end FXs were actually playable in Dx9 then, even if not so spectacular compared to ATI's offerings.

 

[imported_Kiwi]

Originally posted by: aka1nas

Originally posted by: RussianSensation
The performance drop from that point on in DX9 games was so drastic, 5900 series was outperformed by cards from practically all classes. 9800Pro 3x faster than FX5900XT in DX9 HL2 You know things are awful when X300SE with its 64-bit memory interface and 4 texture units with 325mhz gpu speed was outperforming your top line 256-bit memory gpu with 8 texture units...

Not that I really want to defend the FX series, but Valve did eventually fix the issue with the FX series in Dx9 for HL2 and dramatically increased performance. The higher-end FXs were actually playable in Dx9 then, even if not so spectacular compared to ATI's offerings.

I've run Oblivion with two (maybe three) of the terrible FXes. The 5700 vanilla, 5900 vanilla, and perhaps the 5600 Ultra. In the tutorial dungeon, all had sufficient animation speed, but overall image quality was poor, with murky smudged shadows, etc. The 5900 vanilla is a lot better than the "XT", which is basically another name for an "LE" or "SE" crippled version.

Oblivion uses a lot of SM 2 code, and out of doors, only the FX 5900 could more or less offer a limited level of playability in 800 by 600 resolution and low graphics settings. Compared to the 5900, a Radeon 9800 XT (not merely a Pro) blew it totally away, everywhere other than facing a Gateway, where it did have some trouble (I can't recall running across any of those with any FX). That was at 1280 by 1024, the default for a particular LCD display I've used to play games on.

I did run at least two FXes in Imperial City, and they were poor there, plus terrible when in any Deep Woods scene. But I was first able to actually play at length with the 9800 XT, and it was faster than a 6600 GT I had in a different PC. The 6600 GT was at that point installed in this particular machine I'm messaging from tonight (XP 3000, OC'd quite a bit). I didn't find the image quality of the nVidia card to be in the same class as the Radeon card. Later, with a 6800 GT in the box, this system was running that game as well as the other one, and had some extras going for it (HDR, I think), but still has a lower image quality.

Although I've not personally tested with any vanilla 6600, I am certain even that would outrun the very fastest FX card in Oblivion, if not anywhere else. At present, the box that usually is my gaming platform is equipped with an X800 XT-Platinum, and with that, Obliv just flies -- not a single problem at 1280 by 1024, anywhere.