Replace 6600gt with 6800xt?

[klurg]

I've had an asus 6600gt AGP for more than a week now. Recently my fan has started to sound weird and the site I bought it from says I could send the card back to get a new one. I asked them if it was possible to get a cheaper card as replacement and that was possible.

So basically, would it be a good thing to get an asus 6800xt back instead? I've read through the whole net about this card and it seems to me that 50% of everyone thinks the 6600gt is better while the other half thinks the 6800xt is better. There's only one professional review about this card (at guru3d) and it's hardly representative as it's a special version of it with ddr3, 256mb and higher clock speeds.

What speaks for the 6600gt is gddr3 and much higher clock speeds, while the 6800xt has 256-bit memory bus and one more vertex pipe. And there's also the chance of unlocking all the way up to 16 pipes since it's a nv40 core. But that's unlikely ofcourse. Since I don't play games on resolutions higher than 1024x768, maybe the 6600gt will still be faster for me? Both cards are 128mb AGP.

 

[BernardP]

I assume the 6600 GT AGP choice was made after considering your needs. It still is an excellent option at this price point.

The fan seems to be defective, so your first option should be to get a properly working card.

The 6800XT is generally not well regarded. Gaming performance is not better than 6600 GT. There is a known bug in the NV40 core that prevents it from processing HD video.

If you want to spend a bit less money, you could choose the plain 6600 and see what is available in AGP

If you want to spend a bit more money, the 6800 GS (now available in AGP) is recognised as a great bang-for-the-buck product. But I think it might have the HD video bug too.

 

[klurg]

Well the thing is, I can't request a card that's more expensive than the one I have (like the 6800gs) and there's no point in getting a cheaper card since I won't get any money back if I do.

The reason I'm asking is because the 6800XT costs merely a little less than the 6600GT I have. What I don't know is how far overclocking would get me with that slow ddr1 memory though, or if my Athlon XP 3200+ would be a bottleneck with a faster GPU?

I'm not even sure it'll fit in my box since the asus version of this card is gigantic . So I'm kinda leaning towards just requesting a new 6600GT if noone talks me out of it?

<EDIT>

Hey, another option. Maybe I could get a new cooler instead? Even when it was working correctly, the fan on my 6600gt made a lot of noise. hmm ..

 

[DerelictDev]

A new cooler could def. be a good choice. I would say go out a buy NV silencer from arctic cooling but truthfully i dont know if they make one for AGP versions of the 6600gt.

But theres probably some other brands out there which will fit

 

[hans030390]

Originally posted by: DerelictDev
A new cooler could def. be a good choice. I would say go out a buy NV silencer from arctic cooling but truthfully i dont know if they make one for AGP versions of the 6600gt.

But theres probably some other brands out there which will fit

They don't make them for the agp 6600gt.

I'd look into getting a Zalman VF700...those are really nice for the 6600gt cards, though you can't use the ramsinks on it...thats it.

 

[klurg]

Yeah, I think I'll get one of those VF700. They seem great. But why can't I use the ramsinks on my card?