NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT Review

8 according to Annand

 

I found the GeForce 6600GT vs 5800Ultra comparsion interesting

Both are clocked @ 500MHz
Both has RAM @ 500MHz
Both can output 4 pixels only (a point criticized a lot in 5800)
Both can output 8 "Zixels"
Both have "8 TMU" (yes it's not a correct term)
Both has 128bit bus (another point criticized in 5800)

Now it's clear that neither it's 4px output nor it's 128bit bus was the problem with 5800 - only it's pixel pipeline performance.

Also I think if you'd remove the PS3.0 functionality and FP filtering/blending you'd get a similar transistor count.
That's the card that nVidia should have made instead of 5800Ultra...

 

And why would that be interesting?

 

Another interesting thing I noticed was how the Fillrate achievement was much greater on the 6600GT yet the same bandwith. Think this might have something to do with the high latency on DDR2?

 

And why would that be interesting?[/quote]
Perhaps because SA alone isn't indicative of cost? Compare large SA with low layers & small SA with high layer #. Chip SA x layer # required for useful comparison.

 

I seem to remember that a lot of people critized the NV30 for it's 4*2 architecture. Not only for the deception (4*2 = 8*1) but thinking that it was the one of the problems with it's bad performance. And seeing what you can do on a 128 bit bus and 4*2 architecture then you again have to wonder what they did when they designed the NV3x. (Not completely fair of course since better archtectures, compression techniqes, rejection.. doesn't invent themselves)

As a sidenote, it'll be rather interesting to see how the low end NV4x, RV4xx cards will perform when they are available. Perhaps even the 64 bit bus versions won't perform as bad as we might think.

 

That's right, and there was talk of a "hardware fog bug" in NV30 prior to the NV31/NV34 launch. No idea whether it was fixed for the mainstream parts, but I can't remember any reviewers pointing out similar problems. Obviously there's been a workaround for NV30.

Maybe you should. It seems like a pretty "B3D article-worthy" subject.

 

Yeah, the other "anomaly" was the 5900XT outperforming the 6600GT in 3DM01SE's 8-light geometry test. IIRC, the 5900XT no longer had separate fixed function T&L units, so its winning is curious, unless that test was influenced by its greater bandwidth or A64 platform. Otherwise, the 6600GT appears to be even or superior to the 5900XT in vertex performance, and that would seem logical, given they have the same number of VS units, but the NV4x's have been reworked. Could vertex performance really be holding the 6600GT back in your shader-heavy SC test? Andy's numbers seem to hint at such a limitation, given how close his 5700U's scores are to your 5900XT's (despite their wildly differing fillrates and platforms). Or is it just that the A64 allows for a much higher framerate ceiling than the P4 in your tests, or simply driver "inefficiencies"?

It's a nice way to scale. Imagine how much simpler PC gaming would be to Joe Consumer if performance was the same across a product line, with only resolution scaling with price?

BTW, any word on whether nV will release a four-pipe, two ROP 6200?

I think this would be very well received, though I really doubt nV could have engineered a crossbar and four extra pipes into the NV30 at that time, even if they had thought of it. Maybe this can wait for a MB with both AGP and PEG slots, to reduce outside influences as much as possible? That way you can work in a MB review, as well.

Can't wait to see how the X700P's eight pixels per clock stacks up to the 6600GT.

 

Well, the NV30 was only capable of about four FP operations per clock, while the NV43 is capable of sixteen, and is much more able to approach its peak FP performance. That's not a small difference for any DX9 game.

Other than that, I've been saying it for a while: the NV3x architecture was clearly broken.

 

Heh, you just weren't saying it when that was all Nvidia had.

 

No, I started saying it quite some time before the NV40 was released. But yeah, early on I just didn't realize what the problems with the NV3x were. I think I finally realized that the NV3x irreparably broken, oh, about a year ago now or so.

Besides, the fact that I never purchased an NV3x should be a hint to you as to how much I thought about the cards....

 

Digit-Life wrote

Food for thought? (Or rather, insert Dave's "No" here).

 

By the way, I just have to slip in a little something:

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13231&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=93

Granted, I was talking about low-end parts, and the 6600 isn't quite low-end, but hell, it feels good to be essentially correct

 

Well you could have said that ATI had a goodidea about Nvidia future products too With predictions like that there is little risk to be wrong .

 

Well, perhaps I quoted the wrong thing. But regardless, what I was saying at the time was that even if nVidia and ATI are close in the high-end market, I claimed that the NV4x architecture really had tremendous promise in the low-end. I think we have seen the first good evidence of this. For $200, the 6600 GT really is an incredible product. I can't wait to see what nVidia pulls off for the really low-end NV4x....I'm expecting good things.

 

First 6600 GT is 249 € here, sol they will prolly be a bit less soon. Depending ATI card AND the avaibility of both cards, competition should be fun

 

How much improved is the memory controller in the 6600 over the 5800??? It seems to compare very well to the r9800pro/xt series, whilst the other could barely keep up with the r9700 series.

How much bandwidth is actually being wasted/utilised in the 256 bit mem controllers on the high-end chips??? How much more efficient are the 128bit ddr memory controllers over the 256bit ddr controllers????

The 6000GT now makes me think that PowerVR (series 5/6) might be able to get away with a similarly bandwidth graphics core, with significantly increased performance. Without TBDR or similar tech, it seems unlikely that many of the other smaller/lesser companies could reach such similar performance on such bandwidth. The 6600 chip seems to use memory bandwidth more optimally than previous generations.

 

I doubt it has much to do with the memory controller.