6600GT Vs 6800nu, best bang for buck?

[Marcos]

I should be going for 256mb, but i cant drop that much on a PC before Uni. Found the 6600GT for only £150 at ebuyer:

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=81344

And the 6800 for £170 at lowestonweb.com:

http://www.lowestonweb.com/Products/...3-8A8D0253C1B2

Not sure which is the better bang for buck

[Ravens Nest]

Hmm seems like the 6800 gives more bang for your buck, 5-15 FPS difference..
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/gra...119/index.html

[skattrd]

Don't forget that theres always a chance the 6800 will softmod to a GT

[Applecrusher]

huh?? I didnt know 6800np could softmod..

[ed^chigliak]

6600gt £133 on dabs... out of stock mind

[alterion]

6600gt is 120 from lowest on web.com and they offer the same perfomance on HL2 also if you get this card you hve the possibility of upgrading too a second one in a year and gaining a 60% performance boost. You do the maths. 6800NU is great your getting an agp system but the 6600gt is great for PCI-E

[Marcos]

Sorry, forgot to mention, forget that whole PCI-E business here . I was looking at the 6600GT AGP version.

So which performs better outright? 6600GT AGP vs. 6800

[skuzgib]

6800

Chance to softmod as well

[Marcos]

What benefits will softmodding provide?

[skattrd]

Softmodding opens up the 4 extra pipelines in a plain 6800 (12 pipes) making it a GT (16) ... not all will softmod though.

I have even heard of the 6800le (8 pipes) modding to GT - now thats a bargain, but very rare

[Marcos]

But it would still be 128mb?

[skattrd]

But it would still be 128mb?

Yes

[ed^chigliak]

Yep it would still be 128mb... a softmod won't change this fact. If the price was the same it would be an easy decision but with £30-40 between them they are both good buys IMO. If we are comparing 6800OEM vs retail 6600GT then the software bundle could be the deciding factor. Only takes a couple of good games you were thinking of buying anyway and you got a bargain.

[Marcos]

Hmm seems like the 6800 gives more bang for your buck, 5-15 FPS difference..
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/gra...119/index.html

The results there worry me, even the 6800 struggles at 1280 with 4AA on some of the latest games. i thought it was better than that.

I was hoping to run HL2 at 1280 with a bit of AA and decent detail, not sure if the 6800 can do it

[ed^chigliak]

Well you either look at getting 6800GT with 256mb and think to yourself that will probably last me twice as long so the overall cost is the same if not better than buying two mid-range card in the same period. Certainly I would take this route for a TFT screen at 1280x1024 native although I wouldn't invest so much money in AGP knowing that everything is changing to PCI-E.

Anyway they are benching those games on Very High Quality settings to stress the cards and IMO medium/high is more than adequate visual quality so you would probably see a few exta FPS.

Edit: Further Reading
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjQ0
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=Njg5
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjUy

[alterion]

on agp i you can stretch the extra i would advise going for the 6800gt but otherwise on AGP then definatly get the 6800 nu for 170 as opposed to a 6600gt for 150 easily worth the extra 20 notes