6600Gt, a wise choice?

[Matt_2000_17]

I have just purchased a 6600GT, have I made a wise choice. I originally had a 5900XT. Please tell me your thoughts.

[Phalanx]

well seeing as im getting the GLH gainward version, im going to say a positive "YES!"

[Matt_2000_17]

This may make me sound stupid but whats GLH?

[alterion]

Goes Like Hell.. they overclocked it themselves.. personaly i would have waited for a more significant performance boost but...

[ed^chigliak]

Well that 5900XT you'd be running HL in DX8 or taking a 70% performance hit but with the 6600GT you can run DX9 no worries. The water in HL2 will look just fantastic with the 6600GT. Nvidia are back on form.

[Matt_2000_17]

i did run HL2 using DX9 on the 5900XT and had no problems.

[Phalanx]

Goes Like Hell.. they overclocked it themselves.. personaly i would have waited for a more significant performance boost but...

im interested in the 1.6ns memory since it adds 4gigs/s extra bandwidth to the original 6600gts which use 2.0ns memory

[ed^chigliak]

HL2 will select the DX8 codepath and it does this automatically although I believe you can force the DX9 codepath. I am talking about the mode the game selects which is DX8 and not what version of directX you have installed on your PC. You should be happy... it's a good thing your new card can do DX9 codepath without a performance hit.

From anandtech
NVIDIA’s GeForce 5900XT was between 50 and 72% slower in DX9 mode than in DX8 mode. In fact, the 5900XT is so slow in DX9 mode that ATI’s $80 Radeon X300 SE actually posts significantly higher average frame rates. So if you own a NV3x class GPU, you are pretty much excluded from running Valve’s DirectX 9 codepath. What, then do you lose by going down to the DirectX 8.1/8.0 codepaths?

Linky with pictures
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2281&p=2

[mobo]

Hell yes!