Need help picking a specific 6600GT

Hey guys, just a quickie!

I need to pick up a new gfx card (going for a 6600GT) and I was just wondering if anyone knows off the top of their heads what the difference between these two cards is?

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s...tml?ASU-66GTOP

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s...tml?ASU-GF66GT

The first link costs £116, and the second cost £140, and I can't see for the life of me what the difference is!? Both are made by Asus, both are AGP, both have the same cooling and clock speeds, and both have the same amount of RAM. :inquisiti

I need to get a card from Novatech, so if anyone can find a brand from this list that is better than the Asus one, please let me know! I'm trying not to spend more than £130 if I can help it.

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...x1y0z1p0s0n1m0

Cheers dudes!

if those images are accurate, the first one is pcie not agp

Yeah the picture is probably wrong. If you look at the product description it says

"Asus GeForce 6600GT Top Limited Edition 8x AGP 128MB TVO/DVI"

asus don't make an AGP N6600TOP/TD, according to uk.asus.com

Hahaha, good old novatech ;)

I REALLY hate to give them my money, but the fact they're so close to me means I can skip the delivery charge and get my item today. Apart from the fact their website doesn;t work in firefox, it crashed on me THREE times today: when trying to make an account, and twice when trying to order the damned card.
I had to phone their sales line in the end. Bodge-merchants.

I went for the Leadtek card in the end as it has RAM-sinks and I've read some reviews that say it's very overclockable.

Well, if anyone's interested, I'm seriously impressed with this card.

Used to have a Radeon 9800XT 256Mb until it gave up on me at the end of the week. I don't exactly have a monster system, it's getting pretty dated now:

Athlon XP 2400+
1Gb RAM (capable of 400MHz speeds, but running at 266MHz cos of the damned CPU's FSB)
Asus A7N8X-E motherboard.

Anyway, with my Radeon I could run all the latest games (HL2, Doom 3, etc) at 1280x1024 with all details maxed out and a decent amount of AA and AF, and it would play at a fairly decent frame rate (around the 40fps mark).
That was overclocked, with arctic cooling, running at about 78 degrees.

Anyway, this new card is running even better (gained 700 points in 3DMark 03, and 500 points in 3DMark 05) and it's running at a very cool 43 degrees on stock cooling! Very good value.

Looking forward to seeing how much further I can push it :D

give it a 20% push on GPU clock then bench it on 3dmark05.. I'm sure you'd get at least a further 200 juice no prob...

Ohh... on sumthing different... You could push your 2400+ to run 333MHz FSB, 400 is possible.. but not guarenteed. My old 2500+ barton was rock stable at 213MHz FSB... and is still running pretty nicely at 200MHz... I'm sure you'd get decent CPU OC as well if u ran 333MHz at default multiplier... Would be a good debottleneck for your CPU when coupled with a 6600GT..

Yeah, I thought it was possible, but I've tried it before and it just refuses to boot into windows :(

Might give it another go though, thanks for the tip :)

Also, what program do you use to OC nVidias? Is Riva Tuner the best one?

I used ATi Tool for my radeon, which was brilliant because it booted with windows and would automatically adjust clock speeds based on profiles I set up (e.g. it would only OC the card when it detected the use of 3D graphics).

umm.. im sure leadtek 6600Gt came with its own OC tool? If not you could just google it out... I'm just using a default tuner WinFox 2.0 by leadtek... very handy.. user frenly... with on demand temperature monitor... rock stable

Quote:

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umm.. im sure leadtek 6600Gt came with its own OC tool?

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You're right, it did, I'm just an idiot. I realised about 10 mins after posting when I actually gave it some thought, haha!

Right, well I've had a go, made some changes, and managed to get the following:

3DMark2003
5838 - Radeon 9800 XT (Stock: 412/365)
6376 - Radeon 9800 XT Overclocked (426/380)
7093 - 6600GT (Stock: 500/900)
7337 - 6600GT Overclocked (500/1000)
7790 - 6600GT Overclocked (575/1000)

I reckon I could probably push the RAM a bit further, and perhaps the GPU, but only by a little (got major artifacts at 600MHz, so can't see how going to 585 or 590 would really be worth trying).

thats sum very good OC... impressive improvement results... congrats... So how did your CPU OC went? Did you manage to get it running at 333MHz?

I haven't actually tried it yet Sawyen :)

Basically, at the moment there's nothing I can't run at max detail and high res, so there's no real need to OC. I just can't afford to take the chance of blowing stuff up right now, as buying the 6600GT cleaned me out pretty much, so if anything dies I won't be able to replace it. Once I get a job (and some decent income) I'll have a go at OC'ing it.
I've written all your advice down ready to have a go, I'm just biding my time ;)
Cheers for your advice though, have a biscuit :)

Bfg