NVIDIA's GeForce 6600 GT Preview

[Steve]

Midrange graphics is where it counts. We can't all afford a top of the range GPU. That's where nVidia's 6600 range comes in. It's got Shader Model 3, GDDR3 RAM, all the stuff you'd expect, but a little tamer in speed and at a more pocket-friendly price. Ryszard takes a look:

Very strong mid-range performance wth many times the raw shader power of NVIDIA's outgoing mid-range hardware, keen price and all the architectural benefits of NV40, without any of the form factor downsides of NV40 boards. 6600 GT will sell very well and for good reason. Get your pre-order in now and pray NVIDIA get the AGP version out as soon as possible since that's the version many of you are waiting for. It's the board to have on PCI Express at the time of writing.

Check it out here!

[Applecrusher]

How much do these retail for (or will we be expecting these to cost)?

[Rys]

£200 is the UK price point (hopefully just under).

Rys

[mike_w]

I think one of the biggest selling points is how it beats the best last generation cards in almost all tests, especially at lower resolutions, or without AA. Should be interesting to see how 2 in SLI will perform, especially compared with 6800 Ultras, but I think that most of us are waiting for the AGP version.

[Allen]

I was gonna say, they call this the budget card, but it isn't even AGP. I know PCI-Express will be native to all motherboards soon, but they aren't yet. So to upgrade to a budget nVidia graphics card, I'd have to upgrade to an Intel machine with a PCI-Express motherboard...

[mike_w]

I was gonna say, they call this the budget card, but it isn't even AGP. I know PCI-Express will be native to all motherboards soon, but they aren't yet. So to upgrade to a budget nVidia graphics card, I'd have to upgrade to an Intel machine with a PCI-Express motherboard...

Bridged AGP versions should follow in a few weeks. And its a mid-range card rather than a budget card

[Allen]

Ok, but the same applies. That's kewl about the bridged AGP one's, it looks a good card!