MSI GEFORCE 6600 GT REVIEW

"In this article we test the new MSI GEFORCE 6600 GT against the MSI GeForce 5900 XT, OCUK ATI Radeon 9700 Pro and Sapphire Fireblade ATI Radeon 9600 XT. The following software was used:- 3dmark 2003, 3dmark 2005, Doom 3, Half Life 2, Quake 3 Arena, Rightmark, Scrapland, Serious Sam SE and X2 the Threat."

NVIDIA GEFORCE 6600 GT CHIPSET FEATURES

Nvidia® CineFX™ 3.0 engine.
64-bit texture filtering support delivers full-speed, high dynamic-range (HDR) lighting effects.
Unmatched image quality delivered through new 16x anisotropic filtering and rotated grid antialiasing.
4x shadow processing power with Nvidia® UltraShadow™ II for next generation games.
Infinite program length allows for a new class of special effects.
Hardware-accelerated MPEG and WMV9 decode delivers smooth, artifact-free video.
Dedicated video hardware reduces CPU utilization and improves overall system performance.
On-chip video encoder and motion estimation engine provides high-quality encoding from TV tuner.
Programmable video engine ensures compatibility with future video codecs.
High-quality video scaling and filtering improves playback quality at any window size.
Integrated HDTV-output brings content from your desktop to your high-definition TV.
Nvidia® ForceWare™ software delivers unmatched features and rock-solid stability.
High dynamic-range (HDR) rendering.
Nvidia® UltraShadow™ II technology.
Nvidia® Intellisample™ 3.0 technology.
Nvidia® ForceWare™ Unified Driver Architecture (UDA).
Nvidia® nView™ multi-display technology.
Nvidia® Digital Vibrance Control™ 3.0.
On-chip video processor.
64-bit floating point texture filtering and blending.
Microsoft® DirectX™ 9.0 Shader Model 3.0 support.
OpenGL® 1.5 support.
Superscalar GPU architecture.
128-bit memory interface with advanced memory control.
Innovative 0.11 micron process technology.
Operating Systems Support Windows® XP / 2000.
Power supply of 350 (and up) watt is highly recommended for system stability.
Memory Interface: 128-bit.
Fill Rate (billion texels/sec.): 4.0.
Vertices/sec. (Million): 375.
Pixels per clock (peak): 8.
Ramdac (MHz): 400.
All brand name & products are registered trademarks of their respective companies.
All Chipset specs are derived from Nvidia data sheet. For your reference only.

REVOLUTIONARY DYNAMIC OVERCLOCKING

MSI ignites the cinematic computing revolution with the introduction of the most powerful interface of GeFORCE™ NX6600GT!!! With 2.1 GB per second data transferring rate, the ultra speed AGP 8x conquers the ultimate 3D frontier! Powered by the latest 64-bit floating point texture filtering and blending and designed with the industry's only true 128-bit precision processing-MSI NX6600GT & NX6600 Series graphic card take cinematic quality special effects to new levels.

DYNAMIC EXPRESS OVERCLOCKING TECHNOLOGY

MSI presents its best engineering process and design to maximize the overclocking! MSI exclusive NX6600GT & NX6600 series equips the most advanced Dynamic EXPRESS Overclocking Technology™, enabling the synchronized GPU & DDR overclocking performance up to 10% improvement by 6-level setting, Commander, General, Colonel, Captain, Sergeant and Private levels.

SUPERSCALAR GPU ARCHITECTURE

Skyrocketing bandwidth jump! New generation ultra speed architecture - AGP-8x with 4 GB/sec data transferring rate, and almost 200% jump from 2.1 GB/sec AGP other interface. MSI makes all the gamers' eyes wide open with the latest NX6600GT & NX6600 VGA series! With the best engineering process, gamers could rock through all the fantastic DirectX 9.0 games with unprecedented experience.

MSI T.O.P. TECH COOLING

Continuing the MSI tradition of incorporating only the best engineering process and design techniques, the NX6600GT & NX6600 series take advantage of the most advanced and sophisticated T.O.P. TECH™ COOLING technology. This advanced ventilation cooling mechanism enables higher performance through faster clock rates, while still remains in comparable low GPU temperature, a perfect craft for a perfect graphics from MSI.

NVIDIA CINEFX 3.0 ENGINE

Advanced pixel shaders in the new CineFX 3.0 engine deliver up to double the floating-point pixel shader power of previous-generation GPUs, allowing for faster, more efficient execution of even the most complex pixel shading tasks. In addition, CineFX 3.0 continues to deliver the highest level of image quality and film-industry levels of precision through true 128-bit precision computing, enabling special effects on par with Hollywood films.

REVOLUTIONARY FEATURES

Owners of MSI NX6600GT & NX6600 Series will appreciate revolutionary features as:

1. Dynamic EXPRESS Overclocking Technology™ - advanced overclocking engine, designed to deliver up to 10% extra performance, greatly enhances the synchronized GPU & DDR performance without complicated setting and overheated problem.

2. T.O.P. TECH™ COOLING - This advanced ventilation cooling mechanism enables 8°C lower cooling performance than the original cooling system, while still remains in comparable low fan noise level at 28db.

3. High-speed GDDR3 memory interface - Support for industry-leading high-speed GDDR3 memory delivers fluid frame rates for even the most advanced and games and applications.

NAME	CHIPSET	GPU SPEED	MEMORY	UK PRICE	US PRICE
MSI GEFORCE 6600 GT	NV43	500MHZ	128MB 900MHZ DDR3	£115	$180
MSI GEFORCE 5900 XT	NV35	390MHZ	128MB 700MHZ DDR	£109	$176
OCUK ATI RADEON 9700 PRO	R300	325MHZ	128MB 620MHZ DDR	£84	$159
SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON 9600 XT	RV360	500MHZ	128MB 650MHZ DDR	£76	$125
NAME	CHIPSET	GPU SPEED	MEMORY	UK PRICE	US PRICE

GENERAL SYSTEM INFORMATION

PROCESSOR	AMD SEMPRON 3100
VIDEO CARD	MSI GEFORCE 6600 GT
	MSI GEFORCE 5900 XT
	OCUK ATI RADEON 9700 PRO
	SAPPHIRE RADEON 9600 XT
ATI DRIVER	CATALYST v5.3
NVIDIA DRIVER	FORCEWARE v71.84
MOTHERBOARD	GIGABYTE K8NS PRO
MEMORY	2x 512MB OCZ GOLD XTC PC3200 DDR
OPERATING SYSTEM	WINDOWS XP SERVICE PACK 2
DIRECTX VERSION	v9.0c

3DMARK 2003

1024x768

	7444
	5124
	4986
	4062

MSI GEFORCE 6600 GT MSI GEFORCE 5900 XT
OCUK ATI RADEON 9700 PRO SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON 9600 XT

COMMENT - "The MSI GEFORCE 6600 GT puts in an amazing performance and finishes 32% faster than the MSi GeForce 5900 XT, 34% faster than the OCUK ATi Radeon 9700 Pro and 46% faster than the Sapphire ATI Radeon 9600 XT."

BENCHMARK SETTINGS
1024x768 Resolution
No Pixel Processing
Optimal Texture Filtering
4x Max Anisotropy
Optimal Vertex Shaders
No Repeat Tests
No Fixed Framerate

3DMARK 2003 GAMES

WINGS OF FURY

	191
	167
	176
	144

BATTLE OF PROXYCON

	57
	37
	32
	25

TROLL'S LAIR

	48
	30
	29
	23

MOTHER NATURE

	45
	31
	32
	28

MSI GEFORCE 6600 GT MSI GEFORCE 5900 XT
OCUK ATI RADEON 9700 PRO SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON 9600 XT

BENCHMARK SETTINGS
1024x768 Resolution
No Pixel Processing
Optimal Texture Filtering
4x Max Anisotropy
Optimal Vertex Shaders
No Repeat Tests
No Fixed Framerate

COMMENT - "The MSI GEFORCE 6600 GT puts in a very good performance with 3dmark 2003 and beats the MSI GeForce 5900 XT by 23% in total, the OCUK ATI Radeon 9700 Pro by 22% in total and the Sapphire ATi Radeon 9600 XT by 36% in total."

3DMARK 2003 FILLRATE

SINGLE TEXTURING

	1502
	1276
	1394
	1001

MULTI TEXTURING

	3862
	2768
	2488
	1947

MSI GEFORCE 6600 GT MSI GEFORCE 5900 XT
OCUK ATI RADEON 9700 PRO SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON 9600 XT

BENCHMARK SETTINGS
1024x768 Resolution
No Pixel Processing
Optimal Texture Filtering
4x Max Anisotropy
Optimal Vertex Shaders
No Repeat Tests
No Fixed Framerate

COMMENT - "The single texturing fillrate is close between the four video cards, the real action is in the multi texturing fillrate test. The MSI GEFORCE 6600 GT uses DDR3 memory which allows it to beat all of the video cards by a very impressive 29%."

3DMARK 2003 OTHER

VERTEX SHADER

	22
	16
	16
	13

PIXEL SHADER

	112
	34
	45
	39

RAGTROLL

	31
	16
	20
	16

MSI GEFORCE 6600 GT MSI GEFORCE 5900 XT
OCUK ATI RADEON 9700 PRO SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON 9600 XT

BENCHMARK SETTINGS
1024x768 Resolution
No Pixel Processing
Optimal Texture Filtering
4x Max Anisotropy
Optimal Vertex Shaders
No Repeat Tests
No Fixed Framerate

COMMENT - "Good pixel and vertex shader performance is very important for good game performance. The vertex shader test is very basic and the results for the four video cards are close, however the MSI GEFORCE 6600 GT still manages to deliver a 28% performance increase over the other video cards. The MSI GEFORCE 6600 GT destroys the other video cards in the pixel shader test with a HUGE 60% performance advantage which is very impressive."