As a continuation on our evaluation of the nForce4-SLI hardware that Asus sent us for review, we are going to take a closer look at Asus’ SLI compatible Extreme N6600GT series of video cards. This is Part 2 of a three part suite of articles. Part 1 took a look at the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard which performed well, and is one of the first SLI capable motherboards to the market. This article, Part 2, will evaluate how well a standalone EN6600GT performs, and in Part 3 we will delve into the performance SLI gives you, any issues that were encountered and what we think of the technology.
Part 2 – Video Card – Asus Extreme N6600GT
The Asus Extreme N6600GT is part of the nVidia GeForce6 GPU family of video cards and uses the new higher bandwidth PCI-Express interface. Having the bleeding edge performance-and-cost 6800 series cards as its bigger brother, the 6600GT series of video cards are geared toward the gamer with a budget with a price tag around $200! The GT variant is different than the basic 6600 cards in that the graphics processor is 200 MHz faster than the stock 6600, and it uses GDDR3 with a 128bt memory bus instead of GDDR memory yielding much faster memory clock speeds.
Below is a comparison chart showing the differences between several Geforce6 series graphics cards:
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Card
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Pixel Pipelines
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Vertex Pipelines
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Core Speed
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Memory Speed
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Memory Type
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Memory Size
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6800GT
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16
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6
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350 MHz
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1000 Mhz
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256-bit GDDR3
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256 MB
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6800
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12
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5
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325 MHz
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700 Mhz
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256-bit GDDR
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128 MB
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6600GT
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8
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3
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500 MHz
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1000 Mhz
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128-bit GDDR3
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128/256 MB
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6600
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8
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3
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300 MHz
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550 Mhz
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64/128-bit GDDR
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128 MB
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As you can see the 6600 series uses 4 less pixel and 2 less vertex pipelinesthan the base 6800 series. Though with the 6600GT model with its higher clock and memory speeds, on paper it should produce some very good results at lower resolutions, but get bogged down at higher resolutions as compared to the 6800’s. Higher resolutions are where you see a big impact on the number pixel and vertex pipelines the GPU has available (a 1600×1200 screen has roughly 2.4 times more pixels to perform calculations for than a 1024×768 screen).
Here are the specifications and a full feature list for the Asus Extreme N6600GT:
Asus Extreme N6600GT Specifications:
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Feature
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Description
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Graphics Engine
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GeForce 6600GT
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Video Memory
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128 M DDR3
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Engine Clock
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500MHz
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Memory Clock
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1GHz(500MHz DDR3)
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RAMDAC
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400MHz
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Bus Standard
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PCI-Express
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Memory Interface
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128-bit
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Max Resolution
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2048×1536
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VGA Output
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Standard 15-pin D-sub
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TV Output
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S-Video
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DVI Output
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DVI-I
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2nd VGA Output
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Yes
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nVidia GeForce 6600GT Features:
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The card and accessories come packaged in a long thin box. The whole outer package is reflective and metallic with a picture of a samurai anime guy on the front, I’m assuming to represent that samurai’s endorse the Asus EN6600GT. The basic features of the card are listed on the front and on the back more features, the accessories and the various Asus hardware awards are listed. Inside the box the card is packed inside a foam cutout and the accessories all fit within cardboard retainers.
The basic accessories are included such as a DVI to D-Sub monitor converter, manual, driver’s disk and a TV-out cable. Many companies will stop here but Asus chose to include a full version game and several software applications: Novalogic – Joint Operations, Asus DVD XP, Power Director and Media show. They even threw in a handy plastic disc holder for your software CD’s. It’s pretty sturdy and should get some good use.
The card itself is smaller than I expected from a latest generation card, and is rather attractive using an eye catching blue PCB. At first glance you see the large copper heatsink with clear 9-bladed fan and silver Asus badge, and the copper ram sinks. On the bottom edge of the card is the PCI-Express interface, and on the upper right corner of the card you will not see an auxiliary power connector, very much a good thing in my opinion (there are AGP versions of the 6600GT series card that do require a connector as the current AGP 8x slot cannot supply enough power as the PCI-Express’ 75Watts). The back of the card is rather plain as there are only 4x32mb ram chips on the front side of the board.
Here you can see all the proper connectors for (left to right): S-Video TV-out, DVI Digital Monitor, D-Sub Analog Monitor. Referring back to the accessories you can convert the DVI digital monitor connector to a D-Sub analog for dual analog monitors, but you cannot use two DVI Digital monitors. After removing the copper heatsink you can tell Asus didn’t skimp on the thermal compound. The heatsink is held down by two spring loaded push pins at opposing corners of the heatsink. There is no shim on the GPU core so the heatsink rests solely on the bare GPU core. This is fine but if you press down on a corner of the heatsink that doesn’t have a push pin, the heatsink will tip. This could make it easy to chip a GPU core, but most likely not.
The copper ram sinks are about two inches long and span across two adjacent BGA ram chips. After trying to yank the sinks off and get a closer look at the chips themselves, I have to say they mounted them with some pretty hefty thermal adhesive. So to quote the Asus website, they use 1.6ns GDDR3. There is a dual GPU model from Asus (EN6600GT Dual) just hitting the market that uses 1.6ns GDDR3 Samsung memory, and I am led to believe that it is the same exact memory. On the upper left edge of the card you see a small tab that Asus refers to in its manuals as the “Golden Fingers” of the card. This tab is the interface for a bridge connector used during SLI configuration with another EN6600GT. Look for these tabs on video cards to be used in SLI configuration.
To give the Asus EN6600GT a run for its money we will be pacing the card against an AGP 8x ATI 9800 Pro 256meg. This should be quite a fair comparison, as PCI-Express is the newest motherboard graphics standard. Meaning anyone upgrading to the newest Intel or AMD chipsets will need a graphics card upgrade to go along with the new motherboard. In addition if you’re thinking about flopping down quite a bit of cash on a new hardware setup today, you most likely don’t already have an AGP 6800GT. If you did, you most likely won’t be looking for the 6800GT’s little brother on the PCI-Express side. It’s safe to say many of those looking to upgrade to a latest generation chipset and graphics card run last generation hardware.
The test setups are as follows:
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe (nForce4-SLI, BIOS 1003.06 Beta), AMD64 3200+ Winchester, Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC4000 2x512mb (DDR400 @ 2.0-2-2-5), Asus EN6600GT (Forceware 66.93), WD Raptor 360DG 36GB, WD 1600BB 160GB, Lite-On DVD-RW SHOW-1213S, Windows XP Pro (SP1 and DX9C)
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum (nForce3 GB, BIOS 7025v1.41 Beta), AMD64 3200+ Winchester, Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC4000 2x512mb (DDR400 @ 2.0-2-2-5), ATI 9800Pro 256meg (Catalyst 4.12), WD Raptor 360DG 36GB, WD 1600BB 160GB, Lite-On DVD-RW SHOW-1213S, Windows XP Pro (SP1 and DX9C)
Note: Testing in this article only applies to single card operation, not SLI configuration. Check back for Part 3 which will go in depth into the performance and pitfalls of SLI operation.
Synthetic Benchmarks
Synthetic benchmarks attempt to simulate and test real world 3D performance across a large set of hardware and programming features. These benchmarks generally run a series of pre-recorded sequences and measure frames per second in each sequence. Depending on the program and the proprietary formula they use, synthetic benchmarks will output either a number score or an average frames per second value to use for performance comparison against other systems. Synthetic testing is done using program default settings, as these are generally what the community uses to compare different systems to each other.
MadOnion 3DMark01SE – Default Settings
3DMark01SE is a very good overall system test as it doesn’t heavily focus just on the graphics hardware as many other synthetic benchmarks will. The 9800 Pro takes the lead in this test, which could mean several things: the 6600GT setup is being limited by some other hardware, or the 9800 Pro is more capable in older games. The scores are still very comparable however.
Futuremark 3DMark03 – Default Settings
This test is more graphics hardware dependent than 3DMark01SE. You see the 6600GT take a stiff lead. Here the newer features of the 6600 series GPU give it the ability to more efficiently render the scenes.
Futuremark 3DMark05 – Default Settings
We see the same results here in 3DMark05, as the program suite continues to exploit newer hardware and game technology the older generation card just can’t keep pace.
Massive Development Aquamark3 – Default Settings
Here we see the two cards come within 7 FPS of each other with the EN6600GT the clear winner. If the synthetic benchmarks are any indication, the EN6600GT should put up a very good fight during the Real world benchmarks. This should be a very capable card.
Real World benchmarks are just that. They run a sequence recorded strait from game play (generally called a “timedemo”) from a game that you can run out to the store and buy. At the end of the timedemo an average frames per second value is reported. This value gives a good indication as to how a hardware setup with particular driver settings will perform with that specific game. Testing of Real World benchmarks is done using two different resolutions (1024×768 and 1600×1200) and two different image quality settings (2xAnisotropic Filtering/No Anti-Aliasing and 8xAniso/4xAA).
Novalogic Commanche4 Demo – Demo Benchmark
Commanche4 we see both cards putting up very playable frame rates across all screen resolutions and image quality settings. The EN6600GT was the apparent winner however giving almost 40 FPS at 1600×1200 with 4xAA and 8xAniso.
Epic Games Unreal Tournament 2004 – Benchemall Recorded Demo
Here we see the 9800 Pro pulling ahead at low resolution and low image quality. Though as soon as you start turning on Anisotropic filtering and Anti-Aliasing, the EN6600GT takes the win again. Both cards did put up very playable frame rates throughout all of these tests.
Valve Half Life 2 – OCmodshop Coastal Firefight Demo
Half Life 2 is one of the newest games to hit the market and uses quite an efficient engine even though it has some of the best graphics to be seen. Here we see the 9800 Pro falling behind in all tests except for the large resolution high image quality test. The test was conducted several times with similar results.
Ubisoft Far Cry – HardwareOC Steam Demo
The large amount of vegetation, water and lighting in Far Cry can bring any modern graphics card to its knees. We see similar results here as to what we saw in the Half Life 2 tests. The EN6600GT meets or leads the pack in all tests but the large resolution high image quality. Although the 9800 Pro doubles the EN6600GT’s average frame rates, neither card produces playable frame rates at these settings.
iD Software Doom 3 – OCmodshop Guardian Demo
With some of the best graphics and dynamic lighting ever seen, Doom 3 is virtual hell on modern gamming machines. To top it off our OCmodshop Guardian demo takes place in one of the busiest points of Doom 3 (the Hell Guardian boss fight). In these tests the EN6600GT blows away the 9800 Pro; though in this game the EN6600GT still won’t produce playable frame rates at large resolution and image quality.
Overall I am very surprised and impressed with the Asus EN6600GT’s performance. Knowing that the 9800 Pro is one of the top dogs of our recent last generation of video cards, I was expecting the modest 6600 series card to choke as soon as the image quality settings were turned up. It did very well and from seeing the distribution of frame rates, it should be a great card in real world gaming for those with low resolutions up to 1280×1024. Even if you own a 1600×1200 monitor, you should be happy if you can sacrifice some image quality to keep frame rates playable. Otherwise, look elsewhere to the leading edge cards on the market.
Being an avid fan of overclocking video cards I was very much looking forward to this part of the testing. The GT versions of the 6600 GPU already run 200 MHz higher than the standard 6600 GPU, so I was skeptical as to how high the core could go. On the memory side, the card uses 1.6ns GDDR3 so that should give it a 600 MHz max frequency (1.2 GHz DDR), 100 MHz higher than stock.
To begin the testing I installed ForceWare Coolbits 2.0 registry hack and let the Forceware driver’s auto detect the optimal clock frequencies. After a short period of testing the driver’s settled on 579 MHz core and 1.17 GHz memory clock. These settings were 100% stable under all situations and all features of the card work. I would have liked to see a higher memory speed but overall, not too bad. Pushing the card to its limits I was able to complete some 3DMark03 tests with artifacts at 614 MHz core and 1.29 GHz memory clock. Any higher and the tests would not run. This should give you a good idea of the cards ceiling.
A neat feature of this card is the ability to monitor GPU core temperatures in the Forceware drivers. Below you can see the interface which includes a threshold temperature and all statistics are updated real time.
The cooling solution Asus used clearly does a good job for stock overclocking. At idle the temperature monitor noticed a 2 degree difference between stock and overclocked settings. However, for you tweakers, with some better cooling on the GPU (like water) you should be able to boost not only the core clocks a bit more but also the memory speeds (as the memory temperature on a video card is adversely impacted by the heat distributed laterally through the PCB from the GPU, remove the GPU heat and the memory is generally cooler).
Conclusion
I was very impressed with the overall performance of the EN6600GT. The card is very capable at lower resolutions, being able to pull good frame rates with all the eye candy. At higher resolutions, the card is a little underpowered to run high anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering, let alone if you want to vertical sync with your monitor (frame rate cap to prevent screen tearing). The card however does produce very playable frame rates at high resolutions if you don’t feel the need to turn on all the eye candy. If you’re a gamer, this card should be best suited on a 1024×768 monitor or maybe even a 1280×1024 monitor if you like image quality. The bundle that comes with the card is good; Asus knew enough to throw in a full version game, some software, and even a disc tote, keeping those who look for good retail bundles at bay.
The Asus Extreme N6600GT does what I think it set out to do. It gives the middle-of-the-road gamers on a PCI-Express system a card to drool over, it offers good overclocking headroom for tweakers, and it allows for expandable performance through SLI compatibility. The EN6600GT follows in the footsteps of its bigger 6800 series brethren without feeling completely crippled as many middle-of-the-road cards have been in the past. In a nutshell, it’s a great card, with great performance at a great price (around $200!). I am giving the Asus Extreme N6600GT 9.5 out of 10 and the OCmodshop seal of approval. I want to thank Asustek for sending us this new graphics card for review.
Pros:
Cons:
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