Rage3D XFX GeForce 6600 DDR2 Review Rage3D XFX GeForce 6600 DDR2 Review
Launched with much less fan-fare than we normally expect from NVIDIA, the 6600 DDR2 is a replacement for the vanilla 6600 DDR1. Reference 6600 DDR2 cards come equipped with a 350MHz core clock, a 50MHz improvement over the 300MHz 6600 DDR1, and 400MHz memory, a significant 125MHz improvement over the 275MHz memory found on the 6600 DDR1. The reference 6600 DDR2 also sports 256MB of memory instead of the 128MB spec'ed for the reference 6600 DDR1 cards.
While the DDR2 variant is a nice replacement for the vanilla 6600 DDR1 card, the real reason behind the launch of the 6600 DDR2 is to go toe-to-toe with ATI's new Radeon X1300 Pro.
As you've probably guessed by now, in this review I'll be checking out a 6600 DDR2 from XFX. The XFX 6600 DDR2 is even a better value over the reference 6600 DDR2. With an MSRP of just $99 it is not only cheaper than the $119 reference 660 DDR2, it also sports a faster core clock that has been bumped up to 400MHz at the factory.
| GeForce 6600 GT | GeForce 6600 DDR2 | GeForce 6600 | GeForce 6600 LE | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core Clock (MHz) | 500 | 350 | 300 | 300 |
| Memory Clock (MHz) | 500 | 400 | 275 | 275 |
| Memory Data Rate (MHz) | 1000 | 800 | 550 | 550 |
| Memory Interface | 128-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit |
| Memory Type | GDDR3 | DDR2 | DDR | DDR |
| Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec.) | 16.0 | 12.8 | 8.8 | 8.8 |
| Texel Fill rate (Gtexels/sec.) | 4 | 2.8 | 2.4 | 1.2 |
| Vertices/sec. (million) | 375 | 262.5 | 225 | 225 |
| Pixels Pipes | 8 | 8 | 8 | 4 |
| Vertex Engines | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| RAMDACs (MHz) | 400 | 400 | 400 | 400 |
The 6600 DDR2 uses the same NV43 graphics core as the other cards in the 6600 series. The NV43 core features 8 pixel pipelines, 3 vertex shader units, and a 128-bit memory bus. It has around 143 million transistors and is built on an 110nm manufacturing process by TSMC.
Compared to ATI's X1300 Pro, the 6600 DDR2 looks like a good match on paper. The 6600 DDR2 has twice the pixel pipelines, but thanks to the extreme core clockrate of the X1300 Pro, both cards are comparable: the 6600 DDR2 has an advantage in texel fillrate, but lacks pixel fillrate power when compared to the X1300 Pro. They both have the same 128-bit bus and same 400MHz memory, so they both naturally end up with the exact same raw bandwidth numbers. Both cards, of course, also support Shader Model 3.0.
Here's a breakdown:
| XFX GeForce 6600 DDR2 | GeForce 6600 GT | Radeon X1300 Pro |
Radeon X700 Pro | |
| Core | NV43 | NV43 | RV515 | RV410 |
| Silicon Process | 110nm | 110nm | 90nm low-k | 110nm |
| Transistor Count (millions) |
143 | 143 | 100 | 120 |
| Core Speed MHz | 400 | 500 | 600 | 425 |
| Memory Speed MHz | 400 | 500 | 400 | 432 |
| Memory Size | 256 MB | 128 MB | 256 MB | 256 MB |
| Bus Standard | PEG 16x | PEG 16x | PEG x16 | PEG x16 |
| Bus Width | 128bit | 128bit | 128bit | 128bit |
| Pipeline Configuration Textures/Pixels/Z Samples (Per Clock) |
8/4/8 | 8/4/8 | 4/4/4 | 8/8/8 |
| Vertex Units | 3 | 3 | 2 | 6 |
| Peak Memory Bandwidth (GB/s) |
12.8 | 16.0 | 12.8 | 13.8 |
| Pixel Fillrate (million pixels/sec) |
1,600 | 2,000 | 2,400 | 3,400 |
| Texel Fillrate (million texels/sec) |
3,200 | 4,000 | 2,400 | 3,400 |
| API Compliancy | DX 9.0c Shader Model 3.0 |
DX 9.0c Shader Model 3.0 |
DX 9.0c Shader Model 3.0 |
DX 9.0b Shader Model 2.0 |
 XFX 6600 DDR2 Retail Box |
 XFX 6600 DDR2 Bundle |
Physically speaking the card isn't all that interesting. At only 6-1/2" long it’s a relatively small card, about 2-1/2" inches shorter than the enormous 7800 GTX and X1800XT, and about 1/4" shorter than the XFX 6600 GT. You won't have any problems fitting it in a SFF or HTPC case.
Cooling the GPU is one of those ultra-small coolers which remind me of the type that early graphics cards used, the type which would annoy the hell out of anyone within earshot and which would die a pretty quick death due the high RPMs they constantly ran at. Thankfully the one on the XFX 6600 DDR2 is surprisingly quiet and doesn't seem to spin all that fast, so it should hopefully enjoy a long life. With the relatively large array of capacitors near the cooler you might have trouble fitting a third party cooler on the card if that's your plan though.
All 256MBs worth of the memory modules are arranged in an L-pattern on the front-side of the card. They surround the GPU on two sides, 4 to a side in pairs of 2, for a total of 8 modules. There are no memory modules, or in fact very little of anything, on the back of the card..
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Resolutions
Image Quality Settings
Test System Specs
Benchmark Software
The Windows XP desktop was set to 1280x960 with a 32bit color depth and 85Hz refresh rate for all tests. Refresh rate locks for 3D graphics modes, as supported by both NVIDIA and ATI graphics control panels, was not enabled. V-Sync was forced off via the graphics card control panel as well. All other graphics card control panel settings were left to their default settings unless otherwise noted.
Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropy were applied in the game engine where the options existed. For games that did not support those options natively, the graphics card control panel was used.
Custom batch files were used when possible for automated benchmarking (the details of the commands used are outlined for each test). When manual benchmarking was necessary Fraps version 2.6.4 was used.
Benchmarking was done with Windows set to the "Adjust for best performance" profile, and all unnecessary Windows services and hardware devices were disabled. The latest drivers for each necessary hardware component were installed prior to testing and kept consistent throughout.
Sound was disabled for all tests unless otherwise noted.
To setup the test machine I installed Windows XP, patched and tweaked it, and installed all the required games, apps, utilities, and hardware drivers needed for the testing procedure except for the graphics drivers. Using Norton Ghost, I then cloned the drive onto a second identical hard-drive. After that I installed the ATI drivers on one hard-drive and the NVIDIA drivers on the other. Testing the videocards was then a simple matter of swapping videocards and hard-drives when required.
F.E.A.R.
The "Computer" option was set to Maximum and the "Graphics Card" option was set to Medium. Anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering settings were changed in the Advanced video card options panel. Soft Shadows were disabled for all tests.
Quake 4
There have recently been some concerns about some bugs in the Quake 4 timedemo playback. Notable are missing special effects such as display screens, explosions, and even shadows in some cases. However, the bug is with the game and all cards display the timedemo the same way, so Quake 4 is still valid for performance comparions even though it might not accurately reflect actual in-game performance.
I used a custom batch file which automatically runs each demo, resolution, and setting. The commandline used in the batch file is detailed below.
The Quake 4 results are below. Click the text links at the top of the chart to change settings.
Battlefield 2
Two custom timedemos were used to gather results, each of which run for about 10 minutes (normal time). The results from both timedemos were then averaged to get the final score.
The results are below. Click the text links at the top of the chart to change settings.
Splinter Cell Chaos Theory
The first chart shows game performance using the default mode with Shader Model 1.1 class effects and the second chart shows performance using the Shader Model 3.0 path. Because anti-aliasing is automatically disabled when the SM3.0 HDR effect is enabled, there are no AA results for the second chart. Obviously only the cards that support SM3.0 were benchmarked for the SM3.0 test.
Click the text links at the top of each chart to change settings.
Half-Life 2
A batch file was used to automate testing, the command line is below for reference.
The Half-Life 2 results are below. Click the text links at the top of the chart to change settings.
Doom 3
Another batch file was used to automate Doom 3 testing as well. The command line is below for reference.
The Doom3 results are below. Click the text links at the top of the chart to change settings.
Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butchers Bay
The Chronicles of Riddick results are below. Click the text links at the top of the chart to change settings.
Far Cry
Again a custom batch file was used to benchmark Far Cry. Because Far Cry benchmark frame rates can vary between each subsequent pass (sometimes fairly significantly), I ran three demos from the Cooler, Training, and Volcano levels that are included with the newer patchs three times, then averaged the results to get the final score for the detail level.
The command line for the batch file that was used to automate Far Cry benchmarking is below. This batch file was used for each card that was tested.
The Far Cry results are below. Click the text links at the top of the chart to change settings.
Pacific Fighters
Pacific Fighters was benchmakred by loading the included "N1K1 vs BeauFighter.ntrk" track and loggind framerates using Fraps. Framerate logging started from the beginning of the track and automatically ended after 90 seconds. All the in game details were set to their maximum levels, including "Landscape Detail", which was set to "Perfect" thus enabling Pixel Shaded water. Video was set to the "NVIDIA GeForce 6800/6600/FX/4/3" profile for the NVIDIA cards and to the "ATI Radeon X800/9800/9700/9600/9500" profile for the ATI cards. Anti-aliasing and Anisotropy were set via the graphics card control panel.
The Pacific Fighters results are below. Click the text links at the top of the chart to change settings.
3DMark03
I benchmarked 3DMark03 using the default settings. I set it up to loop each test three times, it then automatically averaged the results and gave a final score. The results for each test are below.
| 3DMark03 Game Test 1 - Wings of Fury |
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3DMark05
Like 3DMark03, I set 3DMark05 up to loop three times to get the final score. I tested 3DMark05 using the default detected settings.
| 3DMark05 Game Test 1 - Return to Proxycon |
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As we mentioned already, XFX has already overclocked the 6600 DDR2 by 50MHz at the factory, taking it from 350MHz to 400MHz. That's a respectable factory overclock, but factory overclocking isn't really overclocking when you think about it. To see how far the core could really go, we enabled NVIDIA's Coolbits via the registry and started testing. Our final result is an extremely impressive 520MHz core speed, 120MHz over the factory setting and 170MHz over the stock reference setting (that's even 20MHz over the 6600 GT stock core speed). This result seems to be somewhat inline with other reviews of the XFX 6600 DDR2 already posted around the web so it's reasonable to assume that this is no review unit fluke.
I actually managed to get some testing done at a stratospheric core speed of 550MHz, but odd results and some game crashing forced it down to 520MHz. It's possible that with a beefier cooler, overclocking at this speed would remain stable.
The memory overclocking was not as impressive however as I could only manage a 50MHz overclock before the card started exhibiting errors. 50MHz is nothing to sneeze at, but put in perspective with the core overclock it leaves us wanting more. Even at this speed the DDR2 memory modules did not get anywhere near hot to the touch, so it's unlikely that extra cooling on the modules would help any.
To test the performance results at these overclocked speeds I fired up my Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and Doom3 benchmark scripts. As you can see, the extra boost in clock speeds brings the 6600 DDR2 almost on par with the 6600 GT, slower by only a few fps across the board.
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For just $99 bucks the 6600 DDR2 obviously won't let you go tearing through F.E.A.R. at 1600x1200 with loads of anti-aliasing, but for a budget card it's impressive to see how well the 6600 DDR2 performs. It's pretty close to the 6600 GT and gives the X700 Pro a good run for it's money, and actually beating it in many cases, even where ATI traditionally has the advantage. Compared to its market competitor, the X1300 Pro, it's not even close. The 6600 DDR2 soundly defeats it in every single performance test.
Looking around some of the popular online sites it seems that the XFX 600 DDR2 is going for a little over the current MSRP of the card ($117 at Newegg), while the X1300 Pro is hovering around $100 (Sapphire's X1300 Pro is currently going for $99 at Newegg). While the X1300 Pro currently seems to be cheaper on the street, the performance advantage you get with the 6600 DDR2 more than makes up for $18 extra.
I noticed on the XFX website that the review unit I've been sent and the one they list differ significantly. The same ordering code on the review unit leads to a card on xfxforce.com which has dual-DVI and a different (better looking) cooler. I asked XFX about this and they informed me that the shipping cards will indeed feature dual-DVI outputs, which neatly explains why there were two DVI-to-VGA adapters in the bundle.
Overclocking the card yielded extremely impressive results. My unit overclocked to 520MHz, up 120MHz from the already overclocked speed of 400MHz. This exceeds the 6600 GT stock core speed of 500MHz, allowing the 6600 DDR2 to keep pace with it in the games I tested. Memory overclocking was good, up 50MHz over the stock setting, though a little underwhelming when compared with the core overclock.
Overall the 6600 DDR2 package is very impressive, even more so for a budget part. It is fast enough to handle most gaming tasks even on a relatively low spec machine, it has a nice bundle for a budget priced card, and it overclocks like crazy. This is easily one of the best graphics card values around.
Verdict
Officially meant to fill the performance gap between the 6600 and the 6600 GT, and unofficially meant as a response to ATI's Radeon X1300 Pro, the 6600 DDR2 succeeds on both counts.
XFX GeForce 6600 DDR2
Lost
Survivor
