[buurrnn]

Im gonna build a new comp in a week but still cant decide what videocard i should pick. seems like geforce 6600gt is best bang for the buck but there are soo many to choose from.

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814122208

This one got pretty decent ratings at tomshardware.com but also cost 35 more than the cheapest one. is it worth it or just go for the cheaper one? any recommendations will help.

Also i dont see many reviews on the geforce 6800 non gt. is it close to performance of 6800gt?

thanks for help

[Advertisements]

If you are going for a 6600GT the best one is probably the gigabyte heat pipe one, you might want to look at the vanilla X800s. GT is a wee but more powerful you want a 6800 if you can afford it but they are an waful lotta money.

[warriorscot]

If you are going for a 6600GT the best one is probably the gigabyte heat pipe one, you might want to look at the vanilla X800s. GT is a wee but more powerful you want a 6800 if you can afford it but they are an waful lotta money.

[killingalchemy]

Warriorscot and I don't really see eye to eye on these things, but I'll say the x800s are a good deal... but I'm just not a fan of ATI
I'm getting the Gigabyte 6600GT. if you have enough money, I'd say get a 6800GT. the 6800GT I believe has more pipelines than the 6800 and probably a few more thigns.. I haven't really looked at a 6800 vs 6800GT.

Oh, and that Leadtek you linked to us is pretty good... Leadtek is good quality.

Edited by killingalchemy, 13 June 2005 - 01:26 PM.

[buurrnn]

thanks for the info. I checked out reviews and gigabytes seems pretty good. Ive been avoiding 6800gt cuz the 7800 series is gonna come out and probably way out perform it.

[scrushmaster]

First off I would go with the BFG geforce 6600 gt oc, just because of the warranty and you can get it cheapest at monarchcomputers.com, also if you are using an sli compatible system then [bleep] the 6600 and get the 6800 because then you can wait til the price on it drops and pop another 6800 in it. That is if its in your price range.

[warriorscot]

If you use the upcoming release of new cards as an excuse not to get something them you will never get a pc there is always something new on the way because even as they are about to release the 7 series cards they are working on the upgrades to the 7 series and the 8series.

It doesnt matter if it will outperform it if you are looking at buying a 6600gt you cant afford a 7800. Those things are beasts of cards they draw more power than the top of the range cpus and are absolutely huge quite a few motherboards wont be able to fit them on. Aparently they run very hot so cooling even if it wasnt an issue now it certainly would be if you had one. So dont bother about new release cards they are not meant for mere mortals like all of us, they are meant for the elite technophiles with huge super rigs and advanced cooling.

but there will be lower end 7 series cards but not for a while so dont even think about them.

[killingalchemy]

First off I would go with the BFG geforce 6600 gt oc, just because of the warranty and you can get it cheapest at monarchcomputers.com, also if you are using an sli compatible system then [bleep] the 6600 and get the 6800 because then you can wait til the price on it drops and pop another 6800 in it. That is if its in your price range.

I've heard good things about BFG. lifetime warranty I believe.. and also slightly oc'd out of the box? is that right?

Leadtek also has a lifetime warranty.
a lot of 6600GTs are the same.. I'd just make sure that it's 1000Mhz. it really jsut comes down to personal preference. I chose the Gigabyte because it was blue and it matched my gigabyte board(which is also blue) but I may be jsut a little pansy that likes to make the inside of my case look as good as possible.. lol.

[buurrnn]

the thing im worried about is if the 6800gt will run the unreal 3.0 engine well. That seems like the next milestone in graphic engines. i remember people were buying radeon 9700's when they were preparing for the release of halflife 2. that didnt turn out well.

anyways im probably gonna go with a shuttle sff pc. which 6800gt is the best deal. i remembered a month ago they were going for about 300 after rebates but now they are back up to 350 range. the price jump is too great for me.

i was also thinking about how the new consoles are gonna affect the video card since they will have to come out with something better than the console pretty quickly. doesnt really make sense to sell a video card for like 500 when you can get a whole system for 300 and be faster.

[scrushmaster]

Leadtek vs BFG 6600
Pros for leadtek
Cheaper, also has lifetime warranty.
Pros for BFG
Life time warranty, Higher overall quality, Overclocked slightly (not a huge difference)

Trying to overclock breaches warranties
Both cards have GDDR3, GDDR3 is a must.
Besides that there is not much of a difference go price hunt!

[killingalchemy]

Leadtek vs BFG 6600
Pros for leadtek
Cheaper, also has lifetime warranty.
Pros for BFG
Life time warranty, Higher overall quality, Overclocked slightly (not a huge difference)

Trying to overclock breaches warranties
Both cards have GDDR3, GDDR3 is a must.
Besides that there is not much of a difference go price hunt!

it really does come down to how much you want to pay and what you want it to look like. haha. MOST of them are the same. I got the Gigabyte 6600GT.. I just liked hte lok of it... and it was 1000mhz and it had 8 pixel pipelines. some were 800mhz and didn't even list how many pixelpipelines it had. so I decided to go with the Gigabyte I can't wait til it comes in.

[warriorscot]

The turbo version of the gigabyte with the heatpipe is clocked at 1190Mhz. Its the only model you can buy its a fairly hard card to find. Leadteks are good but they are pretty cheapy lookin cards the cooler on it is crap and its general quality could be better.
In terms of consoles, they are fully optimised machines meant only to play games meant for them. You dont get the flexibility in a console which is half the reason to buy a pc. IF you have seen a decent overclocked 6800Ultra the graphics really are about as good as a console, it gets to a point where only another machine can tell the difference in quality. There are also alot of tricks console makers use to make things better.

The unreal engine is obviously goin to run well, as the newer engines have to be very scalable look at source engine it is of the same calibre as unreal and runs on cards down to 3-4 series unreal will probably run on everything above 5 series.

Edited by warriorscot, 16 June 2005 - 05:36 AM.

[warriorscot]

I learned the rather interseting fact today that the PS3 the most powerful of the new gaming machines use a pair of 6800 ultras in SLi. So really the only advantage is the cpu, which if anyone ever manages to figure away to remove and put in a pc ps3 sales will go through the roof.