Conclusion

The ASUS N6600 GT/TD’s winning features are cute looks, highest quality of manufacture and crystal-sharp 2D image. The cooling system, regrettably, is not as effective as we might wish: the HSI chip equipped with a simple passive heatsink used to become very hot during our tests. Another drawback of the N6600 GT/TD is the lack of such things as S-Video à RCA adapter or Molex splitter among the accessories. But as we said at the beginning of the review, we may have dealt with a presale version of the product, and off-the-shelf cards may be complemented with everything necessary.

We don’t want to talk long about the performance of this card. It is like any other GeForce 6600 GT AGP would have. That is, it’s high enough for playing most modern games with comfort. The N6600 GT/TD is generally faster than the RADEON 9800 XT, but sometimes finds itself behind it, especially when full-screen anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering are enabled. Well, modern games are so difficult that it’s often not possible to use 4x FSAA on the GeForce 6600 GT AGP or RADEON 9800 XT. Like all graphics cards on NVIDIA’s processors, the ASUS N6600 GT/TD works well with OpenGL applications, so it’s going to suit perfect to people who play shooters from id Software and flight sims.

Today, products based on the NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT AGP chip are in fact the most optimal choice on the mainstream graphics card market. Things may change with the arrival of the AGP version of the RADEON X800 but it’s unclear as when this is going to happen. Until that, the GeForce 6600 GT AGP remains the best choice for any owner of an AGP system who doesn’t want to spend more than $180-230 for the graphics card. Considering the traditionally high prices on ASUS products, we expect the price of the reviewed card to be closer to the second number of the range, but you spend this money to warrant a highest quality of manufacture and excellent image quality in all resolutions. Enthusiasts and overclockers might be interested in the Top Limited Edition of the card that is equipped with faster memory and is clocked at higher frequencies. Overall, the ASUS N6600 GT/TD is almost free from drawbacks and deserves our sincere applause.

Highs:

• Modern architecture
• High performance in current games
• Quiet operation
• Low heat dissipation
• Shader Model 3.0
• Floating-point color representation
• Second-generation PureVideo processor

Lows:

• Scanty accessories
• Bad cooling of the HSI chip