Conclusion

The sector of mainstream graphics cards has accepted a worthy successor to the GeForce FX 5700/5700 Ultra series. As we already know, NVIDIA’s new GeForce 6600 GT GPU surpasses last-generation mainstream graphics cards, but stands on just a slightly higher level of power consumption. It takes almost all of its power from the 12v power rail, and consumes just slightly less power from this line than the NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra does. That’s why my recommendations about the PSU for the GeForce 6800 Ultra (see my report on the power consumption of NVIDIA’s GPUs in contrast to ATI’s chips) are true for the GeForce 6600 Ultra – the power supply unit must have a good current reserve on the 12v line.

The overclockability of the new graphics processor, manufactured with the most advanced 0.11-micron tech process, does not impress me, but does not disappoint either. 23% frequency growth at ordinary overclocking and 28% frequency growth after volt-modding are nice results for a newly-baked reference card. I have reasons to think that overclockability of GPUs on off-the-shelf cards will be at least no worse – the manufacture will be constantly improved, and the cards themselves will be coming out with good cooling systems.

As for the memory, its low overclockability was no surprise for me – practice shows that GDDR3 chips from Samsung do not like to be clocked higher than specified.

The temperatures of the GPU and memory of the reference card were normal in the idle mode and somewhat disturbing in the burn mode. But you should make allowances for the fact that I tested a reference card from NVIDIA with a surprisingly feeble cooler. Off-the-shelf products will surely have more efficient cooling systems.

So, this is what I’m going to be busy with now – waiting for those off-the-shelf graphics cards!