System setup and notes
Hardware and Software
Test Platforms
| Systems | Athlon 64 S939 PCI-Express System | |
| Processor | AMD Athlon 64 4000+ | |
| Mainboard | ABIT AX8 K8T890 | |
| Memory | 1GByte (2x512MB) Corsair XMS3200 XL | Memory timings | 2-2-2-5 1T @ DDR400 |
| Graphics Card #1 | XFX GeForce 6600 DDR2 256MB PCIe (400/800) | |
| Graphics Card #2 | NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT 128MB PCIe (500/1000) | |
| Graphics Card #3 | NVIDIA GeForce 6600 (DDR1) 256MB PCIe (300/550) | |
| Graphics Card #4 | ATI RADEON X1300 Pro 256MB PCIe (600/800) | Graphics Card #5 | ATI RADEON X1300 256 MB PCIe (450/500) | Disk Drive | 160GB Western Digital 160JB IDE |
| Monitor | Dell 2001FP 20.1-inch TFT - 1600x1200 native resolution | |
| BIOS Version | BIOS 13 | |
| Operating System | Windows XP Professional SP2 | |
| Mainboard Software | VIA Hyperion Pro v4.55 | |
Software
NVIDIA ForceWare 81.85 for GeForce 6600 256MB and GeForce 6600 GT
ATI 8.173.2.3-050921a-027133C for ATI-based cards
Futuremark 3DMark05 Build 1.2.0 - AA and AF set via application
DOOM 3 (v1282) Timedemo 1 - AA and AF set via application
Far Cry v1.33 - custom HEXUS benchmark - AA and AF set via application
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory v1.04 - custom HEXUS benchmark - AA and AF set via application
Notes
We'll be looking at the XFX GeForce 6600 DDR2 256MB card's performance against a 500MHz/1000MHz-clocked GeForce 6600 GT card that carries 128MB of onboard memory and retails at around £105. The combination of faster core and memory speeds but smaller framebuffer should provide some interesting results, especially as resolution and image enhancement are increased. We've also added in a vanilla GeForce 6600 256MB card (DDR1) and a couple of ATI RADEON X1300-based SKUs into the mix, and the trio can be considered to be direct competitors in terms of price, performance, and features.
We've not included the £105 ATI RADEON X800 GT 256MB SKU in the following benchmarks because it's a limited edition whose availability cannot be guaranteed in the long-term. ATI's main sub-£100 focus will centre around its X1300 range of GPUs, two of which we've benchmarked here.
In order to appreciate just what's at play here, a simple table lists the main features.
| Card | XFX GeForce 6600 DDR2 256MB | NVIDIA GeForce 6600 256MB | NVIDIA reference GeForce 6600 GT 128MB | ATI RADEON X1300 Pro 256MB | ATI RADEON X1300 256MB |
| Manufacturing process | 110nm | 110nm | 110nm | 90nm | 90nm |
| Interface/speed | PCI-Express | PCI-Express | PCI-Express | PCI-Express | PCI-Express | Onboard memory | 256MB | 256MB | 128MB | 256MB | 256MB | Core speed | 400MHz | 300MHz | 500MHz | 600MHz | 450MHz | Rendering pipelines | 8 | 8 | 8 | 4 | 4 | Fillrate (multi-texturing) | 3.2GTexels/s | 2.4GTexels/s | 4GTexels/s | 2.4GTexels/s | 1.8GTexels/s | Vertex shading units | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | Shader Model | 3.0 | 3.0 | 3.0 | 3.0 | 3.0 | Memory interface | 128-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit | Memory speed | 800MHz | 550MHz | 1000MHz | 800MHz | 500MHz | Memory bandwidth (max) | 12.8GB/s | 8.8GB/s | 16GB/s | 12.8GB/s | 8GB/s | Average online price | £80 | £70 | £105 | £85 | £65 |
As you can see, the XFX card sits inbetween the GeForce 6600 and 6600 GT SKUs, filling the gap, both in terms of price and performance, that has existed for a while. The interesting aspect to note will be just how it compares to the newest iteration of ATI's RADEON-based cards. Let's find out.
