"X1600PRO, X800GT/GTO/GTO2 versus GeForce 6600GT" confrontation
ASUS X1600PRO 256 MB
The video card is shipped in a box whose size is typical of a high-end product, and if there were bonus bundle items, then you won't do without a handle to carry it around.
The bundled set inside the rich box is not that abundant: a user's manual; 4 CDs with games - Xpand Rally, Savage, BillyBlade, Mashed; 2 CDs with drivers, software and manuals; a 15-pin D-Sub/DVI adapter; a S-Video/Composite adapter.
The board is made of red textolyte and is quite compact in size. The cooling system covers the GPU and memory chips on the front side.
The card does not require additional power - there is even no pad for installing the respective connector. That means the power consumption of the card should be modest and fit within the maximum 75W provided by the PCI-Express 16x slot. To output image, there is a digital DVI and analogous D-Sub outputs, as well as a TV-out in the form of a S-Video connector.
The cooling system is fastened with 4 spring-loaded screws. A quiet fan provides airing of the fully copper heat-pipe radiator. As the thermal interface, a thermal paste similar to KPT-8 (for the GPU) and heat-conductive spacers (for the memory) are used. Although cooling of the video memory on the front side has little practical sense, the memory chips on the reverse side of the board are not cooled.
Under the cooling system, the RV 530 Pro manufactured on the 41st week of year 2005 is hidden. The GPU offers 12 pixel pipelines with 4 texture units and 5 vertex processors. The operating clock speed is 500 MHz. The memory data exchange bus is 128-bit wide.
The video card is equipped with 256 MB of memory onboard made as eight DDR2 chips (4 on each side of the board) made by Infineon. The access time is 2.5 ns. The memory runs at 780 MHz, which is 20 MHz below the nominal value.
The GPU manufactured following the 90-nm process technology with a good cooling system proved pretty pliant to overclocking. The video card was even able functioning at 650 MHz, but the image was abundant with artifacts. We were able to attain good-quality image through reducing the GPU clock speed to 610 MHz. We failed to make the memory run at frequencies higher than 822 MHz, which is no wonder for 2.5 ns chips.
Sapphire X1600PRO 128 MB
For Sapphire, a box is not as important as what is inside. Although the package is of the proprietary design. you can't escape from humanoids bearing the CrossFire.
On the bottom side, the box is not as cosmic but no less attractive. Let's not find fault with generality of the phrases, but you simply can't pass by the large inscription "256 bit memory". The inscription is not made in the eye-catching style, so we even didn't notice it at first.
It's hard to say whether it was a blunder or a a marketing trick, or perhaps a search of hidden potentials. The official sources do not confirm availability of 256-bit memory bus in Radeon X1600PRO. The specifications inform of a bi-directional 256-bit internal circular bus which is a feature of the X1000 architecture, but these are not the 256-bit to access the RAM of which the average buyer thinks on seeing familiar figures on the box. Therefore, marketing manipulates with facts to the maximum advantage.
The video card comes bundled with the following items: a CD with drivers, a 15-pin D-Sub/DVI adapter, S-Video/Composite and S-Video/HDTV adapters, a S-Video cable, and a Composite cable.
Almost all the front side of the board made of blue textolyte is hidden by a single-tier cooling system. Perhaps there were reasons why such a big radiator is used. The reverse side of the board is free of important components.
To plug in a monitor, there are DVI and D-Sub outputs. There is also the TV-out.
Under the cooling system which is fastened with merely two screws, there is the GPU thickly stained with "silver" paint. The memory chips can also yield heat to the radiator through a pretty sticky thermal spacer. Unfortunately, it is not positioned precisely in all the places, so some of the chips almost have no contact with the radiator.
The cooling system is made fully of aluminum. The fan of the video cards does not operate loudly, but nor is noiseless anyway. It is heard especially distinctly upon the system start.
It took us quite a lot of effort to rub the "silver" paint off the GPU RV 540 Pro. The chip was made on the 46th week of the last year. The operating clock speed is 500 MHz.
The video card features in the use of GDDR3 memory. The 128 MB memory running at 1000 MHz is assembled of four Samsung 2.0 ns chips. On this photo, you can clearly see that the thermal spacer does not cover all the chip but only a corner - the same situation is with the remaining chips.
Probably, the aluminum cooling system or unsuccessful choice of thermal paste or its excess, or partial lack of some memory chips prevented us from overclocking the video card successfully. For the chip, the clock speed boost amounted to 60 MHz, i.e. up to merely 560 MHz, which is much lower than 610 MHz in the ASUS video card. As to the memory - we failed to overclock it completely - even under a 2-3 MHz raise of the frequency, artifacts came up.
Point of View GeForce 6600GT 256 MB
You can recognize the produce of Point of View from a distance due to its eye-catching package. Perhaps, it is one of the ways to attract the buyers' attention.
The video card is equipped with the following "gentleman's kit": a 15-pin D-Sub/DVI adapter, an adapter for additional power supply, an S-Video cable, a user's manual, and a drivers CD.
The card is assembled on a blue textolyte board. On the front side, there is a GPU under the radiator and half the memory chips. The remaining memory chips are on the reverse side of the PCB. The card requires additional power supply, because the increased video memory capacity needs more power.
To output image, DVI, D-Sub, and TV-out connectors are used. The card offers no functionality to input video because the required chip is missing, but there is a pad for its installation, i.e. you can come across versions with VIVO functionality.
The cooling system of the video card is quite modest - a painted aluminum radiator (with white thermal paste) and a not very quiet fan. The memory chips offer no cooling at all.
The NV43 (6600GT) GPU is of revision A4 and was manufactured on the 42nd week of year 2005. The chip runs at 500 MHz, offers 8 pixel pipelines, 3 vertex processors, and is fully compatible to DirectX 9.0c.
The card is equipped with 256 MB of GDDR3 video memory made in the BGA package, 4 chips on each side of the PCB. It uses Samsung chips of 2 ns access time. The nominal operating speed of the card is 1000 MHz.
Despite the rather simple system for cooling and lack of such memory, we were able to raise the performance of the card through overclocking. The GPU was running stably at 560 MHz, and the memory - at 1120 MHz. That allowed to accelerate graphics processing by additional 10%.
 |
Top Stories: |
 |
 |
|
MoBo:
| |
|
|
VGA Card:
|
|
|
|
CPU & Memory:
|
|
