ati x600 vs nvidia 6600, pci express?

[terrymx]

i'm gonna build a 939 pc, but i'm not up to date with video card technology today. can anyone let me know which is newer and has more horse power and which is more bang for the buck.

i found a msi x600xt 128mb with 500mhz core clock and 740mhz memory clock for $108.

i found a asus 6600 128mb with 300mhz and 550mz for $113.

is there any stability issue with either of them? i've been using the radeon9800pro and i cant stand the ati driver which give me so much problems. on the other hand i dont want to support nvidia.

also should i get 256mb over 128mb? are the 256mb version faster than 128mb now?

also, the mobo i am going to be using is a dfi lan party which supoprt two pci express. does it require me to use two video card to work or just one? if i upgrade from one vid card to two vid card, how much performance increase will i expected?

i'm not looking to build the fastest machine, just decent enough to play the new games smoothly. thanks.

 

[XxATOLxX]

I really recommend upgrading to a 6600GT, it currently is the best bang for the buck card right now. Its really worth the extra 40 bucks since it will last you a couple years.

 

[terrymx]

shows how much i know about whats going on. seem like the x600 is crap:
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/...x600-1_12.html

on the other hand i really cant spend $170 on that 6600gt.

 

[450]

6600 and O/C to GT speeds?

 

[Eagle_Driver]

Quote:

Originally Posted by terrymx shows how much i know about whats going on. seem like the x600 is crap: http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/...x600-1_12.html

Not exactly crap; it's just that the X600XT is a 9600XT that's been ported over to PCI-Express using a bridge chip. In other words, you're getting a previous-generation budget-gamer-level card in the X600XT.

In other words, you get what you pay for.

 

[1UP]

You can't oc a 6600 to GT - it's too crippled with HALF core and mem speeds so no way you can make up for that. Try X700 or save up a bit longer for the 6600GT.

Don't be worrying about stability issues with PCI-E; these AGP issues are history.

I don't quite get your reticence about ATI buggy drivers or evil empire Nvidia - this is old school FUD. They both make decent cards. And what other chipsets you gonna get for pc gaming, anyways?

256 vs 128 - depends, certainly modern games can do with all the memory now for textures, but it depends on the card, depends on what resolution you're running. No point taking 256mb on a bandwidth crippled card running at 1024 x 768.

Two PCI-E - you mean your mobo supports SLI or it's got two PCI-E slots? You don't need to run SLI to get video out of a SLI mobo. Just gives you a nice upgrade option in the future if you want to go SLI. What kind of upgrade to expect? Depends on the card, the game, your cpu, your memory - check articles on anandtech, etc - about 40% max currently in very specific circumstances (ultra high resolutions with full AA/AF).

 

[Stephonovich]

If you can swing it, I'd get a 6800 NU (Non-Ultra, aka just plain 6800) rather than a 6600XX. While they have slower RAM (6600GT has GDDR3), they socre higher overall, especially considering you can unlock the pipes on most of them, and get them up to basically 6800GT speeds. They are, unfortunately, more expensive. The only 128MB version on Newegg I can find is this MSI, for $206. Is it necessary for you to have PCI-E, I wonder? If not, I highly recommend the eVGA 6800NU AGP. $189. I have one, and absolutely love it. Unlocked 16 pipes no problem, and overclocks a decent amount with the stock cooler. I plan on replacing it with an Arctic Silencer soon.