GeForce 6600 GT Retro Review

The 6000 series was a big uplift!
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Video Cards
→ GeForce FX 5900XT
→ Radeon 9800 XL
→ GeForce 6600 GT
→ GeForce 7600 GS
Testing platform
→ AsRock 775Dual-VSTA
→ Core2 Duo E6600
→ 2 GB DDR2 667 MHz
→ Windows XP SP2 x86
→ Catalyst 6.12
→ ForceWare 176.15
Benchmarks
→ 3DMark99, 3DMark 2001 SE, 3DMark03, 3DMark05
→ Far Cry, Doom 3, FEAR
→ Quake II, MDK2, Return to Castle Wolfenstein
FRAPS benchmarking
→ Crysis, Oblivion, Tomb Raider Legend, Enclave, Half-Life 2, Battlefront II
#retro #computer

[@skorpionrazor]

Thanks for the video! A great tribute for this card. I had the vanilla 6600 pciE version in 2004 paired with a P4 Prescott 775 3.2ghz but one day it melted (probably due to PSU stress) Now I've finally acquired a 6600 GT for the same build! Windows XP experience at its best :)

[@MidnightGeek99]

Thanks, I've also had a vanilla AGP 6600, paired with a...Athlon XP 1700+. What can I say, those were the days :)

[@dznuttzonyachin7499]

flashing the bios and volt mods are fun 👍

[@bbertram2]

DUDE, this is awesome! I love benchmarking and its what I'm doing each night on my old rigs. I run Win7 on my rigs if they have PCI-E. However today I received my very own AsRock 775dual-vsta from Poland!!! The very same you have and they included a E6600 CPU...the very same you have. This is going to be fun! Now I can compare against your AGP leaderboard, awesome!! I will try and test on XP and Win7. As well I have a 7800gs AGP coming in the main, supposed to be here by end of the month.

[@MidnightGeek99]

Awesome! This particular board is rather strange, with the dual slots, and as soon as I get a "proper" 775 board with AGP, I will test the performance for both AGP and PCIe slots, to see if this board is adequate for benchmarking. The 7800 GS AGP is a beast, congrats!

[@bbertram2]

@@MidnightGeek99 That will be interesting to see. I scored a 7800 gs and Audigy 2 for $55 cdn shipped. I was lucky to find it.

[@mOddEdLiKeHeLL]

Loving the new chart. Didn't realize that the 6600GT was that much faster than the top-end FX series cards. Leaves me to wonder how much of a difference the mainstream FX5500 and FX5600 were compared to 6600GT. Would be cool to see a video between 6600GT, 7600GT, 8600GT and 9600GT.

[@kunka592]

The FX 5900 XT is slower than the normal FX 5900. The FX 5900 Ultra is the highest FX 5900, excluding the FX 5950s. The FX series was pretty fast in DX8, and awful in DX9 or at least when using the new shader models.

[@TheVanillatech]

FX5600 Ultra was competing with the Radeon 9600 series, which is why ATI launched the 9600Pro. They were priced similar. The Radeon won. The FX series wasn't meant to compete with Nvidias 6XXX series. Depending on what games you played, the FX5900 / FX5950 were still blisteringly fast cards for a long time after release, but only on OpenGL / DX8 titles. There were not many DX9 titles out around time of release so it wasn't a big deal. Nvidia definitely took the lead though - only the X850 could match (and exceed) Nvidias best offering, but ATI were late to that party, too!

[@MidnightGeek99]

The FX 5900XT was not a high-end card, just mainstream. The FX 5500 is just a slightly faster 5200, so, crappy... The FX 5600 was...there, nothing special. I would do such a video (from 6600 GT to 9600 GT) once I get the cards :)

[@mOddEdLiKeHeLL]

I thought the 5900 models were the high-end, 5200 low tier crap and then the 5500/5600 was "mid-tier"?

[@zhongyangli]

@@TheVanillatech The radeon 9600 pro was launched because radeon 9500 series it substituted was too costly to produce. It had nothing to do with the geforce 5600 ultra. During the r300 generation ATI felt little pressure from the geforce fx series.

[@luheartswarm4573]

"let's see if he is enjoying himself.. Yup, almost 500 fps seems enjoyable" I almost spat my drink, I love you so much!

[@MidnightGeek99]

Thanks :D

[@outtheredude]

I've got the 256MB GDDR3 XFX 6600 GT AGP version, with full PCI Express clock speeds in my Socket 939 Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Windows XP Pro 32-bit retro build. I've heard it said that the 6600 GT AGP was gimped by having just 128 MB of video memory along with a somewhat reduced default clock speeds over the PCI Express version. I figure from your video that my XFX 6600 GT runs a bit closer to the 256MB 7600 GS than the stock AGP version. Using 93.71 drivers with my older XP build though.

[@MidnightGeek99]

That's right, at least to this 7600 GS that I was using, the silent ones might have lower clocks than the "normal" ones. XFX were known for their overclocked cards, I had a great XFX card myself, the 7900 GS Extreme.

[@3dfxvoodoocards6]

Like! The 6600GT was an excellent mid-range card.

[@MidnightGeek99]

It really was, and it's still a great card today, for Windows XP systems.

[@TheVanillatech]

The 7600GS AGP (I had a BFG card one time) was an insane overclocker. I mean, 70% on the core and 50% on the VRAM. For it's price, if you were blessed by the silicon gods, it was a very nice card.

[@MidnightGeek99]

Well, try to overclock this silent version, I dare you :)

[@TheVanillatech]

@@MidnightGeek99 Yeah I got lucky with mine. It came brand new, pulled from a new buy, the kid didn't want it. I was like .... meh. Had a 7600GT back in the day, wasn't overly impressed. But for shits (and giggles) I OCed it in a C2D system and was shocked. SHOCKED! At how good it was. And so stable. I knew, that if you kept that OC, the card wouldn't last - maybe 1.5 years? But still, back in the day, that'd be enough time. Amazing little card! :D Look great too. Blue PCB, nice cooler.

[@TheVanillatech]

This one is going to be great! 6600GT contender for the best gamers card ever. Picture a GTX970, but costing HALF as much on launch and giving the same awesome performance, rivaling the top end cards but priced clearly in the mid range. GTX970 doesn't get a chance at being a "great" card because 3.5GB VRAM & very overpriced compared to what the midrange should be priced at. Also the R9 290 beat it in terms of price performance. The HD4770 is also a contender, it came very late to the HD4XXX series but for it's specs, it was insanely fast due to being fabbed on a newer process and coming with blistering fast VRAM. It was also priced insanely low, 60% less than the HD4850 but with half the power draw and 80% of the performance. The 6600GT was definitely Nvidias finest hour in terms of giving gamers a good deal. It all went downhill fast after that!

[@MidnightGeek99]

The HD 4770 was a really nice card, I've bought in the WOTLK days, and I remember that the game run great, compared to my previous 7900 GS. And yes, although it had just 128-bit bus, the memory speed was out of this world, almost as fast as the HD 4870.

[@rtmclean484]

Definitely got to add AMD/ATI's HD 7790 and the Nvidia 750ti to this list of best ever midrange cards!

[@TheVanillatech]

@@rtmclean484 750Ti was a great card - cos as an entry level card it COULD GAME! Very few cards since the Geforce 2 MX could game at entry level. It also offered Maxwell features like fast video decoding. It comes close! Let me tell you! But it got marred in those muddy waters of the first Crypto Mining boom. If it wasn't for that, it would be up there, being considered. But in reality, is was just the best low end card ever offered - but only when it had a LOW END PRICE - for very short time in its lifespan.

[@TheVanillatech]

@@rtmclean484 7790 wasn't even a thing. At least - in the West. It was the XBOX card, nobody shipped it here - except for DELL and other OEMS. Totally outclassed in terms of price / availability / perfomance by the likes of the 7870 Ghz (amazing card) and it's successor the 280X (7970Ghz). Two AMAZING cards, thanks for stellar driver support from AMD.

[@TheVanillatech]

@@MidnightGeek99 Let me tell you, back in the day, I took a break from PC gaming. I'd been working a really terrible job, making communication cables for tanks and stuff, through the ministry of defense. There were NO WOMEN THERE! All a bunch of ex-engineers, living out their end days, making up their pensions. Then one day, a totally hot girl turned up and I hit on her, but I got shot down. So I left the job. It was too intense for me. I took a long needed rest from life - for about 3 months - I just relaxed. Out the end of it, I got a new job and found this totally hot girl and started dating her. Then I decided, after a 3 year break, to get back into gaming! So I checked the market! Figured out the best DEAL at the time, as a C2D e6300 in a good Motherboard (so I could OC) and a 4770. So I bought 2 4770's from eBay for £76 each, put them in crossfire, and everything flew - for such a low price! I had a faster computer than 99% of my friends, for a fraction of what they paid. Even a single 4770 was ripping through modern games! I got two XFX variants and back then, ATI's drivers were amazing. 100% scaling. And yeah, I didn't be aware of the low memory rates of 128bits, cos all I saw was performance. Great introduction, back to gaming. Problem was, my new girl, she'd call me or text me every hour "WHERE are you? Why aren't you here watching FRIENDS with me?". Id say "Cos i'm conquering shit in Age Of Mythology, or dismembering people in FEAR!". She made it an ultimatum, if I didn't go spend time with her, I'd lose her!. So I made a tactical decsion! I kept both, but played both VERY carefully. Using my Dad's health as an excuse! I kept that machine for years. It served it's purpose. I just loved playing my own games, not interested in new! STALKER. Age of Mythology, Doom 3 etc. But then, in 2011, I decided to get a new machine for Starcraft II! So I finally let thsoe 4770's go! But I DIDNT ! I kept them! Simply built a new machine! By then, that old hot girlfriend, she'd gotten me into WAY too much trouble! So I'd found a new girl, had kids! Got a great new job! So I figured, brand new build! I gave her 50% of all the money I made, silently saved quids here quids there! Then I made a new machine, HD6970 and i3 530 OC, to play Starcraft II and Wolfenstein New Order! ;) She couldn't complain! Great times. She still got all my money! :D

[@Ivan-pr7ku]

I have found memories of my two 6600GTs back in the day. The first one was AGP, but I quickly upgraded to the same brand/model when moved to PCIe. This card was extremely popular -- probably the first main-stream performance SKU to dominate so clearly the sales, considering how good value it offered compared to the previous high-end products: FX5900 and Radeon 9800 and at the same time bringing full hardware support for Direct X 9.0c and HD video decoding.

[@MidnightGeek99]

That's right, and the HD video decoding was important also, I remember watching movies like a "king", after getting my GeForce 6600.

[@bbertram2]

Very good video my man! Fun to watch!

[@MidnightGeek99]

Thank you, I'm glad you've enjoyed it :)

[@simant5361]

Played trough most of Oblivion with this card, fond memories

[@MidnightGeek99]

I've played Oblivion on a 6600 AGP vanilla, but I've played the most on a 7900 GS.

[@zhongyangli]

The VRam of the AGP version is generally downclocked a bit (from 500 MHz to 450 MHz), so it still has some overclocking headroom.

[@MidnightGeek99]

That's right, mine has 900 MHz memory clocks. OC is not worth it...I'd rather have the card intact for many years, than 5% more performance :)

[@XXXXHHHHHTTTTTHHHHHH]

You did it you mad man! The Asrock duel vista! I still use it lol. Did you get that custom German bios that allows it to use newer core 2 duo processors?

[@MidnightGeek99]

:) I did not use any BIOS, and with this current one I can't use a E6750 for example...well, I can use it, but it stays at a lower frequency. I guess the E6600 is enough for AGP cards until the 6000 series.

[@CaptainCanuck1975]

I had an FX 5200 for about a year, then finally bought a 6600GT because the FX was so bad I couldn't take it anymore. The difference between the two cards was massive.

[@MidnightGeek99]

I bet! What CPU did you have?

[@CaptainCanuck1975]

@@MidnightGeek99 AMD Athlon 2400+ or 2500+.

[@evilqtip7098]

I loved your review on the Geforce Fx series... I have bought back in the day 2 x 7600 GTS SLI I got them for some reason on sale $99.99 each at Future shop So I took 2 I played Quake Arena and Quake 2 Aliens vr Predator Return to Castle Wolfenstein Other great games later on line... I was shocked how well they worked and the smooth gameplay I was very pleased.. I never realized how great those cards were back in the day when everything was booming. I got addicted to gaming when those games were made I can even play GTA also love Serious Sam..1 & 2 Plus Half Life wow so much fun Half-life 2 the graphics Oh almost forgot my Favorite FarCry 1 and 3 !!!! Best Games for me of course TOMBRAIDER!

[@facopse]

I had a 6600 GT in my first-ever computer. Guess I was lucky because I had no idea what I actually bought. To me it was just a '500-Euro-Computer'.

[@MidnightGeek99]

6600 GT in a 500 EUR, as far as I remember, was ok!

[@Neksus-M06]

Well deserved thanks! It was crazy when this card came out.

[@MidnightGeek99]

Thanks. Yes, crazy was a good word...but yet again, the FX series before was also crazy, but on the other side of the spectrum.

[@natr0n]

I have an msi 6600gt agp somewhere. I have a lot of things to organize and almost all my older cards disappeared.

[@MidnightGeek99]

Where did they disappear? :O

[@Samopal.VanoZz]

Yeah.. they dissappear sometimes..

[@Pulverrostmannen]

I have two 6600GT 128MB and two 6600 256MB cards. I had most of them since new and I love them, it is the ultimate win98 card in my book. I got the overclockable Gigabyte passive GT card which is a performance beast for pretty much any old game!

[@MidnightGeek99]

Win 98, lol. What drivers are you using for 98?

[@Pulverrostmannen]

@@MidnightGeek99 I am using Version 77.72 I found it works good for the stuff I play. For the gigabyte OC edition card I also use the Gigabyte VGA Utility build 2005-08-16

[@ATomRileyA]

I ordered one of these for Christmas one year as i was planning to SLI them later on, i ended up getting sent a ATI X800 XT PE back when they were extremely hard to get, I actually tried to phone them up as i felt like i had got someone else's card by mistake and felt bad some guy would be getting my card instead lol, but they were so unhelpful on the phone and just started fobbing me off before i could even explain i ended up just keeping it instead. Still have the X800 XT PE, was a great card and i used it for a good while till i had to upgrade to a faster one.

[@MidnightGeek99]

I would love to have an X800 XT card, they are AMAZING. I would trade my X1900 XTX for that anytime :D

[@FOIL_FRESH]

*while patting tnt2 m64's head* "you did good. you did real good." on a side note, i have never played battlefront 2. is there a specfic version i should chase down? i'll be playing on an athlon ii x2 3.2ghz and 9800gtx+ 512mb. thanks for your efforts in the field of observing framerates and waiting long times for benchmarks. we salute you!

[@MidnightGeek99]

Thanks! I don't have the box version of Battlefront 2, so I'm using the GoG version, which runs great on Windows XP, no issues whatsoever. Also, pick the 2005 version, not 2017 :))

[@jacquesdebruin796]

Back in 2004 I had the leadtek winfast 6600gt 128mb agp paired with amd Athlon 64 3200+ lter swapped it out for the sapphire hd 3850 512mb agp. I still have them both.

[@MidnightGeek99]

Amazing combo for 2004, very fast PC. Also, it's nice that you already have them!

[@jacquesdebruin796]

​@@MidnightGeek99It might have been early 2005 not completely certain but yes it was a decent system for the time and cheap compared what hardware costs these days. I only noticed it starting to struggle when crysis came out but I think this was true for the majority if they even could run it.

[@downundergarage6968]

The 7600 GS is in the same segment as non GT 6600 ie vanilla 6600. To see how the equivalent segment has moved you would need to have a look at the 7600 GT vs 6600 GT. Still good to see that 2 years later the bottom of the mid range was as fast as the mid to high mid range from only 2 years ago.

[@MidnightGeek99]

Everything you've said is 100% acurrate. I'm planning to do a dedicated video for this, 6600 GT vs 7600 GT vs 8600 GT vs 9600 GT.

[@XXXXHHHHHTTTTTHHHHHH]

I ran the core 2 duo overclocked to 3.64 GHZ (1065 FSB) and a Radeon HD 5800 on my ASrock.

[@MidnightGeek99]

The same motherboard that I'm using?

[@XXXXHHHHHTTTTTHHHHHH]

@@MidnightGeek99 Yes you just have to get a bios that was posted on a forum that I'm sure you can find. Some German dudes made it so it could run a newer core 2 duo. When I first put in the processor it would boot up saying it had like 250 GHZ and I was like well that doesn't seem right. Then I found the bios and it could run it and overclock it to the max. The absolute max FSB overclock before it would crash which was 1065 on a stock fan. Try it out! With a radeon HD 5800 the PCI 4 x is not bottle necking it. My mistake was putting Windows 7 on it which was unstable but for XP gaming I believe it's one of the fastest set ups possible.

[@todorsamardzhiev144]

Banger of a midrange card back in its day.

[@MidnightGeek99]

The best!

[@antonelrotaru20]

Howdy. After successfully retrofitting my Windows 98 PC😊, I also retrofitted my Windows XP one. 😄Well, I had the PC, a Core2Duo E6500 at 2.93GHz, Gigabyte GA-G41M-ES2L motherboard which has full support for Windows XP (drivers on the original CD), 2x2GB DDR2 800MHz, Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS (Gold Edition), 512GB Samsung 860EVO SATA SSD and Windows XP SP2. As a video card, I installed an NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT 512MB DDR3/256-bit PCI-E card today, but it was not an easy task. To install the video driver (332.21-desktop-winxp-32bit-english), I needed the .NET Framework 4.0. But to install .NET Framework,🤨 it asked me to install windowsinstaller-kb893803-v2-x86. 🤐🤨After that, to install Windows Installer Version 3.1 or higher.🤐🤨😐 After I installed kb893803-v2-x86 and Windows Installer Component (wic_x86_enu) it asked me to update Windows XP from SP2 to SP3. 🤨🤐🤔😐😑Only after I did the update I was able to install the video driver but boy, what a fantastic system it turned out. 👍👍👍 My system scored 33292 points in 3DMark99max, 42904 points in 3DMark 2001 SE and 34175 points in 3DMark03 which is far above your results. But it's understandable. I used a much more powerful video card than the ones you tested. Obvious.😁 Okay, I want to replay some titles like Quake II, Unreal, Doom, Return to Castle Wolfenstein and some NFS titles. Oh... and I want to experience Fear, Farcry, etc., games that support EAX. And although Quake II's timedemo ran at 936.1fps at 1280x960 resolution (that's what my Samsung SyncMaster 913N monitor supports) and with all details at maximum (AF, AA, 32bit, etc.), I noticed that both Qyuake II and RTCW) are somehow limited to a maximum of 91fps in gameplay. I understood that there are GOG variants that solve this shortcoming, but even so, it's excellent. In the old days I didn't have the hardware to be able to enjoy the resolution and detail that the system now supports. So that's great. Anyway, you're doing a great job. You are so easy and fun to watch. I love your accent by the way!🤗🤗🤗

[@MidnightGeek99]

Retrofitting is nice! I feel your pain regarding the 332 nvidia driver, I also had to install a lot of stuff that I did not need...I hate this. I also love playing way older games at absurd settings. Thanks for the support :)

[@tigerwoods2814]

Yes!!!!!!!!,Nice .The 6600GT was the first thing that blow me away as a Kid

[@MidnightGeek99]

I only had a 6600, but yeah, the performance increase from GF2 MX was huge.

[@piotrx1064]

Good video, but it would be nice if you test more in 1280x1024- it was very popular res. Thanks in advance

[@MidnightGeek99]

Thank you! YOU are right, maybe I should quit using 800x600, and use 1280x960 instead, which BTW, is the correct resolution, 5:4 sucks :)

[@piotrx1064]

@@MidnightGeek99 Yeah, i know that it is 5:4, but LCD monitors of that era had 1280x1024 native res, not 1280x960. Anyway, the difference in performance should be very minor, so test which one you prefer 😉

[@Fucklesticks]

I got one of these in 06 for my birthday. It was the first nice videocard i'd owned, before that i always had to get by with bottom end gpus, i was actually coming from the Geforce 2 Mx.

[@MidnightGeek99]

Sweet, I've also upgraded from a GF2 MX to a 6600...it was epic!

[@Krisztian5HUN]

16 times the fps!!! xD (by Todd) :D

[@MidnightGeek99]

The man, the Legend :D

[@P9HL2BETA]

Was lucky to get my hands on both a standard 6600 (Gigabyte Silent-Pipe) and and GT version from PNY for cheap. In the standard version I got 5634 points in 3DMark03 and almost 8000 points with the GT (used ForceWare 93.71 for both tests). I imagine the Prescott 2.8Ghz might drag the cards down a bit though xD

[@MidnightGeek99]

Yeah, a 2.8 Prescott is way too slow for the 6600 GT :)

[@Pidalin]

I have 3 GHz prescott right now and in open space scence in FarCry with CPU bottleneck, FPS with 6600GT is the same as with HD4650 AGP and X1950GT AGP, so yes, it's very bottlenecked, but when you OC it to like 3,5 GHz, you will get pretty impressive results, it can move from like 75 FPS to 95 in my test scene, but OC prescott to 3,5 or more GHz and make it permanently stable is not easy, there is problem with stability of RAM and with temperature of mosfets around socket. When I try it with later computer with C2D and 7600GT PCI-e, there is like 4 times higher FPS in this test scene. 😀

[@Synthematix]

I had the 7800GS agp card, it scored 29,395 in 3dmark2001se

[@mesicek7]

Had the 128mb gddr3 version. If you have the 256mb version could you do a comparison between the two?

[@MidnightGeek99]

I don't have the 256 version, but it will be interesting to se what games benefit from the extra ram.

[@semihgursu]

How about Windows 98 SE? I have setup P4 3.0 GHZ 478 socket with FX 5700, i got this card last week installed latest win9x nvidia drivers. Everything works fine but yesterday i tried Resident Evil 3 Nemesis game unplayable shuttering lag with FX 5500 last time i played without any issue. Could you test it also with Windows 98?

[@MidnightGeek99]

A 5700 is more than enough for that Win98 gaming goodness. With a 6000 series you'll have more headaches and problems, the extra FPS is not worth it.

[@amortalbeing]

you forgot hd4670 agp version which was the fastest agp at the time! I had nvidia GeForce fx5200 128mb followed by Albtron's fx5500eq 256mb, followed by gforce 6600gt (which I purchased second hand after selling our ps1 console) followed by ATI hd4670 1g agp. all of our gpus died because of overclocking except the 4670 which didn't need any overclocking 😅 good old memories 😊

[@MidnightGeek99]

Wasn't the HD 3850 the fastest? :) Your story is a good example of why you should NOT oc components :D

[@amortalbeing]

@@MidnightGeek99 we were struggling at the time and overlocking was the only way that I knew could help me to actually allow my brothers and I play some newer games. it wasn't like they died instantly we had that PC since 2004 up until 2013. stuck with 2 gigs of ddr ram and an Intel pentium 4 (Prescott) 3.0ghz over clocked at 3.6ghz. (over locked it to 3.9 stable on a Asus p4p800x but due to lack 9f proper cooling and fear of breaking the Mobo, stayed at 3.6ghz) this allowed us to play pcsx2 and run PS2 games 😄 getting those parts was much cheaper than changing the whole system cuz it was a socket 478/ddr/agp. 3850 was 256bit if I recall correctly and faster on some games while the late 4670 was faster on others. it's really funny cuz we had this discussion back then as well 😂 some said go with 3850, some said 4670 it is. great times overall 😄

[@eddiethehead5988]

I remember buying an HD4650 AGP because I was a kid and couldn't afford to upgrade my whole system to PCI-E. I paired it with a Sempron 3200+ and had a blast at the time trying to run Crysis. The CPU was a huge bottleneck but it was fun nonetheless. Was originally looking for a 4670 or 3850.

[@upgrade1373]

I've got the TNT2 Ultra and even better the Voodoo Banshee!

[@MidnightGeek99]

Both very nice cards :)

[@Pidalin]

6600GT with this cooler has problem that there is no enough pressure on core which means really bad contact area, I have almost the same GPU and I had to instal another plate on back side of GPU to push on core from other side, temperatures droped like 20°C down. These coolers were really bad and also decision to not have IHS on these chips was very bad, but 6600GT itself was really good card with proper cooling. BTW, later AGP cards were really very bottlenecked by CPUs like P4 or Athlon XP, so your build with C2D is crazy compared to what people really had back in the time. 😀 I need to buy some sc939 or 775 board with AGP too, but it's so rare and expensive.

[@MidnightGeek99]

I had good temp drops after changing the paste, so I'm ok, FOR NOW. I'm using the C2D to see the performance differences, sometimes I'm also using appropriate CPUs, to simulate reality back then.

[@Pidalin]

@@MidnightGeek99 It very depends on exact PCB and cooler, somewhere it is problem and somewhere not, I had the same problem even with 7600GT, it need exactly that correct strongness of those springs which push cooler, no less, no more, when it's too much, PCB is bending. I think this type of mounting with just 2 holes far from core was really dumb. Some old GPUs (mainly ATIs) already had proper 4 hole mounting and there is no problem with that at all. When you have this problem when core is not pushed to cooler properly, carbon thermal pad works pretty well, it's worse than good contact+thermal paste, but better than no contact at all.

[@Mini-z1994]

Hm wonder how much faster of a result you would get if you upgrade the bios on the motherboard & get a pentium dualcore e5300 & do the bsel overclock & cpu voltmod maybe if needed. going from 800 fsb too 1066 fsb on the pentium dualcore e5300 should give you 3.4 ghz which will be plenty of speed above what you could possibly reach with the e6600 on this board if you want too try, power draw shouldn't be much higher then the e6600 being on a newer manufacturing process despite the overclock. some people went with the e5800 & did the pin mods for 4 ghz+ on this motherboard but im not sure you'd even need much higher then the 3.4 ghz you'd get out of the dualcore e5300 with the bsel mod.

[@MidnightGeek99]

I would be surprised to find out that the E6600 bottlenecks the 6600 GT by much :)

[@Mini-z1994]

@@MidnightGeek99 For older benchmarks that are more cpu dependent probably would be able too squeeze out quite a bit more fps in something like quake 2, quake 3, 3dmark 99 etc... But thinking more for any future hd 3000 & hd 4000 agp cards if you get hold of those at some point.

[@americanrussianproud]

i played first version of dota 2 (2014 year) on this card and it gave me bout 40 fps with all low settings

[@MidnightGeek99]

2014? Wow...nice!

[@dmer-zy3rb]

my first ever pc had a 6600gt and q6600 - problem was it wasnt 2005 but 2011 or something haha either way the 6600gt was really impressive 81 fps Far Cry 1 thats crazy FC1 was a really advanced game for the time! quite frankly more impressive than Half Life 2 and Doom 3.

[@MidnightGeek99]

You've played FC in 2011, I'm playing it in 2024, we're fine :)

[@greggregson9687]

Has anyone gotten these to work well in windows 98SE? The drivers seem to really stink. I repasted my old agp original I used back in the day, and it works fine in XP, but surprisingly not so good in 98.

[@MidnightGeek99]

I'm sure some people are using this in Win 98, yeah, find the right driver and there you go.

[@Liske-]

When i have agp 2x, on motherboard and i put agp 4x gpu, will i experience big performance drop?

[@MidnightGeek99]

No.

[@Liske-]

@@MidnightGeek99 thank you, im buying socket 370 mobo

[@MRL676]

7:18 you are wrong because the 7600gs was a low end 7600.. why not look at a 7600gt to be fair? I know you wrong because i had a 6600gt and a 7600gt and the 7600gt was about 40% faster. Right now i have only one retro PC with P4 2.8ghz and 7900gs 256mb agp.

[@MidnightGeek99]

I was comparing the 6600 GT to a mainstream card from a newer generation, and the 7600 GS was a mainstream card...not the best, but still mainstream.

[@militaryandgaminghistory-he2wt]

first vga I can buy 512mb ram pentium 4 gefroce 6600

[@MRL676]

I just get taken back when someone says things they obviously have no idea what they saying. I will rather unrecommend you from my feed. you didnt even look at a 7600gt just look at a 6600gt and a 7600gs then say Nvidia were resting on there luarels.. dude you have no clue.

[@MidnightGeek99]

This video was not a comparison, it was a 6600 GT review, the fact that I compared it to older and newer cards was just someting extra.

[@homelessEh]

kinda wish i could give you this agp amd hd2400xt ...

[@MidnightGeek99]

It's ok, you put it to good use yourself, why not build another retro system? :P