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Introduction

About a month ago, we had an overview of the Nvidia 6600 series of graphics cards which marks Nvidia's debut into the performance mainstream segment with its NV4x architecture. While it would be great if everyone could afford a 6800 Ultra or a X800 XT PE, the simple fact of the matter is that those parts remain elusive to most gamers as they both have pretty staggering prices at 499$. The mainstream segment however is a different story - 199$ for a graphics card is not a daunting figure for the average enthusiast and cards will fly off the shelves at this price point. Gamers snatched up large quantities of the 5700 Ultra, 5900 and the 9600 series from the previous generation and Nvidia hopes to do this with the 6600GT.

Nvidia is making an interesting decision with the 6600 series - it will appear first on PCI Express and an AGP version will follow some weeks later. Nvidia was derided for the High Speed Interconnect (HIS) approach with the NV40 series - for those who have not been following along, Nvidia is making one chip for both PCIe and AGP parts. Utilizing the HSI, Nvidia is able to translate calls from AGP to PCIe and vice versa saving on the costs of having to engineer multiple chips.

The early adopters for PCIe may be somewhat disappointed in the availability in the video department; all the parts that are available for purchase are from the last generation of cards; we see both 9600XT and 5700 rehashes on the PCIe bus. By releasing a true next generation part for PCIe, Nvidia is betting on the fact that most users who have upgraded to PCIe early will eye the 6600GT as the part to pair up their 915/925 chipsets and for good reason.