Related Articles

NV40 Technology

We've covered the technology behind the 6600 and NV40 family of products here several times so we will not bother rehashing all the information here. For those that are interested in looking at some of the technical details behind the 6600 and NV40 in a little bit more depth check out some of our previous articles on both.

Hardware

Our benchmark system consisted of the following:

• AMD Athlon 64 3400+ (Socket 754)
• Soltek SL-K8AN2E-GR motherboard (nForce 3 250Gb)
• Gigabyte GV-N68128DH
• ATI RADEON 9800XT
• NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT AGP
• 2x512 MB OCZ PC3200 (Dual Channel)
• Seagate Barracuda SATA V 120 GB
• Standard mid-size ATX chassis
• OCZ ModStream 520W power supply
• BFG GeForce 6600GT OC AGP

Drivers

Every NVIDIA card in the lineup was tested with the 66.93 Forceware drivers while the 9800XT used the Catalyst 4.12s with the Catalyst Control Center and Catalyst AI enabled. The reference 6600GT AGP was included as a baseline to compare the 6600GT OC against. The 6800 is the next step up in NVIDIA's lineup so readers can get a good idea of where they would rather spend their money. Finally we have one of the top cards from the last generation in ATI's 9800XT. Unfortunately it is still commanding a hefty premium and we advise readers to go with a 9800 Pro instead if an ATI AGP card in the 200$ range is in the works.

Benchmarks

• 3DMark 2005
• Aquamark 3
• Call of Duty
• Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Academy
• Unreal Tournament 2004
• Halo
• X2 Rolling demo
• Splinter Cell
• Doom 3
• Half-life 2