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Update (12/30/2004): The review sample as shipped to us by Gigabyte made use of a faulty BIOS which was enabling only 8 of the 12 pipes of the 6800 core. We were made aware of this by a kind member of our forums, and we promptly re-flashed the card with the latest BIOS (F1 -> F3). As such, we have re-run all of our benchmarks and updated the charts. The previous scores of the 8-pipe 6800 are also provided on some of the charts for comparison. We are quite disappointed at Gigabyte's failure to mention such a significant piece of information. Had we not been informed of it by a 3rd party, some of our previous poor benchmark scores which turned out to be good could have definitely influenced someone's buying decision.

There is practically no price point at which a consumer cannot find a GeForce 6 family product - NVIDIA announced that they would be creating a top-to-bottom lineup of products, all based on the NV4x core. At the entry level is the 6200, in the mid-range is the 6600/6600 GT, and at the high-end is the 6800/6800 GT/6800 Ultra. When we say "mid-range", we don't just mean regular run-of-the-mill average performers -- the $200 price-point 6600's can hold their own, even surpassing last generation's high end parts like the 9800XT in many instances

In the 300$ range of NVIDIA's line up is the often looked over GeForce 6800. At the 400$ range is the very popular 6800 GT and at the 200$ mark is the 6600GT AGP and sometimes it seems like the 6800 has been neglected. Up for review today is Gigabyte's GV-N68128DH, a passively cooled AGP GeForce 6800 with 128 MB of memory, utilizing heat pipes and massive heat sinks on both sides of the card.

Specifications

Looking at the last three columns, it is obvious that the plain-vanilla 6800 is merely a clock-reduced NV40 with four of its pipelines disabled. This core variation still manages to edge out the 6600 GT, except where fillrate and raw core clock speed are concerned -- at least on paper. Since the plain 6800 is still a 6800, it sports a full 256-bit memory interface giving the 6800 a fairly hefty advantage in the memory bandwidth department.