Gigabyte
The Gigabyte 6600 GT uses the standard rectangular HSF. This card has good fan noise characteristics and overclocked well in our tests.Unfortunately, we had a little lab accident, which dislodged the HSF unit from the GPU. Wiggling the heatsink on other cards didn't matter as much because they used a thermal grease, but Gigabyte went with a thermal glue. The glue cracked, and we could never quite get the same connection that the chip had originally to the HSF.
This made it so that our idle and load temp numbers were a little higher than what we would expect otherwise.
We would love to get our hands on a fresh sample from Gigabyte for testing, but at the same time, this could easily have happened to any end user without anyone knowing any better. The importance of designing a thermal solution that will stay attached to the GPU can't be understated. This type of problem shouldn't be an issue.
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geogecko - Friday, December 10, 2004 - link
#33. I agree completely. That's why I'm curious about the HDTV output. I want to build an HTPC that is somewhat future-proof, and if that is the case, then I need the HDTV Out feature to work. From a review on newegg.com's web site on the XFX card, he couldn't seem to get and HDTV Out to work with the card.NVDVD would also be a plus if it was included, but I doubt it. I sent an e-mail to tech support over at XFX, asking these particular questions. Hopefully, I'll get an answer.
jamawass - Friday, December 10, 2004 - link
Well there's more to a graphics card than gaming. The 6600 series is causing quite a stir in the htpc community because of the video decoding capabilites and hdtv output. It would've been helpful if the reviewer had mentioned the various manufacturers' suppport for HDTV output out of the box, which cards come with the NDVD codec, component adapter etc.bigpow - Friday, December 10, 2004 - link
-> hex value 3 = decimal value 3geogecko - Friday, December 10, 2004 - link
Great article Derek. Been looking for a 6600GT round up article for a while now.Question though. A few of these cards come with an HDTV cable, which, I guess I'm a little confused to what this actually is. I prefer the XFX card, because of the dual DVI outputs (and no need to overclock the card). It doesn't list as coming with an HDTV cable, so I'm wondering, what is the impact on not having this cable? What is the cable? Can't one usually just hook up a DVI cable to an HDTV?
Spacecomber - Friday, December 10, 2004 - link
Nice round-up, and your bringing attention to the potential problems with some of the heatsinks is very much appreciated.Maybe as a follow up we need a round-up of some after-market heatsinks for the 6600GT.
Any reason to assume that these conclusions reached for the PCIe cards do or do not apply to the AGP versions? I know the AGP versions typically have their heatsinks set on a diagonal in order to accomodate the bridge chip.
Space
arswihart - Friday, December 10, 2004 - link
my last comment was in response to #25#27 - Derek is talking about his "IT friendly" list, those cards he felt had the most reliable hsf implementation
arswihart - Friday, December 10, 2004 - link
it does consistently lead in performance, worth noting by all means, but also, as it was mentioned in the review, these cards probably all perform even better on an nforce4, and the rank and file in performance among these cards might be a little different on an nforce4but I would definitely get an arctic cooler for the albatron anyways (if a compatible one is released) to quiet it down, that fan on it is tiny, thin, and loud
Houdani - Friday, December 10, 2004 - link
On the last page [Final Words] you are listing why some cards aren't worthy of an Editor's Choice award. The next to last paragraph states:"XFX doesn't make the list because..."
But, ummm, isn't XFX the Silver choice?
Aquila76 - Friday, December 10, 2004 - link
I know the Albatron didn't have a great mounting mechanism, but it was better than many of the othersAquila76 - Friday, December 10, 2004 - link
Why wasn't the Albatron given any medal? It has the best OC, best or near best performance in all the tests, and great temps even under load with the high OC. So the fan is a little noisier than the rest, is that any reason to dirt on this card?