Maximum PC

Any ideas when this card will hit shelves? I'd rather snag one of these than a 9800 pro, unless they take like 2 months to come out.

Probably 1-2 months, or more depending on nVidia and it's third parties.

6600 does not beat the 9800 pro, the 6600 GT does though

Why wait for a 6600 GT, when you can just go ahead and buy the FX 5700 Ultra?, the both have the same specs (almost), same pipelines, same memory interface, same memory bandwidth and last: they both use the same DDR3 type memory, difference? Core 450(FX)/500(GT)-memory 900(fx)/1000(GT). Just get the FX and overclock it and it'll be like having a 6600GT. I got a 6800 GT, I've overclocked it to Ultra's specs.

you are largely mistaken

the 5700 Ultra only has 4 pipelines while the 6600GT has 8 pipelines. In fact, the 6600GT is easily twice as fast as the 5700 ultra. You are completely wrong about the 5700 ultra being like a 6600GT. You are correct about the memory interface, because they are both using 128 bit GDDR3(if your talking about the GDDR 3 version of the 5700 ultra, cause there are two versions of it), but the 6600GT is a nv 43 while the 5700ultra is the NV 36. Not to mention the difference between pixil shader 2.0 and 3.0. The 6600 GT is nearly as fast as the 6800nu. So if you can successfully argue that the 5700 Ultra can top the 6800nu or 6600GT be my guest. If you dont believe me do the research, and youl see how wrong he is.

Don't forget it has 2 more pixel shaders.

...because the 5700 is an entirely different chip.

One's decision should never be based on specs alone... this goes for anything.

the regular 6600 is now out. but only in its pci express form.

I really wanted a AGP version of this, because A: I dont own a pci-e mobo, and B: Intel is the only compatible PCI-e right?

So when the AGP version does come out, will it be more than $250?

Proabbly not because AGP will be yesterdays VGA interface, and the card will be a couple months old by then.

Currently, Intel has the only compatible PCI-E mobos. However, on the AMD side, there are 2 new chipsets coming out very soon. The nForce4 and VIA K8T890.

I'm gonna have to guess that the AGP version would cost about $160.

Would u say the 6600 AGP cud perfrom par withn the 9800 or above? or like 9600XT levels. Cuz i know the pci-e version of the 6600 GT fdoes really well, but aint sure about rhe AGP 6600

shouldnt be a performance hit, all they're changing is the bus through a bridge.

common guys, look at this realistically. playing a game of video cards it's always win some loose some. sure in some areas the 9800pro is better than a 6600, but in some areas it isn't. a video card's performance can never be judged by a single game alone. not to mention, if the user were to want the 6600 for linux, it would spank the shit out of the 9800pro in ALL areas in linux.

i'm not saying he is or isn't, but it irks me to ever hear/see someone say "this card is better than this card". if it were that simple, we would all buy the same cards, but it's nothing like that.

not pipelines alone, not clock speed alone, not memory latency alone, and not even memory amounts alone can determine what will be an all-inclusive better video card. the exact same pipelines, speed, memory, even PCB, clocks, and HSF with 2 different cores will change performance depending on the game/application. it doesn't necessarily one is better than the other, but just because a video card has 8 pipelines compared to 4 of another card doesn't mean it's twice as fast. nor does it mean that when you've got twice the clock speed, or twice the memory... and i haven't even touched on vertex shaders or new technologies like sm3.0.

on a small final note, not even the fastest video cards out right now have capped the bandwidth of agp8x pro, do the interface, be it peg or agp should have little to no impact on performance. agp8x is just now beginning to be matched on its bus speed, which is why peg is coming out. they dont introduce new technologies when it's already too late this is similar to the myth that SATA drives are faster. no, they aren't. not at all. the interface of PATA is 133MB/s and the fastest a 7200rpm drive can transfer data right now is somewhere between 60-90MB/s... clearly under-cutting the performance of 133MB/s PATA. slapping a bridge on it to allow it to transfer at 300MB/s between the drive and the mobo does as much good as having a 1000mbit connection between your computer and your cable modem, it's not going to allow a single bit of increase in speed over a 100mbit connection... unless of course you can download at over 100mbit/s