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Strengths: 1. For a mid-range AGP card it performs very well in games like DoomIII, Half Life2, and BF2
2. Price is very reasonable compared to other 660GT AGP cards
Weaknesses: 1. The stock fan is a bit loud during gaming
2. The 6600GT AGP gives off quite a bit of heat and is a power hog.
3. Memory is clocked at 900MHz, which is slower than some competing 6600GT AGP cards.
Summary: 2005-10-11 22:36:48 Comparisons in this review are to an ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB AGP card. I have used it for about a year before I upgraded to the 6600GT AGP. My main resolution for gaming is 1280x1024.
The ATI card had been working fine for the past year but alot of the newer games out were really stressing my PC, and the 9600 Pro just wasn't cutting it. Frame rates were very sluggish, in the low 20-30 range, in DoomIII and Half-Life2. I wasn't ready to upgrade to a PCI-Express motherboard, so another AGP video card would have to do. I spent about $150 on the ATI card, and I was hoping to spend about that much on my new AGP card. The 6600GT series by Nvidia was originally made just for PCI-Express, but they smartly made it workable for AGP too. I looked at what ATI had to offer in the $150 price range for AGP and there was nothing. So the 6600GT was for me.
I was a bit apprehensive about the power requirements of the 6600GT, as it needed at least a 300W power supply and had to be hooked up with an additional 4-pin molex plug. My power supply is 300W and the card works beautifully with it, no hiccups or reboots whatsoever. Just make sure your power supply is rated high enough for it. My computer shoots out quite a bit more hot air than with the 9600 Pro, so it's definetly noticable how much more power the 6600GT AGP uses.
The stock cooler does a good job of cooling down the GPU and the memory, but is very loud when running at full speed, compared to the much quieter 9600 Pro. An aftermarket GPU cooler is recommended if you need a more silent cooling solution.
Frame rates in my games now are much better, and much more playable. DoomIII and Half-Life2 are locked in at around 50 FPS, and dip only during the visually intense moments. A huge improvement to what I had before. I can enable alot of the newer visual enhancement settings with very little performance loss, compared to the single digit frame rates I would get doing so with the 9600 Pro.
If you're on the look-out for an AGP video card and need a good mid-range solution, the PNY 6600GT AGP is a great choice what won't disappoint.
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