When we take a look at the card we can plainly see it is reference based, except the blue colored PCB. What I really like is that even for this somewhat cheaper product a better cooling solution, as opposed to the reference cooling, was used. A nice and shiny heatsink with an active fan, which is not at all noisy yet seems to be very effective.
Let's fire up Rivatuner and see what the card reports back to us to verify the specs from the box:
$ffffffffff ---------------------------------------------------
$ffffffffff Display adapter information
$ffffffffff ---------------------------------------------------
$0000000000 Description : NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT
$0000000001 Vendor ID : 10de (NVIDIA)
$0000000002 Device ID : 0140
$0000000003 Location : bus 1, device 0, function 0
$0000000004 Bus type : PCI
$0000000009 Base address 0 : d0000000 (memory range)
$000000000a Base address 1 : c8000000 (memory range)
$000000000b Base address 2 : none
$000000000c Base address 3 : d4000000 (memory range)
$000000000d Base address 4 : none
$000000000e Base address 5 : none
$ffffffffff ---------------------------------------------------
$ffffffffff NVIDIA specific display adapter information
$ffffffffff ---------------------------------------------------
$0100000000 Graphics core : NV43 revision A2 (8x1,3vp)
$0100000001 Hardwired ID : 0140 (ROM strapped to 0140)
$0100000002 Memory bus : 128-bit
$0100000003 Memory type : DDR (RAM configuration 07)
$0100000004 Memory amount : 131072KB
$0100000005 Core clock : 501.428MHz
$0100000006 Memory clock : 501.188MHz (1002.375MHz effecti...
$0100000007 Reference clock : 27.000MHz
As you can see everything as the box specifications promise. Interestingly it reads out as an A2 revision of the graphics core. Furthermore 8 pixel pipelines and 3 Vertex Processors are enabled. The card follows reference specifications.
We're using ForceWare 66.81 for today's review.
The Installation
It's really not hard to install a graphics card yourself in this day and age. Especially with brands like ATI and NVIDIA, who use unified driver sets. If you have a really new product then make sure you have the latest drivers on your HD. First uninstall your current graphics card's drivers carefully, this is very important especially if the older graphics card was from a different chipset manufacturer. Now power down the PC and pull out the power cable. Insert the graphics card in the slot, secure it with a screw, connect the monitor and boot up windows, run the driver installation, then restart and you are set to go. That's all. Also important, make sure you have the latest version of DirectX (9.0c) installed. If you experience compatibility issues, please make sure you have installed the latest version of your mainboard drivers, have a look in our extensive download section I'd say.
Latest software Downloads
PCI-Express
PCI Express is a new development in I/O interconnect standards that companies like NVIDIA, ATI and many others will deploy in future graphics solutions. With up to 4GB/s of one-directional and 8GB/s of concurrent bandwidth you can be sure to have high-speed graphics output. PCI Express significantly increases bandwidth between the central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU). We are not yet 100% sure if Series 6600 uses HSI or is a native solution, the AGP version though will be bridged.
1 x16 PCI express (red) slot and next to it are the two (blue) x1 PCI Express slots.
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