NVIDIA GeForce 6200 Preview

Right then, have you ever seen a product series without several choices within that series? Indeed, there will be two GeForce 6200 products; but the difference is only to be found in memory configuration namely 128 and 256 MB. As sales in the last year showed, you'll likely go for the 256 MB version. Let's have a look at NVIDIA's GeForce Series 6 product line with the most important retail cards:

Right then, as you can see from the chart the 6200 is precisely half of what the 6600 GT is. So that'll give you a good estimate of what the product can/can't do. I find the 6600, especially the GT to be the most impressive for the money you pay. But 6200 wise... I expect to see a 64-bit version also, effectively cutting memory bandwidth in half and thus performance once more in half. Look closely at that box and make sure you buy the 128-bit product when available or else I'll slap you in the face with a Molex cable (unless you don't plan play games of course, in that case I will not slap you). Since yours truly majestically introduced extenal power supply cables here you'll be glad to learn this particular card does not need one. It'll feed 100% of the PCI-Express bus.

Other then performance, there are a few minor differences between the 6600 and 6200 though. As you know the GT version's of both the 6600 and 6800 series are capable of SLI mode on PCI-Express mainboards, this is not at all the case with the 6200 products. Not that I expected it to be on there anyway as that would just not make any sense. Then again, 4 monitors...  hmmmm :)

As the trend is these days, at first you'll see the PCI-Express versions of this product and later on maybe an AGP version which likely is bridged with NVIDIA's HSI chip. This itself is unclear though as NVIDIA's documentation does not mention anything about the AGP version. NVIDIA could also opt not to do the AGP version as this product would compete 100% with the GeForce FX 5200; but who know's.

Expect the PCI-Express product in the shops somewhere in November, in time for the silly season, Christmas.

The GeForce 6200 will become available in two flavors namely at 128 and 256 MB specifications. Respectively they'll cost $129 for 128MB version and $149 for 256MB version. These of course are manufacturer suggested retail prices (yes that's what MSRP means!), so expect the prices lower in re- and even lower in e-tail. The 6200 series will compete with ATI's x300 series which will likely be an underdog here as ATI's technology is based on the older Radeon 9600. I just can't help thinking that for an entry level product the prices need to come down as I tend to believe that the suggested price itself is fairly high.

Well chaps, there you have it ... from top to bottom NVIDIA has a product available in the Series 6 line. Judging from the specification this'll be the first entry product that I know of that will actually allow some acceptable game play, even with modern games and that is quite impressive as this line is not even targeted at the hardcore gamer at all. I'd like to add a little note here, what's good about any low-end / entry level card is that it's not just about gaming. I'm aiming here at the fact that you'll have all the features and thus benefits from Series 6 product range. That includes fantastic media playback (DVD/Movies), dual monitor support, your unified driver support, (s)video output support, great 2D performance thus basically everything non-gaming wise which makes a cheap product like this a very attractive buy for both the OEM and retail buyer.

This will probably be one of the most discussed entry level products ever as judging from the specification .. it looks good.

Expect our full preview soon.

On the next page you'll be able to find a threefold of product photo's which will be the last page from this small preview.

Hilbert

+++ ATH