I think then the best choice would be the MSI, but I would be happier if I knew more about the Gigabyte's 6600GT.
I recently bought a leadtek 6600gt AGP card...nothing but praise so far for it...am totally happy with the performance and stability shown thus far. It sure makes a big step up from my ti4200 card (one of the OTHER all time great mid range cards IMHO) Being a new card and everything Im a little reluctant to leave it overclocked just yet but a few preliminary tweaks yielded 8250 in 3dmark 03...not bad for my modest system specs. Only thing that dissapoints me a little - nvidia want $19.95 for their DVD codec that specifically uses the extra on board hardware for (supposedly) superior DVD playback capabilities...should have shipped with the card I think...but really,I'm just so happy with this card ... can't recommend it more highly!
It does seem, that after i started this thread (about 2 months ago now! - never expected this to last that long!) it was just the Xfx boards that had major performance issues, other than that everone (bar a few) seems happy with this breed of card!
Yes , because the very nature of the card is "hit or miss" , this thread of course has been very active . More than a "few" have had major problems and major disappointments with the 6600GT . Still , the actual facts and issues seem to get ignored or disregarded , in general . Too bad that this market segment operates at that level of savy . The facts of the matter are : Generally speaking , the 6600GT is a great bang-for-buck card , and maybe the best to come along in a long time . This was Nvidia's plan to try and grab a large share of the Christmas shopping season away from ATI , since ATI did not have a similiar market strategy with any of their cards that had this level of performance . It was a great move by Nvidia , from a marketing standpoint , but as some Hardware sites have mentioned , the video card war is simply getting too crazy , with the "Big 2" cutting each others throats for a certain chunk of the market . By "too crazy" they mean too much scrimping on key ingredients , such as driver development cycles , in an effort to capture a consumer . Now , as has been mentioned over and over again (and still only a few take the time to read those posts) those with computer systems that the 6600GT drivers fully support without problems , will reap most of the normal benefits from this video card war that is going on full force right now . Those that don't have those mainstream motherboards , but got steared into buying a motherboard with a not-so-mainstream chipset MAY be one of those 6600GT owners who are going to endure a trip through computer hell , trying to get their card to work the way it should (but won't) . This is much much more than just a few people . It is a total market segment populated by thousands and thousands . 65% love the card , but that leaves 35% that don't , and 35% of the 10's of thousands of 6600GT owners is much more than just a handfull of people that are somewhere between less than happy , to down right pissed right off . Nvidia still has time to get drivers out , and they are well known for excellent driver support , so will most likely eventually follow through with top-shelf drivers for every type of computer system out there , like ATI has for their X800 card (that I wish I would have bought) . The other issue , is the original issue , of 6600GT cards that were rushed out the door in such a humongous hurry that their heatsinks and cooling methods were among the worst this world has ever seen . Temperature monitoring was actually disabled in an attempt to hide the fact that the cards were cooking away under serious , life shortening heat stress . Yet another lame attempt at getting the beef stew to market when it wasn't finished cooking yet . Lot's of people all over the planet have started similiar threads about the 6600GT question and predicament , but it seems that not all of them have taken the time to read the whole thread and comment back every once and a while about what the basic elements are regarding a 6600GT purchase . This thread is still going strong , and hopefully , will continue to go strong until Nvidia does what they should have done all along , release a mature driver set , and until more and more people are made aware of the fact that their cards really do need to have their temp monitoring re-enabled (if it was originally disabled by the manufacturer) and then possibly , have an after market cooler added to extend the life or allow a reasonable overclock without frying their investment prematurely . Dynamo
