Page All: Viewing All Pages
Page 1
<B>Intro</B>:
<center>
</center>
<a href="http://www.bfgtech.com">BFG Technologies</a> is a brand of Nvidia card catered to the gaming crowd. You may remember the term 'BFG' from the old and the new Doom days. The BFG9000 was the ultimate gun in the game. BFG Technologies gets it roots from games. Today we are taking a look at the BFG 6600GT OC. The OC means that the card is overclocked right out of the box.
<B>Specs</B>:
This is a PCI-Express type of card and fits into the x16 card slot. The media sensationalist features of the card are numerous, including NVIDIA SLI multi-GPU ready, Superscalar GPU architecture, NVIDIA CineFX 3.0 engine, High Speed GDDR3 memory interface, Microsoft DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 3.0 support. All the previous functionality means that this card supports today's and tomorrow's games. Not many games even feature Shader Model 2.0 yet, so buying this card will give you some future-proofing.
The actual specs of the card:
HDTV support is included in the packaging with component. OpenGL 1.5 is supported as well. The core and memory clocks are 25MHz higher than the standard clocks (Memory is 525MHz x 2 = 1050MHz for DDR).
The bundle is rather pitiful as most graphics cards are doing nowadays. It seems the days of bundling in Half-Life 2 are over. You get the minimalistic package of some Windows skins and the NVDVD 2.0 player. If you need a media player for Windows, look no further than Media Player Classic: (<a href="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=82303&package_id=84358">Link</a>
<B>The Parts</B>:
<center>
</center>
Included in the box are the basic driver and bundle CDs, the card, a short manual, two DVI to VGA converters (good to have), and the TV out extension cable. TV out is for all forms of TV. Composite, component, and S-Video are included in the cord.
<B>The Card</B>:
<center>
</center>
The card's PCB is blue and silk screened white. Also on the card are some blue LEDs in the clear fan to give some light to your case. The heatsinks are of copper stock and the card is quite heavy. The fan on the card is no overtly large and it features PCI-Express hookups. You may notice the SLI connector on the top of the card. This is one of the cards that can do Nvidia's SLI implementation. No offense to Nvidia, but take a look at ATI's implementation of dual cards. No profiles needed. If you aren't aware, Nvidia's SLI needs driver profiles for the game you run for it to work.
<B>Intro</B>:
<center>
</center><a href="http://www.bfgtech.com">BFG Technologies</a> is a brand of Nvidia card catered to the gaming crowd. You may remember the term 'BFG' from the old and the new Doom days. The BFG9000 was the ultimate gun in the game. BFG Technologies gets it roots from games. Today we are taking a look at the BFG 6600GT OC. The OC means that the card is overclocked right out of the box.
<B>Specs</B>:
This is a PCI-Express type of card and fits into the x16 card slot. The media sensationalist features of the card are numerous, including NVIDIA SLI multi-GPU ready, Superscalar GPU architecture, NVIDIA CineFX 3.0 engine, High Speed GDDR3 memory interface, Microsoft DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 3.0 support. All the previous functionality means that this card supports today's and tomorrow's games. Not many games even feature Shader Model 2.0 yet, so buying this card will give you some future-proofing.
The actual specs of the card:
Quote
BFG GeForce 6600 GT OC
PCI Express
Memory 128MB GDDR3
Core Clock 525MHz (vs. 500MHz standard)
Memory Clock 1050MHz (vs. 1000MHz standard)
RAMDAC Dual 400MHz
Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 and lower, OpenGL 1.5 and lower for Microsoft® Windows®
Connectors Dual DVI-I, HDTV
S-Video Out
393 million vertices/sec setup
16.8GB/second memory bandwidth
HDTV support is included in the packaging with component. OpenGL 1.5 is supported as well. The core and memory clocks are 25MHz higher than the standard clocks (Memory is 525MHz x 2 = 1050MHz for DDR).
The bundle is rather pitiful as most graphics cards are doing nowadays. It seems the days of bundling in Half-Life 2 are over. You get the minimalistic package of some Windows skins and the NVDVD 2.0 player. If you need a media player for Windows, look no further than Media Player Classic: (<a href="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=82303&package_id=84358">Link</a>
<B>The Parts</B>:
<center>
</center>Included in the box are the basic driver and bundle CDs, the card, a short manual, two DVI to VGA converters (good to have), and the TV out extension cable. TV out is for all forms of TV. Composite, component, and S-Video are included in the cord.
<B>The Card</B>:
<center>
</center>The card's PCB is blue and silk screened white. Also on the card are some blue LEDs in the clear fan to give some light to your case. The heatsinks are of copper stock and the card is quite heavy. The fan on the card is no overtly large and it features PCI-Express hookups. You may notice the SLI connector on the top of the card. This is one of the cards that can do Nvidia's SLI implementation. No offense to Nvidia, but take a look at ATI's implementation of dual cards. No profiles needed. If you aren't aware, Nvidia's SLI needs driver profiles for the game you run for it to work.
Page 2
<B>The Test Setup</B>:
In an ongoing effort to streamline new reviews, I am making a new test system to replace the one I just built. The current test system consists of the following:
3.0GHz Prescott LGA775 (530J)
Intel D915GMH (<a href="articles.php?id=166">BTX</a>
512MB Corsair PC3700 (Dual Channel)
Evercase Slim BTX (<a href="articles.php?id=169">POS</a>
160GB Western Digital 8MB (SATA)
12x DVD-Rom (Crap)
WinXP SP2 + Hot fixes to date
Nvidia Drivers: 77.72
ATI Drivers: 5.7 No Control Center. (Screw .NET)
The 6600GT OC will be compared to a regular ATI X700 Pro. In each case, the blue bar denotes the 6600GT OC and the gray indicates the X700 Pro.
<B>SPEC 8.1</B>:
SPECviewperf is an OpenGL test suite that gives an overview of workstation performance. It has scripts from a variety of 3D manipulation programs including Maya and 3D Studio Max.
<center>
More is better</center>
The 6600GT OC and the x700 Pro both perform good in this workstation test. The x700 Pro wins some and the 6600GT OC wins some. No clear winner here.
<B>Far Cry</B>:
I'm still using the old 1.1 patch for Far Cry. This is an excellent game from Crytek, surpasing Doom3 on nearly everything. This is one of best looking games to date.
<center>No AA or AF
4xAA + 16xAF
FPS, more is better</center>
I cannot explain why 1600x1200 has higher scores than 1280. I ran this 5 times and the same results came up. Take those with a grain of salt, please. If you can give an explanation on the reason this happens, please send me an email (aron@aselabs.com). The 6600GT OC wins this game over.
<B>UT2004</B>:
One of the first games to actually include voice chat for the PC and done in a great way. I wish more games had voice chat on the PC that is this good in implimentation. The graphics are nice enough as well and the gameplay is very fast.
<center>No AA or AF
4xAA + 16xAF
FPS, more is better</center>
The BFG wins this game as well. Once again we see the 1600x1200 weirdness occur.
<B>Halo</B>:
Halo may be one of the best games on the Xbox, but it is sorely lacking on the PC. The game has horrid framerates and doesn't live up to the likes of Halo 2. It also doesn't include voice chat.
<center>No AA or AF
4xAA + 16xAF
FPS, more is better</center>
1600x1200 failed to work. The BFG wins again.
<B>X2 - The Threat</B>:
This game had so much potential, but it failed to deliver. This is a 4x type game. X3: Reunion is coming out in Q4 and hopefully it will live up to what it should be.
<center>AA and Auto-quality
FPS, more is better</center>
X2 in AA looks great. The BFG wins again. The trend shows that the faster card prevails even with less memory.
<B>The Test Setup</B>:
In an ongoing effort to streamline new reviews, I am making a new test system to replace the one I just built. The current test system consists of the following:
3.0GHz Prescott LGA775 (530J)
Intel D915GMH (<a href="articles.php?id=166">BTX</a>
512MB Corsair PC3700 (Dual Channel)
Evercase Slim BTX (<a href="articles.php?id=169">POS</a>
160GB Western Digital 8MB (SATA)
12x DVD-Rom (Crap)
WinXP SP2 + Hot fixes to date
Nvidia Drivers: 77.72
ATI Drivers: 5.7 No Control Center. (Screw .NET)
The 6600GT OC will be compared to a regular ATI X700 Pro. In each case, the blue bar denotes the 6600GT OC and the gray indicates the X700 Pro.
<B>SPEC 8.1</B>:
SPECviewperf is an OpenGL test suite that gives an overview of workstation performance. It has scripts from a variety of 3D manipulation programs including Maya and 3D Studio Max.
<center>
More is better</center>
The 6600GT OC and the x700 Pro both perform good in this workstation test. The x700 Pro wins some and the 6600GT OC wins some. No clear winner here.
<B>Far Cry</B>:
I'm still using the old 1.1 patch for Far Cry. This is an excellent game from Crytek, surpasing Doom3 on nearly everything. This is one of best looking games to date.
<center>No AA or AF
4xAA + 16xAF
FPS, more is better</center>
I cannot explain why 1600x1200 has higher scores than 1280. I ran this 5 times and the same results came up. Take those with a grain of salt, please. If you can give an explanation on the reason this happens, please send me an email (aron@aselabs.com). The 6600GT OC wins this game over.
<B>UT2004</B>:
One of the first games to actually include voice chat for the PC and done in a great way. I wish more games had voice chat on the PC that is this good in implimentation. The graphics are nice enough as well and the gameplay is very fast.
<center>No AA or AF
4xAA + 16xAF
FPS, more is better</center>
The BFG wins this game as well. Once again we see the 1600x1200 weirdness occur.
<B>Halo</B>:
Halo may be one of the best games on the Xbox, but it is sorely lacking on the PC. The game has horrid framerates and doesn't live up to the likes of Halo 2. It also doesn't include voice chat.
<center>No AA or AF
4xAA + 16xAF
FPS, more is better</center>
1600x1200 failed to work. The BFG wins again.
<B>X2 - The Threat</B>:
This game had so much potential, but it failed to deliver. This is a 4x type game. X3: Reunion is coming out in Q4 and hopefully it will live up to what it should be.
<center>AA and Auto-quality
FPS, more is better</center>
X2 in AA looks great. The BFG wins again. The trend shows that the faster card prevails even with less memory.
Page 3
<B>Overclocking</B>:
Since the card is already out of spec, why not push it a bit more? I was a bit dissapointed when I could only reach 560MHz on the core and 1.21GHz on the memory. I see many people get to 570-580MHz. Even so, the card does has a modest increase in performance. In this, the blue bar is the overclocked settings and the gray is the normal clock speed.
<center>Far Cry
X2
FPS, more is better</center>
In Far Cry there is a 9% jump in performance when AA and AF are one. This is pretty nice improvement. In X2 there is only a 4% jump, it is an improvement nonetheless.
<B>Conclusion</B>:
<a href="http://stat.dealtime.com/DealFrame/DealFrame.cmp?BEFID=1722&acode=238&code=205&aon=^162&crawler_id=300168&dealId=KZGcpMASqf62BhhIzXYbuQ%3D%3D&prjID=ds&searchID=ad5a6544170a320a82ddc0f4&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newegg.com%2FProduct%2FProduct.asp%3FItem%3DN82E16814143026%26ATT%3DVideo%2BCards%26CMP%3DOTC-d3alt1me&DealName=%20VGA%20BFG%7C%206600GT%20128MB%20BFGR6600GTX&MerchantID=300168&HasLink=yes&frameId=-1&category=77&AR=0&NG=2&GR=1&ND=1&PN=1&PT=0&RR=1&ST=&DB=masterprod&MT=nym-pmt6-1&MN=MT&FPT=DNSR&NDS=2&NMS=2&NDP=2&MRS=&PD=0&brnId=2453&lnkId=3002062&IsFtr=0&IsSmart=1&crn=USD&istrsmrc=1&isathrsl=0&dlprc=223.98&CT=2">You can pick this up from Newegg for ~$220</a>. Or buy it from <a href="http://ase.dealtime.com/dt-app/SE/KW-bfg 6600GT OC/FD-0/linkin_id-3002062/NS-1/GS.html">another store</a>. At around $220, this is a good buy for a card that is faster than the competition. You pay a bit more, but you do get what you pay for. The BFG 6600GT OC is a solid choice for a mid range system. I recommend this card.
<center><img src="http://images.aselabs.com/awards/recommended.jpg" alt="Recommended"></center>
<B>Overclocking</B>:
Since the card is already out of spec, why not push it a bit more? I was a bit dissapointed when I could only reach 560MHz on the core and 1.21GHz on the memory. I see many people get to 570-580MHz. Even so, the card does has a modest increase in performance. In this, the blue bar is the overclocked settings and the gray is the normal clock speed.
<center>Far Cry
X2
FPS, more is better</center>
In Far Cry there is a 9% jump in performance when AA and AF are one. This is pretty nice improvement. In X2 there is only a 4% jump, it is an improvement nonetheless.
<B>Conclusion</B>:
<a href="http://stat.dealtime.com/DealFrame/DealFrame.cmp?BEFID=1722&acode=238&code=205&aon=^162&crawler_id=300168&dealId=KZGcpMASqf62BhhIzXYbuQ%3D%3D&prjID=ds&searchID=ad5a6544170a320a82ddc0f4&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newegg.com%2FProduct%2FProduct.asp%3FItem%3DN82E16814143026%26ATT%3DVideo%2BCards%26CMP%3DOTC-d3alt1me&DealName=%20VGA%20BFG%7C%206600GT%20128MB%20BFGR6600GTX&MerchantID=300168&HasLink=yes&frameId=-1&category=77&AR=0&NG=2&GR=1&ND=1&PN=1&PT=0&RR=1&ST=&DB=masterprod&MT=nym-pmt6-1&MN=MT&FPT=DNSR&NDS=2&NMS=2&NDP=2&MRS=&PD=0&brnId=2453&lnkId=3002062&IsFtr=0&IsSmart=1&crn=USD&istrsmrc=1&isathrsl=0&dlprc=223.98&CT=2">You can pick this up from Newegg for ~$220</a>. Or buy it from <a href="http://ase.dealtime.com/dt-app/SE/KW-bfg 6600GT OC/FD-0/linkin_id-3002062/NS-1/GS.html">another store</a>. At around $220, this is a good buy for a card that is faster than the competition. You pay a bit more, but you do get what you pay for. The BFG 6600GT OC is a solid choice for a mid range system. I recommend this card.
<center><img src="http://images.aselabs.com/awards/recommended.jpg" alt="Recommended"></center>