Very good Video Card

Author's Rating:

Pros: Faster than GF5700, 60FPS in FarCry.

Cons: 128MB of RAM, no dual DVI

The Bottom Line: 
If you need a decent video card, get it. Its an especially good card for HDTV home theater. If you need the fastest, get GeForce 7800GTX.

Author's Review
I got this Video Card when my old PNY GeForce FX 5600ULTRA stopped working. I have a home built Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE) 2005 PC with a new EVGA GeForce FX 5700 Personal Cinema. So I wanted a video card that looks good for video, and that is fast (for HDTV). Well, when my GF FX5600 stopped working, I used my EXTREMILY BAD ATI Radeon 9200SE (SE for Striped down Edition). That video card was overheating and was unstable at 1.50V, so I had to put it at 1.60V. So I decided to get a new video card. ATI was out of the question, with the terrible expiernce with the 92000SE. I wanted to get the nVIDiA GeForce 7800GTX (Full Throttle Graphics) with nVIDiA PureVideo, but it comes only in PCI-E. So I couldn't get it because I have the MSI K8N-Neo nVIDiA nFORCE 3 250Gb which is AGP. So I saw that the nVIDiA GeForce (DoomForce) 6600(GT) had nVIDiA PureVideo technology also. So next step, look at the GF6600GT makes. I did not want to get an another PNY, so I got the EVGA, though I wanted to get the BFG OC card, but it was to expensive ($219.00 VS. 149.00 (afer $15 rebate) at Newegg.com).

Performance:
So the day I got it, my old ATI went to the TRASH CAN, and the GF6600GT went into the MCE PC and the GF FX5700 to my Celeron-D PC (specs at end). As follows are the frame rates of some games. Res 1280X1024

GeForce 5700
FarCry, Quality: Very High, 30FPS Average, Zoo Tycoon Marine Mania Res 1024X768: 8FPS, Zoo Tycoon 2: 60FPS, 3DMark 2005: 633/3DMarks,

GeForce 6600GT,
FarCry Quality: Very High: 62FPS, Zoo Tycoon Marine Mania Res. 1024X768: 35FPS, Zoo Tycoon 2: 60FPS, 3DMark 2005: 3500 3DMarks.
Very big leap in 3DMark 2005, twice the speed in FarCry, VERY big leap in Zoo Tycoon Marine Mania. Note, nVIDiA's GeForce 7800GTX is supposed to get 7800+ 3DMark 2005.

More Game preformance data soon.


Noise and Heat,
The nVIDiA GeForce 6600(GT) is a PCI-E card with the nVIDiA HSI (High Speed Interconnect) bridge, the noise amount is very low (can't hear it above my 3 21dB ThermalTake case fans, and the GPU is very cool, but the HSI bridge heatsink get VERY hot! But there are no stability problems.

nVIDiA Pure Video,
First, PureVideo works only with some video formats (doesn't work with Real Video). On the video that it does work, it really looks good, and HD look even better with PureVideo, HD decoding works very well.
This video card has a HDTV output, which is component video(3 RCA jacks like on a DVD player). It also has it has S-video and conposite. At 16 GB/S (GigaByts per Second) memory bandwidth, this video card exceeds Microsoft's 10 GB/S minimum requirements for their XP Media Center Edition. The standard speed 6600s don't meet that specification. Right now I just have an eVGA NVTV analog tuner, but plan to upgrade to an HD tuner as soon as eVGA releases one. HD video compatability was a top priority when I started looking for a replacement video card.

Summary,
If you need a good video card, get the GF 6600GT for video and/or light gaming, if you need the best: nVIDiA GeForce 7800GTX is your ticket, but never get an ATI.

Systems:
AMD Athlon 64 3000+
MSI K8N-Neo nVIDiA nFORCE 3 250Gb
Corsair Value RAM 1024MB
EVGA GeForce 6600GT
EVGA NVTV MCE TV tuner card
WD WD250
Rosewill RP500
Microsoft Windows XP MCE 2005
ThermalTake Tsunami Dream case (good airflow and low noise with supplied fans)

Intel Celeron-D 320 2.88GHz
Asus P4S800D-E Deluxe
nVIDiA GeForce FX 5700 Personal Cinema
Antec TruePower 430
Windows XP Pro
Seagate Barracuda 80GB SATA
Koolance PC3-410BK water cooled case

UPDATE 1:
this video card has a DOOM 3 Hellknight image not nalu or timbury.