Despite the launch of the latest 7800GTX and the immensity of falling prices, NVIDIA’s 6600GT would still remain one of the most sought after graphics adapters for enthusiasts on a budget. The 6600GT core has been getting its well-deserved appreciation ever since it debuted. Thankfully, NVIDIA introduced the 6800 vanilla before the 6600GT or else it would’ve surely hurt the sales of its supposedly better counterpart. Let alone the inner competition, the 6600GT is a solid performer against its competition, ATI’s X700 Pro. ATI had a few mishaps with its X700 series, as the company couldn’t decide what to put in the market, which led to product cancellation. But even after it did decide, NVIDIA’s architecture was far more superior this time than what ATI could offer.

Come to think of it, it’s very interesting how the whole GPU market is revolving and shaping with every new launch. ATI held onto the first place position for a year and a half without much threat from NVIDIA’s failed-before-launch 5xxx series. Regardless of what it did, the 5xxx was simply no match. Add that to ATI’s tuned architecture and the company appeared to be undefeatable for 18 months. However, NVIDIA knew its 5xxx wasn’t going to stand a chance and the company started working on the GeForce 6 architecture nearly three years before the GPU was officially introduced to the market. But you are all aware of that episode and it’s history, however, the interesting things still are ahead of us.

Now that we are "over" with the 6800, X800 and X850 series, it’s time to look forward to the R520 launch and NVIDIA’s upcoming low-end and mid-end offerings based on the G70 architecture. Though NVIDIA’s 7800GTX has promised us great performance, the things have barely begun. Even though it’s practically impossible to recommend the 7800GTX without comparing it against the R520, maybe NVIDIA would get more than a decent number of customers on its side if ATI continues to be uncertain about the launch date of its upcoming product line. Furthermore, NVIDIA has really impressed everyone by actually introducing retail 7800GTX’s on the actual launch date. Needless to say, ATI has work cut out for them and unless they have a groundbreaking GPU that can decimate the 7800GTX, the company should be working overtime to make sure everything is as smooth as possible on the actual launch date (performance, availability and possibly even price).

Now that we have recapped on a few highlights of the GPU industry, let’s get back to the present. As we mentioned earlier, the 6600GT is a viable solution even today when the prices are plumping to respectable levels. Even if the 6600GT weren’t a competitive solution in a single card scenario, it would be a great SLI option with two affordable 6600GT cards for sure. Today we have Gigabyte’s 6600GT offering on the testbed, and as always, it promises exceptional value with equivalent performance. Does it have what it takes to be the ultimate winner? Read on and find out…

For all your graphics card buying needs, check out Newegg.com

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