any thoughts/experience on this card? [passive GF6200 AGP]

yamhat · Post by **yamhat** » Fri May 13, 2005 3:06 pm

after reading around for a while I'm in the process of quiet-ifiying my main PC. one of the biggest culprits noise-wise is my geforce FX 5900XT. the only 3D games I play are on the old side so I've decided instead of fussing with an add-on cooler I'm just going to ditch it on ebay and buy a slower, fanless card.

In the process of searching I came across this card on newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814150094

it's one of 2 passively cooled AGP 6200's they have and the other one has the crippled 64-bit memory bus. The other main candidate that seems suitable are the ATI 9600's. I'm not a hardcore gamer by any stretch of the imagination but I do enough gaming that I think the very bottom of the heap cards like the FX5200 and radeon 9200 might leave me a bit frustrated, especially since the vanilla 9600 is only about 25-30 bucks more... I haven't decided yet if it would be worth shelling out yet more for the passive sapphire 9600XT. going by the benchmarks at http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/digest3d/ the GF6200 seems to sit in a nice middle ground performance wise between the 9600 and 9600XT. I've read all the topics on here about the excellent performance per heat generated of the 9600's and I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with how the 6200 measures up in that regard -- I'm mildly concerned since almost all of the 6200's i see have fans (but then again, lots of 9600's have them too..). I've searched here and there isn't too much information about the 6200 to be found so if anyone's got experience with them please speak up! any input is appreciated =]

Techno Pride · Post by **Techno Pride** » Sat May 14, 2005 8:09 pm

how about a passive MSI Radeon 9550 if you're not too particular about games.

the 64bit 6200 is not worth it. Performance is really bad compared to the 128but version. Morever, a 128bit 6200 can be unlocked and overclocked to perform like a 6600, so it's a gamble you might want to consider taking.

BTW, I cool my 6600 AGP (510/680MHz) with a Zalman ZM80A-HP. Temp is 72C max with games.

@TOMMY@ · Post by **@TOMMY@** » Sat May 14, 2005 9:38 pm

If you can manage to unluck the other 4 pipes w/o artifacts etc, you have yourself a 6600 + you can always oc it

. I think it's not a bad deal at all.

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Sat May 14, 2005 10:32 pm

But if he unlocks the 4 extra pipes, the heat level goes up to that of a 6600, whih is probably very close to that of a 5900xt.

Gigabyte appears to have a passive R9600pro, they're power frugal.

GrahamGarside · Post by **GrahamGarside** » Sun May 15, 2005 6:08 am

Actually 6600's aren't that hot, they are on 110nm process so even the 6600GT runs reletively cool.

The 6200 is a very good card for pci-e, but the agp version makes little sense as it's just not cheap enough. Go for a decent 128bit memory interface 6600, they overclock to at least 500mhz meaning only the memory holds them back, but are still very capable at 1024x768 with no FSAA. I'd also recomend the Zalman VF700-Cu, it's not passive but it's quiet enough when set to 5V

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Sun May 15, 2005 11:39 am

GrahamGarside wrote:Actually 6600's aren't that hot, they are on 110nm process so even the 6600GT runs reletively cool.

"Actually, presscots aren't hot, because they use 90nm process"

RTFS http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewto ... 3&start=30
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/ ... -oc_3.html

GrahamGarside wrote:The 6200 is a very good card for pci-e, but the agp version makes little sense as it's just not cheap enough. Go for a decent 128bit memory interface 6600, they overclock to at least 500mhz meaning only the memory holds them back, but are still very capable at 1024x768 with no FSAA.

If all 6600s can overclock to 6600gt speed, then they must use the same voltage, and therefor run just as hot.

Techno Pride · Post by **Techno Pride** » Mon May 16, 2005 8:02 pm

I remember seeing somewhere that the 6600GT consume roughly the same power as the 9800Pro?

I think it's around 50w.

usually a 6600's core is set @ 0.1~0.2v lower than a 6600gt. It's a GPU BIOS thingy.

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Mon May 16, 2005 9:14 pm

Techno Pride wrote:I remember seeing somewhere that the 6600GT consume roughly the same power as the 9800Pro?

Techno Pride wrote:usually a 6600's core is set @ 0.1~0.2v lower than a 6600gt. It's a GPU BIOS thingy.

Then either it's stuck at that and 6600nongt's won't clock as well as 6600gt's, or the bios can be flashed and there should have been a thread by now about possible undervolting of 6600's.

Techno Pride · Post by **Techno Pride** » Mon May 16, 2005 10:59 pm

haha sorry about that. i didn't click the link.

since nbitor can't read the voltages from a 6600 non-GT BIOS, the only way to change voltages is to flash the card with another manufacturer's BIOS. I got my 6600 to 500MHz core using Sparkle's BIOS (higher core voltage).

If you want to undervolt, I have no idea which BIOS to use though

manni · Post by **manni** » Tue May 17, 2005 8:38 am

I'd get a new cooler for your FX 5900XT. Zalman haves good models, with heatpipes (passive coolers) or with silent fan. FX 5900XT is still very good.

GrahamGarside · Post by **GrahamGarside** » Tue May 17, 2005 11:18 am

A 6600 doesn't clock as well as a 6600GT, you can overclock a 6600GT to 550-600mhz, a 6600 will do 500-550mhz

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Tue May 17, 2005 7:25 pm

GrahamGarside wrote:A 6600 doesn't clock as well as a 6600GT, you can overclock a 6600GT to 550-600mhz, a 6600 will do 500-550mhz

Is that without a voltage boosting BIOS flash for the nongt?

Let me get this all straight, 6600's and 6600gt's use have the same voltages, but sparkle's 6600's and 6600gt's have higher voltages?

Maybe it would be possible to get a low voltage BIOS by asking some of the manufacturers for one.

If none listen, we should get some kind of militant environmentalist organization to ask on our behalf.

Of course, it would be much better to first know how much voltages affect the heat of these.

yamhat · Post by **yamhat** » Tue May 24, 2005 5:47 pm

so, it turns out the card I linked to was mislabeled at newegg and is actually a 64-bit card (they've fixed it now), the result being that there's no such thing as a passively cooled 128-bit AGP 6200, so I've had to reassess things:

I've decreed that I won't spend more than $150 on this card. this means these passively cooled AGP cards fit nicely within my price range:

Sapphire Ultimate 9800 Pro: $149
Gigabyte 6600 (non-GT) silentpipe: $145

or if I choose to go cheap:

6200 64-bit: $74
vanilla radeon 9600: $70

so the question now becomes, how do each of these pairs of cards compare? at each price range which is better in terms of both performance and heat generated? I suppose i'm the one who has to decide if I want to spend $70 or $150, but at each end which would be the better choice?

edit -- forgot to mention a couple of things:

I won't be running any higher than 1024x768 as I have a cheapy LCD and that's all it supports. also, one of the older games I play is Dark Age of Camelot and I've read some reports online that it gets along better with nvidia cards (i'm not really sure just how much better -- I've never had an ATI so I can't compare firsthand, I've just read this in forums online)

@TOMMY@ · Post by **@TOMMY@** » Tue May 24, 2005 6:14 pm

I shall comment on the 150 range ones
9800 pro and 6600 should perform neck to neck; however, oc'd 6600 should be able to out perform oc'd 9800.
Plus, 6600 runs cooler and draws less power
I will pick the 6600 if i were you
oh and btw, you should be able to play games at least on medium or even high qualilty on your display w/ these cards
Just my 2 cents

@TOMMY@ · Post by **@TOMMY@** » Tue May 24, 2005 11:01 pm

Sorry mate, I was wrong; seems like 9800 PRO beat the 6600 in most benchmark at 1024x768, here is the link
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/ ... 7gpu2.html