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View Full Version : Inno3D GeForce 6600LE or Radeon 9550? Help!


CBLee1978
03-14-06, 01:27 PM
Hey all. I am hoping to maybe get some advise on which budget card to get. I can currently get a pretty good deal on either of these cards for about $50-$60 but I'm looking for the one that provides the best stock performance & best 'overclockability'. For $50-$60 my choices are between the:

256MB AGP (w/ SLI bridge) 128-bit Inno3D GeForce 6600LE (300/400)
or the
256MB AGP 128-bit Diamond Stealth Radeon 9550 (250/400)

It seems that the 6600LE beats the 9550 out of the box. The 6600LE has higher stock core speeds, three vertex pipes instead of the 9550's two, the 6600LE supports the newer v3.0 shader technologies instead of the 9550's v2.0 shaders, and both have only 4 pipes. So do these differences in themselves automatically place the 6600LE as the better performing card at stock settings?

As for OCing, I've played around with a 9550 in the past and was able to squeeze 400/450 out of it with stock cooling but I know nothing of the 6600LE's OCing. I've heard that the 6600LE is simply an underclocked 6600 with only half the pipes (4 instead of 8). So would this suggest possible clock speeds up into the 420/600 range with adequate cooling & maybe the addition of RAM sinks?

Does anyone have experience with either of these cards & if so, what clock/mem speeds have been possible from your experiences?

Thanks for a great forums guys! Keep up the excellent work!

Cheerz!

Quailane
03-14-06, 01:42 PM
The memory won't go as high with a 6600LE as with a 6600, but the core should. It may also be possible to unlock the pipes.

I would go with the 6600LE because it is more than just the speeds that matter there. The 6600 is a more efficient design than the 9600 from what I have seen. At the same speeds it should have a little more performance.

acompdude
03-14-06, 01:48 PM
I would say the 6600 because it supports newer technology.

CBLee1978
03-15-06, 07:48 AM
Thanks for the input everyone.

I borrowed my friend's 9550 again and OCed it to 400/450 (the max without artifacts on this system). I then run 3DMark2001SE.

After submitting my results and comparing them to other user's scores with the 6600LE AGP card, the 6600LE actually scored over 1200 points higher than the 9550 on identical systems. The 6600LE actually gained between 10 & 40 more FPS (depending on the test)!! What was really suprising; with the 6600LE, shaders, bump mapping, & fill rate are almost double that of the 9550!

Needless to say, I know where my money is going.

Thanks again guys.

CBLee1978
03-15-06, 08:10 AM
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention...from the guy's 3DMark notes, he was running his 6600LE & CPU at bone stock speeds and it still kicked the crap out of the 9550! :drool:

That settles it...no more ATI for me :D

Quailane
03-15-06, 05:42 PM
Haha. Glad it worked out for you! I didn't know the difference was that large.