RAM with GPU

[imchief]

Hello again.  I am going to get the Leadtec 6600gt  but am undecided on whether or not to get the extreem edition.  It has clock speeds of 550MHz/1150Mhz  as opposed to the standard 500MHz/1000MHz.  

Is this slight in crease in clock speed worth the $ and will I notice the increase in performance on standard DDR 400 ram and CPU that are not overclocked?  

Please Help.

Joe

[the_autopilot]

Don't bother with the extreme edition. You can overclock the card yourself to that clock speed easily. Most 6600 gt's will actually go beyond that.

After you install the regular 6600 gt, just google 'coolbits'. This will allow you to set the clock rates on your card. Just set it to the extreme edition's clock rates (or higher if you want) and bam, instant extreme edition. The whole process takes like 2 min.

[GunnerMan]

Void warrantee but who cares AP is right

[imchief]

will the stock cooling be ok for extreem speeds or did the extreem edition have better heat sinks and fans?

[the_autopilot]

The extreme edition might have a slightly better hintsink, but a regular 6600 gt's cooling solution will overclock to extreme edition speeds easily.

In this article, several stock 6600 gt are overclocked. As you can see, the clock rates are all higher than extreme edition speeds.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2295&p=2

[congo]

I just bought one, it runs very cool, although I keep my case open, I don't think heat will be an issue with it as my recorded temps are quite low.

I didn't buy the extreme because my last leadtek card overclocked so well. I immediately o/c'd this one to 550/1100 using the supplied "Winfox" software bundled with the card.

Some drivers also have overclocking options, just use any o/clock software with care.

I'm getting 9300 3D marks in 3D Mark '03 with it.
It runs the Far Cry "mod" Matto3 timedemo at 58fps with 2xq AA and 4x AF. Matto himself only got 38fps.

I have two complaints about the bundled software.

Firstly, and importantly, Leadtek modify the driver setup with their inane advertisements, and in doing so, managed to screw it up so bad that it doesn't even install the driver, just errors out on reboot. Idiots! I simply cannot believe how often driver and software setup programs fail or run incorrectly due to incompetence or lack of thorough testing. More than often, it's the writer of the routine who is trying to be smart with flashy extras who screws it up. Just keep setup programs simple please!

The bundled game "Splinter Cell" gives an installation error that says the current driver is unsupported, when you eventually do get the supplied driver to work by installing it manually.

Is Leadtek for real? I mean, have they ever used one of their own cards?

Bundling compatible software shouldn't be too difficult for them..........  :P