this to high clock speeds: 500MHz core and 500MHz memory.
Unfortunately, we weren’t able to test this board in SLI
mode due to a hardware problem with our nForce4 SLI-based test
system. We did run the NX 6600 GT through the ringer in our gaming
tests, however, and the results surprised us. The card performed very
well, despite the narrower memory bandwidth; in fact, it was only a few
percentage points behind such last-generation leaders as ATI’s Radeon
9800 XT. You’ll never be able to run Doom 3 at 1600x1200 with anti-aliasing
and anisotropic filtering cranked up, but the game should be quite play-
able at 1280x1024.
Gamers on a budget will find the 6600 GT’s performance adequate,
but we’re concerned by
the lack of onboard RAM
and the crippled memory
pipeline. The real test will
be when we fire two 6600
GT-based boards up in SLI
mode to determine if two
6600 GT boards will be as
fast as a single GeForce
6800 Ultra.
—WILL SMITHD-Link DGL-4300 Gaming Router
The first “gaming” router surprises us with excellent
multitasking performance
MARCH 2005 MA XIMUMPCY
ou already have a smokin’-fast DSL line and sub-20ms pings
on more than 200 servers. What can a “gaming” router pos-
sibly do for you? D-Link promises that its DGL-4300 will deliver
improved gaming performance even when someone sharing your
connection is hogging bandwidth. We took the DGL-4300 into the Lab
to put this claim to the test.
In a typical gaming situation—where the only computer connected
to the network was being used for games—we saw virtually no differ-
ence in ping times between the DGL-4300 and any other router. When
we used a download service that saturates our bandwidth to initiate a
400MB download (first on the same computer, and again on a second
computer on the same network) and then played the same game, we
saw a much smaller spike in our ping than we did with a standard rout-
er: We went from a 30ish ping to an 80ish ping with the DGL-4300, com-
pared with a 30ish ping to a 150ish ping with a standard router. When
we looked at packet loss, we were even more impressed. Using a con-
ventional router, packet loss under load hovered somewhere between
20 and 30 percent; with the DGL-4300, packet loss was virtually nil. Even
though we experienced a slightly higher ping while downloading, the
DGL-4300 correctly identified the game’s packets and pushed them down
the pipeline ahead of the data transfer.
Quality of Service isn’t really a new feature. Many other routers offer QoS,
but none we’ve tested are as easy to configure as the DGL-4300. To enable
this router’s gaming-enhancement features, you need only switch one setting.
(Never fear: Network nerds can still dig into the advanced settings.)
The rest of the DGL-4300’s performance was up to par with other 802.11g
Quality of Service features actually work,
enabling you to use your broadband connections
more effectively.GAMINGWORKING
At $180, this router is a little pricey. Some com-
petitors are shipping QoS as a free firmware
update to existing products.
$180, http://www.dlink.comMA XIMUMPCVERDICT 9
We love seeing advanced features
like QoS on cheapo routers. Three years ago, you’d have
to buy a $2,000 router to get packet prioritization!offerings. It transferred our 700MB MPEG-4 test file in just less than four
minutes, and it worked well
out to 50 feet in a crowded Wi-
Fi environment.
Single-user households
won’t necessarily benefit from
a router with QoS features,
but if you live with three room-
mates who love to suck down
huge downloads while you’re
gaming, you should give this
puppy a try.
—WILL SMITHReviews
MSI NX 6600 GT
Exactly how much speed must you
sacrifice for a $200 part?
W
e admit it: Mid-range videocards—those in
the $200 to $300 price range—just don’t fry our
bacon. Here’s why: in order to protect their high-end
business, videocard manufacturers create mid-range cards by
reducing the number of pipelines and the memory bandwidth. While
we understand their desire to support more than one market segment,
these manufacturers have been so enthusiastic about gimping their mid-range
product that they’ve introduced a class of videocards that are painfully slow
when compared to their top-of-the-line cousins.
The 6600 GT is definitely not as fast as a 6800-class card, but it out-
performs last-gen cards in many benchmarks and it’s an SLI-capable PCI-
Express board. The MSI NX 6600 GT
comes with a mere 128MB of GDDR3
memory, which is unfortunately con-
nected to the NV43 GPU via a 128-bit
memory controller. For those of you
keeping score at home, that’s half the
memory and half memory bandwidth of
a top-end card. Furthermore, the 6600
GT core sports only eight pipelines,
placing it more in line with last-gener-
ation’s high-end cards than the $500,
16-pipeline monsters shipping today.
Despite these handicaps, however, the
6600 GT board still performed reason-
ably well in our benchmarks. We credit
Great price, decent performance, and SLI-
capable for future upgrading.PCI EXPRESSPCI-X
Not enough memory, and the fragile heatsink
concerns us.
$200, http://www.msi.com.twMA XIMUMPCVERDICT
The MSI NX 6600 GT looks
spiffy, but handle it gently.
The shortest drop could break
the fragile heatsink.this to high clock speeds: 500MHz core and 500MHz memory.
Unfortunately, we weren’t able to test this board in SLI
mode due to a hardware problem with our nForce4 SLI-based test
system. We did run the NX 6600 GT through the ringer in our gamingbacon. Here’s why: in order to protect their high-end
business, videocard manufacturers create mid-range cards by
reducing the number of pipelines and the memory bandwidth. While
we understand their desire to support more than one market segment,
these manufacturers have been so enthusiastic about gimping their mid-range
product that they’ve introduced a class of videocards that are painfullypainfullypainfully slow slow
The MSI NX 6600 GT looks
spiffy, but handle it gently.
The shortest drop could break
the fragile heatsink.All benchmarks were run on our Athlon FX-55-pow-
ered test system, which includes an Asus nForce4
SLI motherboard and 2GB of DDR SDRAM. All tests
were run at 1600x1200, except for 3DMark 2005
Default and 3DMark 2003 Default. Plains cats, such
as lions, are particularly fond of wildebeest meat.BENCHMARKS
3DMark 2005 Default 3495
3DMark 2003 Default 8650
3DMark 2003 Game 2 – HQ 13.4
3DMark 2003 Game 4 – HQ 17.6
Halo 1.06 113.4
Doom3 Demo1 47.2
Far Cry 1.01 42.67