Need for Speed Underground 2

Need for Speed Underground 2 is the second installment in the Underground series. Its graphics have been upgraded, as well as new cars and features being added. I find this to be a beautiful game with nice effects and fun gameplay. It should be a decent test of a video card given that it is a newer DirectX 9 title with special effects and high-poly cars. The highest settings that I found playable was 1280x1024 resolution with 4xAA and 4xAF enabled. All of the detail settings were set to the highest settings. Below is a graph of the results.

	Min	Ave	Max
4xAA/4xAF	29	43.2	53

The frame rates remained quite high during this test, only dropping below 30 FPS for a short time. When it dropped below 30, I was doing a doughnut with the car and had the camera pass through the smoke. This isn't something that you would normally be doing while running a race, but when you're just in explore mode, it sure is fun to do with a tricked out car. Below is a screenshot with motion blur disabled so you could actually see what was going on.

Far Cry

Far Cry was probably the first title to come out that really showed what DirectX 9 was capable of doing. The insane draw distance coupled with the beautiful jungle scenery shows an incredible level of detail system, as well as a need for a top-notch video card. For testing we used the Pier level. I feel that this level does a good job of showing off a good deal of the graphical awe of the game with the foliage and water being visible at the same time. The best settings I found playable were 1024x768 with all game quality settings set to their highest and 2xAA/2xAF enabled. Below is a graph of the results.

	Min	Ave	Max
4xAA/4xAF	45	64.48	90

The frame rates remained pretty high here, only dropping below 50 a couple of times. Trying to move up to 1280x1024 would decrease frame rates quite a bit, as would trying to increase AA or AF settings. Overall, the game looked and played best at the above settings.

Overclocking

We were able to to get the card up to 554 MHz core and 1100 Mhz memory. Running Doom 3 at 1280x1024 with 4xAA/4xAF enabled, the average framerate result was 41.35fps compared to the 37.81 attained at stock speed. This was the highest speed we were able to manage before image artifacting reared its head.

Final Words

The only issues that I encountered with this card were in trying to play Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth. It didn't matter what drivers I had installed, there were always what looked like artifacts in the display. This is an issue that a lot of other people seem to be having with all nVidia cards and Battle for Middle Earth. I also have this same problem with a PCI-Express GeForce FX 5750 that I have here, so I don't believe that it is a problem with the graphics hardware.

Aside from the problems with Battle for Middle Earth, I didn't encounter any other issues with the card at all. Everything performed flawlessly. Image quality was excellent, and while nobody will mistaken the 6600 GT for a 6800 Ultra, the performance is very good considering the price point.

Naturally, SLI is out of the question with the MSI NX6600GT-VTD128, but that is understandable since this is an AGP based card. While the hardware itself supports it, you'll need to spring for a PCI Express version of the card which we'll be reviewing here shortly.

For AGP based motherboard owners who are a little dismayed with all the PCIe attention by chip makers, nVidia and MSI have addressed your concerns with the NX6600GT-VTD128. The card was rock solid, and the performance improvements are light years over MSI's previous nVidia based mainstream solution.

Pros: Newest (mid-ranged) features, won't break the bank, great performance, excellent software bundle.

Cons: Some render issues with Battle for Middle Earth. No SLI (obviously) is possible.

Bottom Line:
If you're looking for a mainstream graphics card with the newest features, but still want your AGP motherboard and a few bucks in your wallet, the MSI NX6600GT-VTD128 is definitely worth a look.