Tech Shout!

Nvidia has either suffered a disastrous breakdown or the firm is suffering from humiliation. In a normal circumstance a ‘new’ product like the 256MB version of the PCI-E 6600GT would lead to fanfares and an inbox heaped with press releases. But for some reason everything has been done in a very hush-hush way.

It might seem strange that nVidia has had to sneak the 256MB 6600GT out, but it’s one of the firm’s darkest and probably ugliest secret. It couldn’t help but just get the notice of many gaming and graphics fans that a 256MB AGP version of the chip could be bought, but were completely out of luck if you tried to get a PCI-E version. And the reason was flanking on dishonour.

When the 6600GT launched, the game that everyone was awaiting and wanted to run was Doom 3. It overjoyed all the nVidia fanboys because the game ran beautifully on their hardware and badly on ATI chips. But that does not end the story.

NVdia was prompt enough to realise that two 256MB 6600GTs in SLI could give the 6800 Ultra a run for its money in Doom 3. And the cost of two 256MB 6600GTs was about 30% less at the time. The solution was simple: kill the 256MB version and only sell a 128MB version. That way the cards were shuffled and couldn’t get in the way with sales of the top end Ultra. Thereby Nvidia playing quite smart and sneaky indeed.

Now that the 6800 has been killed off there’s no problem having a 256MB 6600GT back on the market. A pair in SLI shouldn’t come too much in the way with the sales of the recently announced 6800GS or with the upcoming 7600.