Overclocking Results:

Stock Overclocked GPU (Core) Speed: 400MHz 623MHz Memory Speed: 900MHz 1030MHz

As we alluded to earlier, the Asus Extreme N6600TOP/TD/128M/A appears to have been designed with overclockers in mind. By default, the GeForce 6600 core on the N6600TOP/TD/128M/A is clocked at 400 MHz (already 100 MHz faster than your average 6600). The memory runs at 900 MHz, or about 100 MHz slower than a stock 6600GT card.

Starting with the core first, I immediately raised its clock speed to 500 MHz, the default speed of the GeForce 6600GT. Unsurprisingly, the core had no problem running overclocked at that speed so we continued to push it further.

This Asus videocard was able to pass 550, 560 and even 570 MHz, which is mighty impressive for a GeForce 6600 GPU! The core had plenty of speed left to dish out and it was even able to pass 600 MHz. This often proves too quick for regular 6600GT videocards, so we were quite impressed to see how the Extreme N6600TOP/TD/128M/A keep chugging along. In the end, the maximum speed the core would run at was 616 MHz; that's 216 MHz faster than the card's stock core speeds!

After seeing the excellent results from the core overclocking we had some high hopes for the memory as well. Starting at 900 MHz, the memory clock speed was immediately raised to a full 1 GHz and worked fine. Going up slowly, the memory maxed out at 1030 MHz. Not quite as big a jump as the core, but impressive for a GeForce 6600 videocard!

I'm happy to report that both the core and memory ran just fine together at maximum overclocked speeds (623MHz core, 1030MHz memory). As you'll see shortly, that level of overclocking makes a huge difference in performance!

PCStats Test System Specs:

processor: amd athlon64 4000+ clock speed: 12 x 200 mhz = 2.4 ghz motherboards: gigabyte ga-k8nxp-sli (nf4-sli) gigabyte ga-k8nsnxp-939 (nf3 ultra) videocard: msi rx800xt-vtd256e gigabyte gv-rx80l256v powercolor x700 pro msi nx6800gt-t2d256e albatron trinity geforce 6600gt agp msi nx6600gt-td128 albatron trinity pc6600 gigabyte gv-3d1 (single mode) gigabyte gv-3d1 (sli mode) msi nx6600gt-td128e (single mode) msi nx6600gt-td128e (sli mode) asus extreme n6600top/td/128m/a memory: 2x 512mb mushkin pc3200 l2 v2 hard drive: 74gb wd raptor 10k rpm sata hdd cdrom: aopen 52x combo powersupply: seasonic super tornado 400w software setup windowsxp build 2600 nforce catalyst 4.12 detonator 66.93 benchmarks 3dmark2001se 3dmark05 codecreatures aquamark aquamark3 gun metal 2 x2 the threat ut2003 doom3 aa test, af and aa+af test 3dmark2001se ut2003

the agp and pci-e systems use a different motherboard but results are shown for reference.