Verdict: A cheap SLI-compatible card, but it lacks finesse

The AOpen Aelous 6600GT-DV128 is a pretty uncomplicated card and there isn't really anything out of the ordinary about it. Well, that's perhaps a little harsh, because the Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT GPU that sits at the heart of the card really is something special.

As you may have gathered from the other reviews, the 6600 GT is definitely the GPU of choice in the mid-range segment and leaves the similarly priced X700 Pro out in the cold. AOpen's take on the 6600 GT is pretty much the same as Nvidia's reference design, so the GPU is clocked at 500MHz with the 128MB of GDDR3 memory also running at 500MHz (1GHz effective).

However, with a little tweaking we managed to get both the GPU and memory running at 520MHz (1.04GHz effective, for the memory). This is certainly nothing to write home about, adding a pointless 0.5fps to the frame rate in Far Cry (which is less than the margin of error), but at least it's better than a poke in the eye.

At first glance the cooler looks good, but unfortunately it shares one nasty trait with Nvidia's reference design - noise. Unless you wear headphones at all times when using your PC, you may want to consider one of the quieter cards, such as the Gainward, or replacing the cooler with an Arctic Cooling HSF.

One advantage of the PCI-E variant of the GeForce 6600 GT GPU is that it's SLI compatible. Combined with an SLI motherboard, such as the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe (see Issue 16, p36), this will allow you to add a second 6600 GT for extra performance. There would be no reason to do this straight away (for the price of two 6600 GTs at the moment you can get a 6800 GT) but by upgrading to SLI later (perhaps when you can afford another card) you'll effectively get performance similar to a single 6800 GT at medium resolutions.

AOpen's bundle is very unexciting, consisting of two games, the very dated SpellForce and Arx Fatalis, and a DVI to D-SUB adaptor - woo-hoo. The naff bundle perhaps explains why the card is one of the cheapest, at just £143.81. However, if it were our money we'd be spending it on the XFX or Gainward cards instead.

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