If one thing is true about the current state of the standalone video card industry it’s that there is a duopoly between NVIDIA and ATI Technologies. The latest JPR (Jon Peddie Research) figures show NVIDIA and ATI having 50 and 47% market share between them respectively in the standalone graphics market, with NVIDIA controlling most of the high-end and performance market and ATI controlling the low-end and mainstream market.

NVIDIA launched their NV4x architecture on April 22nd 2004 at the first NV LAN. The high performance part was called the 6800 Ultra, with others in the family being the 6800GT, the 6800 and more. In May, NVIDIA launched their mainstream version of this chip, called the GEFORCE 6600 and 6600GT. The 6600GT has proven to be a popular product with many people purchasing the card over the last year and a half

GIGABYTE manufactures motherboards, video cards and other computer components and is based in Taiwan. They manufacture video cards based upon a variety of chipsets from both NVIDIA and ATI. In the last year, GIGABYTE has released several versions of the 6600GT card including a dual 6600GT 3D1, the first Silent Pipe 6600GT and regular versions of the 6600GT. Today I’m reviewing the 6600GV-NX66T256DE Silent Pipe II card from GIGABYTE.