Moving on to another fav is Need For Speed: Most Wanted.  Settings were all set to max with the screen resolution at 1024 x 768.  Gameplay was within the NFS World Loop map.  Check it.

Lag and choppy play made me take a minute and rethink if our current way of testing high end and mid range cards was fair.  High end products get settings topped to include FSAA and AF at 1600 resolution.  Mid range is max settings not to exceed 4x FSAA / 8x AF at 1024 resolution.  After a good bit of thought, I decided that things were fair.  I didn't expect the differences between the basic 6600 and 6600 GT to be so pronounced.  Kicking the eye candy down a third, made gameplay smooth as glass for the 6600 - 512.

Half Life 2 remains a system buster despite its having been out for a while.  Settings were all maxed with 4x/8x FSAA and AF respectively at 1024 resolution.  Loading up a saved point in the Route Kanal area, we fragged away for three minutes trying to keep our path and fire as repeatable as possible.

Much better gameplay here.  While we couldn't see anything first hand, reviewing the fps FRAPS sampling afterwards showed the trend continuing with the 6600, even with its memory falling behind the 6600 GT.