Leadtek's midrange product line, which consists of 6600 and 6600GT graphics adapters, is puzzling to say the least. For instance, there are seven variants of 6600 and 6600GT cards from Leadtek. A positive aspect to this would be the fact that you can purchase what you want at a specified budget, but from a different angle, Leadtek has unnecessarily extended its product line just for diversification purposes. You must be really careful when purchasing products from Leadtek, as you can end up paying for a different model than you initially opted for.

What's interesting with Leadtek's 6800 series is that the company now offers factory-overclocked graphics adapters, similar to Gainward, BFGTech, Chaintech and possibly others. We don't understand the concept of factory overclocking the card (except for warranty purposes at higher speeds), since majority of the users would end up overclocking and tweaking the card for maximum performance anyways. This clearly doesn't justify even the slight increase in price over these "extreme" counterparts. From a manufacturer's point of view, however, doing this could mean a possible way of differentiating amongst its competition. As far as that theory is concerned, we doubt this would work anymore. With companies like Gainward, BFGTech and Chaintech already offering factory overclocked versions of their card, we can only wonder how long this strategy will last.

Maybe once every manufacturer is starting to release a factory-overclocked card, companies can then think about offering better software bundles to gain an edge. It's definitely something to think about?Moving along, Leadtek's 6600GT Extreme would certainly be competitive against a direct competition from a 6600GT vanilla card in this scenario. Since the price tag on this card would be higher than a regular 6600GT, Leadtek must offer serious performance gains to justify the competitive strategy. Do they have what it takes to pull thorough with an overclocked version? Read on and find out

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