NVIDIA GeForce 7 Phase 2 Review :: XFX 7600GT Card

Brand	XFX
Model	GF7600GT 256MB 128bit DDR3 Dual DVI TV
Graphics Chip	G71
Graphics Memory Type	DDR3
Memory (MB)	256
Graphics Core Clock (MHz)	590
Memory Clock (MHz)	1600
Memory Speed (ns)	1.4
RAMDAC Frequency (MHz)	Dual 400
Active Cooling on Graphics Chip	Yes
Heatsink on Memory	Yes
Video Capture	Yes
Ports
Dual Monitor Support	Yes
VGA Out	2x DVI-I
Video In and Out	S-Video Out
Package and Support
Printed Manual	Yes
Driver CD	Yes
Performance Tool Software	Coolbits
Major Games	Starship Troopers, Game Demos
Major Software	Tenouchi 3DEdit
VR Glasses	No
DVD Player Software	None
Video Recording Software	N/A

Features

• 90nm
• SLI
• 2560x1600 display
• 5 vertex
• 12 pixel shader
• 256MB
• Single dual link DVI
• SLI
• $199 MSRP
• ROP 8
• Textures 12
• Z-units 16
• Shader ALU 24

The 7600GT is an interesting card in NVIDIA's lineup. NVIDIA decided to make a part with 12 Pixel Shader Pipelines, the same as the GeForce 6800 from 2004 and a similar 5 Vertex Shader pipelines. The core clock on the XFX 7600GT card I got for this review was 590MHz for the core and 1.6GHz for the memory. This should give performance higher than the 6800GT of 2004 and 6800GS of last year. The memory bus is 128-bit, giving the card a memory bandwidth of 25.6GB/second. The 7600GT is designed to compete against ATI's X1600XT cards and should have a pretty good time of it as the ATI card has only 4 pixel pipelines but has 12 Pixel Shader Processors.

The PCB is similar in many respects to the EVGA 7900GT. The cooling fan on the card is the same 17-fin design found on EVGA's card. The heatsink is also similar in size to the EVGA 7900GT. This means the move to 90 nanometer process produced a cooler running chip, not needing the huge heatsink/fan combination of the 7800GT. The 7600GT does not require external power, which is a good thing.

The Bundle

• XFX 7600GT video card
• Starship Troopers
• TV-Out cable
• 2 DVI-I to D-Sub adapters
• User's manual
• Multi-Language Quick Installation Guide
• Drive's CD

Starship Troopers is the best selling science fiction story written by Robert Heinlein many years ago. The movie of a year or two ago was directed by Paul Veerhoven. The game based upon the movie was released last year. XFX decided to include Starship Troopers with the 7600GT, a valuable addition to a bundle for a card that retails under $200. The other bundled accessories are similar to the bundle for the 7900GTX 512MB except that there is only one DVI-I to D-Sub adapter.

I would strongly suggest using the latest driver off NVIDIA's site rather than the included driver as there are a few issues with F.E.A.R. performance with the earlier drivers. The drivers that XFX includes on their 7600GT are the 83.71 version. The drivers I am using in this review are 84.17 Forceware which should make it to the web today when the card is released. The new drivers improve performance and support the 7900 and 7600 cards.