ASUS EN7600GT Silent Video Card Review :: ASUS EN7600GT Features

• DirectX 9.0C
• 12 Pixel Pipelines
• 8 ROPs
• 5 Vertex Shaders
• 90 nanometer process technology
• 177 Million Transistors
• 500MHz core speed
• 700Mhz memory speed
• HDR
• Multisample Anti-Aliasing
• Pixel Shader 3.0
• Vertex Shader 3.0

The 7600GT is a variant of NVIDIA's G70 chip, the foundation for their 7800 series, the 7900 series, the 7600 series, and the 7300 series. The chip is based upon TSMC's 90 nanometer low-k process, meaning that the chip is much smaller in die size than the previous generation 6600GT, based upon the 110 nanometer process. There are 177 million transistors on the 7600GT.

The 7600GT has 12 Pixel pipelines, 8 ROPs and 5 Vertex Shaders. The bigger brother, the 7900GT has 24 Pixel Pipelines, 16 ROPs and 8 Vertex Shaders. In many respects, the 7600GT is half a 7900GTX. Not quite, as there are 5 Vertex Shaders compared to 8, but it should be interesting to see the performance characteristics of the 7600GT versus the bigger badder cards.

DirectX 9.0c is the latest and greatest Microsoft graphics API. DirectX 9.0 was introduced in 2002. It included Pixel Shader 2.0, 3.0, Vertex Shader 2.0 and 3.0 iterations. NVIDIA was the first out of the gate with a Shader Model 3.0 (Pixel and Vertex Shader 3.0) part, the 6xxx series. The 7xxx series was their second iteration of SM3.0 parts.

Virtually every modern computer game uses Pixel and Vertex Shaders throughout. Oblivion uses them in the beautiful shiny refractive water, the grass the sky, everywhere. The game is typical of the modern game released in 2006, designed for cards like the 7900GTX or ATI X1900XTX. The 7600GT can play the game with virtually every effect (except for HDR+MSAA at the same time).

SLI connector

SLI configuration

NVIDIA announced SLI in late 2004. SLI stands for Scalable Link Interface. Two graphics cards working together to improve gaming performance is an old concept, dating back to the Voodoo 2 cards from 1997. To install SLI, install two like graphics cards into PCI Express slots, attach the SLI bridge, turn on the computer and install the drivers. In some cases, SLI will have nearly double the performance of a single card.

Another key feature in games today is High Dynamic Range lighting. The human eye can distinguish between thousands of degrees of contrasts. Integer based video cards like the TNT2 could only display a contrast ratio of 255:1. A feature called Blooming, in where the lighted section of the scene:"bleeds" into surrounding sections, was used in games like Far Cry.